Refuge51

Pay zero in heating bills - MSN Money
By Ann Monroe, MSN Money
EXCERPT:
Amory Lovins lives 7,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains. Winter temperatures there can drop to 40 degrees below zero.

His monthly heating oil bill? Zero. That's $0 -- no dollars and no cents.

It's not that Lovins doesn't use his furnace: He doesn't even have one. When it's really cold, he does use a couple of wood stoves, paying about $125 a year for wood.

His household electric bill? None. In fact, the power company pays him. How about carbon-dioxide emissions? The building is roughly carbon-neutral, Lovins says.

He is certainly not freezing. Far from it. He grows bananas and other tropical fruit in a greenhouse inside his home. Check out this house

How does he do it? It's a mix of technology, design and the right priorities.

Super-insulated windows (recently upgraded from the equivalent of 8 sheets of glass to that of 14) warm the house, and 16-inch insulated walls keep it that way. Extra-efficient appliances and lots of natural light mean that his solar panels produce much more electricity than $5 worth a month he needs. What does he do with the surplus? Sells it back to the power company.

And the kicker: Lovins' entire energy system cost only about $6,000 more than a standard household heating system would have cost. That extra investment paid for itself in less than a year.

Lovins built the house in 1983 to prove a point he's been preaching for decades: We don't need oil or nuclear power, and we don't need to give up our comforts, either. All we need to break our dependence on oil -- and stop global warming -- is thoughtful design, good technology and a bit of intelligent regulation. Slide show: America's 'greenest' buildings

What's more, he argues, far from being an economic threat, going "green" will spawn hundreds of thousands of businesses and millions of jobs, bringing us unprecedented economic prosperity.

Lovins is a Harvard-educated experimental physicist who has won widespread recognition, including a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (a so-called genius grant). More to the point, his ideas, once viewed as impossibly optimistic and utopian, are now being adopted by hardheaded organizations ranging from the Pentagon to Coca-Cola to Google. Indeed, the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit think tank that Lovins founded and runs, gets up to two-thirds of its income from consulting work for governments and corporations.
More of the article and a video of Lovin's home at link above.

Lovins bio:Amory Lovins - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Malkavian

Cool... my bill is under $20... used to be under $10, but then i got my PC and winter came.... I'm hoping to get it back to $10 this summer.

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Refuge51

Wow that's great Malky!

__________________
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Malkavian

Thanks... But i live in a crappy ground level apartment and don't use AC in summer... so shouldn't be too hard

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anhailla

if you want refuge...Malky will actually post the bill for you


I've seen it

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...either I go, or that wallpaper does.

Oscar Wilde

Malkavian

Yeps. It's true.

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Refuge51

I believe you both and I'm awestruck!. I was deliriously happy when my utility bill went down to $208

__________________
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

anhailla

as much as I like Mr Malky.....something is just not right about a 20.00 heating bill in Michigan

someday I will figure it out

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...either I go, or that wallpaper does.

Oscar Wilde

Malkavian

Lol... ok, if it's eating you so much... First off, that's total electric bill, not just heating.

I live in a fairly small ground floor apartment (half of it underground type), so in summer, before i leave for work i close all the windows and blinds. This prevents sunlight getting in and causing greenhouse effect (global apartment warming ). Since the apartment is below ground, all the cold air floods into it from above, so it gets cold. When i come from work, i open windows/blinds and allow air to mix and get the temperature i like... This is why i almost never use AC in summer....

In winter, my carpets are warm even without heater on... I think this is because right underneath i've got utility pipes going through, so they heat them to keep water from freezing. Since i'm above the pipes, i get most of that heat, and don't have to use my own heater unless it's really extreme out there....

P.S. And i like you too.

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Malkavian

Houses are a lot worse than apartments when it comes to energy consumption.

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