The Home Energy Diet: How to Save Money by Making Your House Energy-Smart

by Paul Scheckel

Book Overview

With rising energy costs, homeowners are beginning to examine the energy efficiency of their own homes, asking questions about where energy comes from and how much it costs, how to choose new... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865715300
• ISBN13: 9780865715301
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: New Society Publishers
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great information that will save your money

The first third of the book is general information about energy, how it is made, how to count it, how to work the numbers. It should be a required class textbook for High School seniors. This background information is very well written and easy to understand. But, that is not why folks should buy this book. The real meat starts at about page 93 with some very important electrical power safety tips, followed by an appliance-by-appliance list of items that use energy in a typical North American home. It is alphabetical and organized like an index. Each item listed includes information about the amount of energy it uses and tips on how to save money using it. The "what to do" information is very specific and easy to put into practice. It starts with Air Cleaners and goes right through to Well Pumps. Some items get just a sentence or two and others get a whole chapter. The biggest energy users get the most page space. Hot water, heating and air conditioning get their own chapters, as they should. Like most grouchy old engineers, I read the book looking for details to disagree with. That approach was rewarded with frustration. In fact, there is so much good stuff in this book that I put it on the shelf next to my desk where it will be a handy reference. I am forever getting questions from folks wanting to know how much they save when they shut off the item in question. The book has a handy chart, as appendix C, which does a good job answering that question. More importantly, it provides focus for action by letting you identify the big energy users in your home. I get too many questions from people worried about the cost of running a computer when they should be focused on their heating, cooling and kitchen energy use. The book is targeted at folks who own a house, but renters should read it too. If you pay the energy bill at your home this book will pay back the cover price many times over.

Read before you remodel or upgrade your home

This author goes into detailed explanations that are easy to understand. I learned MANY reasons why my 1950's brick house was still air leaky after replacing HVAC system, windows, exterior steel doors, roof and adding insulation-the "professional" installers (Temp-A-Tech, Window World, Lowes, roof installer, and the handyman)-simply I bought good products but they were improperly/inadequately installed. Needless to say after paying the rather pricey installation charges, I'm not too happy. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone purchasing a home or having remodeling done. If I had only known about this book before I had the costly replacements done I would have a much better energy efficient home.

It's Not About Shivering in the Dark!

This book is a clearly written guide to saving money on energy around the home while simultaneously achieving greater comfort levels. As summed up in the introduction, Scheckel argues that following his "Triple A" approach to home energy usage will make you healthier, happier and wealthier. This approach involves: Awareness of the ways your home uses and loses energy, Assessment of your home's energy requirements, and Action taken to reduce energy consumption to a minimum. Scheckel, a career energy efficiency auditor, writes from experience. Over the years, he has visited thousands of homes and businesses and learned from observation and interviews how we use and waste our energy. In this book, he explains where energy comes from and how advanced technologies can help us use less of it while creating a more comfortable home environment. Topics discussed in the book include energy literacy, electricity as a means of transporting energy, electrical appliances, hot water, heating and air conditioning, insulation and windows, and purchasing new appliances. Appendices include forms for calculating total energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and home heat load, as well as a list of household appliances with average energy requirements. You don't need to be an electrical engineer or have a degree in physics to follow the text. Scheckel provides clear examples of energy calculations that anyone with a hand calculator should be able to follow. The only real math prerequisite that would be useful is an ability to read and interpret pie charts, since Scheckel relies on them extensively in his discussions of energy sources and usage. In the text, Scheckel writes about a fictional family who has called him to do an energy audit. He writes that many families contact their electrical companies for audits because their bills are high so they figure there must be something wrong with the meter. He notes that faulty meters are very rarely to blame for high bills; instead, he provides a long list of energy-wasters that he commonly finds in people's homes. Some families are so aggravated by high electric bills that they want to go solar. Scheckel has to point out to these families that with their current energy usage, they would need gigantic solar systems that would be prohibitively expensive. If they truly want to go solar, they will probably need to cut energy usage down to 3-5 kilowatt hours per day (depending on their location) in order to be able to get by on a reasonably sized solar installation. This book provides plenty of ideas for approaching such a goal without compromising on quality of life. But even so, without subsidies, solar systems still won't make economic sense-unless energy prices happen to go a lot higher. Seven years ago, our family electrical usage was averaging 20 kW hours per day. We've tried out many of the ideas Scheckel recommends in this book, and we're now down to 5-6 kW hours per day, but still not satisfied wi

Tremendously valuable ...

The Home Energy Diet should be required reading of every home owner in the United States. For a variety of reasons -- aging heating system, concern over potential fuel costs, and other reason's -- started looking into what I could be doing to improve my home's energy efficiency. I bumped into Home Energy Diet in the library ... and started to learn a lot and much of that learning has direct relevance to my own home. For example, Scheckel's material and explanations highlighted to me some serious problems in my attic insulation and ventilation that I simply was not aware of -- previously, I thought that it was reasonably well insulated. This drove me to a trip to the hardware store and an afternoon of work. With the first snow of the season, the 'roof' is proving that this work changed how my house is operating just how Scheckel's description said it would. Of great interest was the opening section, which provides a discussion of the 'energy system' in the United States, which is important background for understanding how one's home links into the large system. As part of that, roughly 20% of the nation's energy use is in homes. If every American home owner read this book and made minimal investments based on it, the nation could see a rapid cut in energy use -- through efficiency rather than any reduction in lifestyle. While everything in this book can be found elsewhere, this is a clear and relatively comprehensive discussion of key household energy issues. (And, if necessary, one can quickly track down more detail on other issues.) I've already recommended this book to over 50 people directly ... And, while I originally got this from the library, I find it of such use that I've bought a copy to have around as reference material ...

Convert you home from a Hummer to a Prius

Paul Scheckel has come to guide us. His new book tells how houses work, where energy comes from, how heat moves, why certain appliances are best, and how to get the most bang for your energy buck. Scheckel provides the blueprint to convert your home from a Hummer to a hybrid Prius. Paul Scheckel is eminently qualified to give us this information. A self-admitted "energy geek," he is a Vermonter who lives in a solar-powered house in Calais and drives a car powered by vegetable oil. By profession an energy auditor, he has visited literally thousands of homes, assisting owners in cutting energy bills, increasing comfort, improving the air quality, and making the planet livable for the next generation. In The Home Energy Diet Scheckel takes us through the home from cellar to attic, giving us big and little picture perspectives on the actions to take to control our energy future. Each chapter has an "Awareness" section that gives the "why" of our energy situation. (It also has a lot of impressive statistics in case you would like to impress people at your next cocktail party. Suddenly, there's a cachet in being the local energy geek.) Other features are the "Math Box" that shows you how to quantify your activities, and a "Diet Box" that is a bulleted laundry list of the specific actions you can take to reduce your energy consumption. Get a yellow highlighting pen and prepare to save money.