Al Gore’s House vs. Mine

Tuesday June 12, 2007 // Share on Facebook

Al Gore, the environmental activist stung by criticism over his house’s energy efficiency, said Friday that renovations are nearly complete to make it a model “green” home.

Aside from the solar panels, I don’t know what else he’s actually done, since there are a bunch of things he’s still planning on doing:

  • install a geothermal system that will, among other things, drastically reduce the cost of heating his pool.
  • upgrade windows and ductwork.
  • install more energy-efficient light bulbs.
  • create a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.

Compare that to my plans:

  • Solar panels in 3 years, when the price is right. Sorry, it’s not ALL about the environment… I need to make sound financial decisions, too
  • Install a solar heater for the pool - DONE! And the pool is already warmer this year than it ever has been. We hit 78 yesterday!
  • Upgrade windows - hopefully this will be done this year. Depends on the finances. 22 windows cost a lot of money to replace.
  • Install more energy-efficient light bulbs - DONE!
  • Create a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management - DONE!

So Al’s got a big one out of the way… I’ve done the inexpensive ones so far. Now I need to figure out the windows & how to pay for them. They’d take 23 years to payback, assuming my assumptions are correct, and save $10k over 30 years (gross savings of $27,500 over that time, minus the cost of windows and finance charges is $10,000 savings).

The funny thing is, Huges Co. probably would’ve gotten my business for windows, doors and a solar system months ago, but they refused to install storm doors. So for $400 in storm doors, they walked away from a $35,000 job. Oh well, I’d rather work with Stockmohr, anyhow, for the windows.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. Noni said...

    I’m always amazed every time I read one of your articles about being more green. Unfortunately, my dear hubby isn’t quite a handyman like you. :)

    June 14th, 2007

  2. Eric said...

    Oh come now… even Ye can change a lightbulb.

    Or, something everyone can do - have your monitor turn off after 5 minutes of inactivity. I know people talk about Phantom-loads, but my monitors register 0 watts when they turn themselves off. It’s probably something like 0.4, but it’s better than being on.

    Right-click on your desktop, and choose Properties
    Then click on the “Screen Saver” tab
    Then click on the “Power…” button
    My settings are:
    Turn off monitor: After 5 minutes
    Turn off hard disks: After 15 minutes

    The other two settings never occur… but I have standby in 1 hour, and hibernate in 2 hours. But I have so much going on with my computer, these never happen. I think the weather station even keeps the hard disks spinning.

    June 15th, 2007

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