Green Investment

One nice benefit of sustainable buildings is their lower operating cost. The evidence is now in for our Wimberley home's summer energy performance, and it is nice to see the investment in energy saving features paying back. Although our rural electric company has a $22 per month basic charge for using ZERO electricity, our bills were still very low even including that silly fee:

June- $37.17
July- $38.21
August- $47.65
September- $37.68

Much of the credit goes to our geothermal heat pump system, the world's most efficient heating & cooling unit, which is manufactured by Water Furnace. It has an SEER of 30, about twice that of any conventional unit. It pipes water through a series of underground wells, using the soil's steady and moderate temperature to make the heat exchange more efficient. A major side benefit it quiet operation, since there in NO exterior condensing unit at all. Maybe I'll come up with an appropriate nickname for it, something like "Penny" or maybe "Stealth".







Most of the home's other miserly features are either common practice or just plain common sense, like no west-facing glass, large roof overhangs over south-facing glass, low-e vinyl windows, and radiant barriers for the roof and some walls. One unusual feature is skin-vented exterior East and West walls (the ones the summer sun hits). These have an air space which vents the walls much like a well vented roof vents an attic.

Hopefully the winter heating bills will be low too. If they are, you can bet I'll be posting them to the blog too, hoping to further persuade legions of other homeowners to make a green investment of their own.