Get Rid of Your Electric Power Bill

March 5, 2008 - Make sure you like EcoJoes on Facebook to stay updated on green ways to save money and help the environment. Just click the "like" button below. Muchas gracias!

Solar Nanners! Amory Lovins, who won a MacArthur Genius grant back in 1993 (and an Eco-Hero Award just right now), has been living in a house he built since 1983. It looks like a very nice and comfy house, especially when you consider that, despite living 7,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains (where it gets pretty dang cold), he pays $0 a year on his heating. Not only that, but his house actually generates more electricity than he needs — so he sells the surplus energy to the power company for some extra cash. Here are three ways to cut your electric bill like crazy.

CLICK HERE TO SEE AN INFORMATIVE YET FUN YET NEAT VIDEO OF HIS HOUSE

Insulate, Insulate, Insulate

His secret (one of them) is that he designed his house to be very well insulated. His walls are 16 inches thick, and his large super-insulated windows (made with special glass that insulates as well as 14 normal panes of glass) mean that his house can retain heat quite well.

Passive and Active Solar Heating

Lovins’ house is heated in two main ways: both from sun-rays passing through his many windows, or by means of Amory’s solar panels, which supply his house with more energy than it even uses.

Energy-Efficient Appliances

Much of Lovins’ house is naturally lit by the sun. Besides that, motion-detector lights and energy-efficient bulbs help to cut down on electricity use. His fridge is thickly-insulated, which reduces its energy consumption by quite a lot. His dryer is solar powered, and looks like it uses no electricity at all (watch the video to see how).

Amory Lovins’ home took some extra thought to design and build. It also cost a little bit extra ($6,000). But by cutting his power bill to zero, the extra planning and money spent were easily worth it. If more and more contractors start building this way, you could kiss our “oil prices” and “energy crisis” problems good-bye.

Thankee to Sam for telling me about this homey

Posted in eco footprint, eco hero, energy conservation, green construction, green living, off the grid, save money, solar power on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 4:42 PM.

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Edouard · 890 weeks ago

Sounds very interesting and I agree with you on house insulating and energy efficient appliances.

The sole point on which I disagree is about building houses like this would solve the problem. Of course, this would help, but not that much.

To the research I done on France, insulating the 31 million existing houses is a priority as they consume way too much.

I think it must be the same for you in the US. :P

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ecojoe · 886 weeks ago

Thanks Blue Rubi. The link is all fixed up ahora.

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Amber · 871 weeks ago

My father designed a solar concentrator combined with a dirt ball to store energy for use on cloudy days and in the winter time when days are shorter. This system enables you to run electric free, have the electric company pay you if there is a surplus of energy, and not have to worry about when the sun doesn't shine. For more info visit http://www.spedy180.com

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ecojoe · 871 weeks ago

Can you explain the dirt ball part of that system, because it sounds sort of unbelievable.

2 replies · active 844 weeks ago

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Amber Markham · 844 weeks ago

It's actually pretty simple. Your solar concentrator is used to heat up cooking oil that runs through tubes like fluorescent lighting tubes and circulates through a dirt ball. The dirt ball is simply a patch of ground that is insulated with an umbrella (something to keep your patch of dirt from getting wet, wet dirt doesn't hold heat as well). We used plastic,buried about 4 ft. down on each side of your dirt ball and over the top. The plastic will keep your dirt dry year round, thereby allowing you to store heat in it. The stored heat can be extracted to heat your house in a variety of ways all year round.

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Mike graves · 844 weeks ago

The idea of a dirt ball was used for thermal mass on a geodesiac dome in Mother Earth News in Janurary 1985.It was called Passive annual heat storage.The slab foundation and dome was not insulated from the ground, the earth around the dome was instead insulated from the surface and covered with topsoil.The insulation was called an umbrella and was extended out to 10 ft (which proved to be 1/2 the required distance).The temperature in the house stabilized to a comfortable range year around.

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Amber Markham · 844 weeks ago

The plastic is completely under the gound so you can't see it, it looks like part of your yard. It is a very efficient and reliable way to heat your home, since the reliability of a solar concentrator depends on whether the sun is shining. Now even if it's cloudy or rainy for days you can still enjoy the comforts of free heat. We are currently working on a new dirt ball theory involving sand and 50 gallon barrels for people who don't own enough land to make a dirtball. This will be for people in towns and cities who live on a lot and do not have much room, like me. If you would like more information please email me a_markham@hotmail.com. Our website is experiencing some difficulty and is currently down.

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Marty · 813 weeks ago

In regards to the polar ice caps melting, apart from global warming some scientists believe it's a natural cycle of the earth, and right now we are approaching the end of a cycle.

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Isidro Roesslein · 756 weeks ago

Hey! I stumbled on this article and found it to be fairly interesting but your HTML wouldn't completely load. It only seemed to load about 25% of the page. Are you aware of this?

Anywho, I don't completely agree with all that I've read so far from a dubstep genre perspective, but I'll swing through later to see if everything is fixed to finish reading.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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ecojoe 69p · 755 weeks ago

Which parts didn't load, and what kind of browser are you using?

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Jonie · 744 weeks ago

Insulating your home can really save money on heating bills, love this guy did this, most people should follow his idea.

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JeffC · 738 weeks ago

7000 ft up and $0 heating bill, that is awesome, we should all do this.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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ecojoe 69p · 738 weeks ago

Forilla. Spread the word on your money site, this could save tons o' money/energy if everyone did it.

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Iris Mauk · 732 weeks ago

Me and Sean were looking at buying a number of solar panel products for our house not too long ago. The only problem was the amount. The lowest priced solar system we identified was about ten thousand dollars. It could have taken us decades to recoup that amount. Anyway, we happened across these recommendations for making your own solar panel systems. We ended up going that way. It saved us quite a bit of dollars, and the free, green electricity is wonderful! :) We run several of our home appliances off of this source of power.

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CouponQ · 707 weeks ago

I watched the video of that guys house, I need to that with mine and save all that money!

1 reply · active 705 weeks ago

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ecojoe 69p · 705 weeks ago

CouponQ, we all need to do this, we could save a LOT of energy and money, and pollute a lot less. Every house should be insulated out the ying yang.

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Iam Cheemmoloverzz · 685 weeks ago

This was unquestionably fantastic content as well as I got a kick out of reading it. I have bookmarked your internet site so I can easily come back and read more in the future.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch ?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fogT9K4GH2I" rel="nofollow">raleigh electrician

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Adult Footed Pajamas · 684 weeks ago

Great post Eco Joe, I wonder how much say the big electric companies have when it comes to keeping these alternative forms of energy down...

1 reply · active 681 weeks ago

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ecojoe 69p · 681 weeks ago

That's a good question, Adult Footed Pajamas. I know many of them are actually helping to develop alternative energy. I think the biggest thing we normal people can do is push for more and more energy-efficient things, and insulate the heck out of our houses.

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Dale Evans · 556 weeks ago

spread the word, spread the word! Thanks, ecojoe--I've sent your site to 20 people, who ought to get on it--and each get 20 more. Gotta save our poor old mother earth....

1 reply · active 556 weeks ago

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ecojoe 69p · 556 weeks ago

Thanks!!!! If everyone kept spreading it to 20 new people, EcoJoes could eventually be seen by every single person on Earth! Dang, imagine what kind of world THAT'D be.

Green Thinking for the Average Joe

Get Rid of Your Electric Power Bill

Insulate, Insulate, Insulate

Passive and Active Solar Heating

Energy-Efficient Appliances

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