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The Christmas in April Energy Team and Energy Efficiency Guidebook were developed as a way to incorporate energy and water conservation measures into the work already taking place in Christmas in April homes. Besides helping Christmas in April homeowners save hundreds of dollars on their utility bills, the measures proposed in this guide allow you to make homes more comfortable, safer and more convenient.
For example, weather-stripping around doors and windows not only saves energy & money for heating & cooling, but it also reduces drafts and muffles noise from outside. Turning down the water heater temperature saves energy as well as eliminating the risk of scalding from hot water. And replacing hard-to-reach lightbulbs with longer lasting compact fluorescent lamps (they last 10,000 hours versus 750 hours for most standard lightbulbs) uses about a quarter of the energy and eliminates the hassle of lightbulbs frequently burning out. A total of 17 energy and water conservation measures are completely described on this web site, and/or the Energy Efficiency Guidebook can be downloaded as a .pdf file. All of these measures have postive impacts for your homeowners' pocket book, comfort, safety and convenience - plus they help us keep our environment clean!
This guidebook reviews 17 of the most cost-effective conservation improvements you can make in a home. Five aspects of each conservation measure are covered: Background Information, Tools & Materials Needed, Installation Instructions, Savings Statistics, Other Benefits.
All of the background information, tools & materials, installation instructions, and other benefits are valid for locations throughout the United States, although material costs are based on San Francisco East Bay area retail prices during the Spring of 1999. Most of the savings statistics are calculated for houses in the San Francisco Bay Area. Energy and utility savings from these measures are found for a home experiencing typical San Francisco Bay Area weather and subject to Pacific Gas & Electric utility rates for the Spring of 1999.
Remember that the Bay Area climate is extremely mild - rarely exceeding 80 degrees F in summer or falling below 40 degrees F in winter. So the energy and money savings quoted here for heating & cooling system conservation measures is likely to be much lower than the savings in most other U.S. climates.
Work on this guidebook was supported by the US Department of Energy's Rebuild America Re-Energize partnership. Many thanks to Richard Flood for the idea and the funding to carry it out.
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