A 4163 sq ft Ecobuilt™ Energy Efficient Home heats with light bulbs winter 2005/06

In 2006 The Energy Efficient Home Team™ completed a new Ecobuilt™,energy efficient sustainable home, using an antique 1886 hand hewn oak post and beam barn with cathedral ceiling heights of 18 feet and an open look within the 4163 square foot home’s frame. The conversion took one and a half years to complete, six months longer than planned. The Energy Efficient Home Team™ had designed and built a structure so efficient that even the smallest boiler available in the present market was still oversized. This is energy conservation at the highest level.

On the coldest day at zero degrees the estimated BTU consumption was 25,000 BTUs. The smallest Munchkin boiler available at the time was a 50,000 BTU unit (a unit size used in mobile homes). The Munchkin boiler does not modulate down below 10,000 BTUs. When the temperature in the house dropped only 10-15 degrees the boiler would “short cycle” and shut down. The need for heat would be of a lesser demand than what the unit was designed to respond to. In the end the 2005-06 winter heating source for the Ecobuilt™ home ended up being the electric incandescent light bulbs. In the summer time the incandescent bulbs will need to be changed to fluorescent light bulbs to save on air conditioning costs because the heat from the incandescent lights will have an adverse effect-too much heat in the summer time.

If your heating source stopped working would you be able to heat your home with just the light bulbs inside and not be physically affected by noxious off gassing/poor internal air quality?

When a home is properly constructed using The Energy Efficient Home Teams’s™ Ecobuilt™ technology there is no need to install solar panels or wind mills since the actual consumption of energy is drastically reduced. When the proper construction methods are in place to add solar panels or a wind-mill at present day costs would be analogous to cutting vinyl siding with a chain saw—overkill. Through properly applied tried and proved Ecobuilt™ energy efficient procedures one’s use of energy in one’s home will be so minimal that the pay back on large costly systems such as solar panels will not happen, unless one's objective is to be totally independent of outside energy providers. The life expectancy of a solar panel, now estimated to be between 17-20 years will have lapsed before one realizes a payback on the initial investment and a replacement panel will be needed before breakeven is ever reached.

When deciding to invest in solar panels do a cost analysis. Compare the cost to use The Energy Efficient Home Team’s™ Ecobuilt™ technology compared to the installation of solar panels to a home that is not energy efficient. If energy conservation is your priority then one must start with the basic structure and prevent the loss of energy at the source.

Copyright © 2006, by Dennis Maq & Siti M Crook The Energy Efficient Home Team™