Energy-Efficient Home Improvement
Before you make energy improvements to an existinghome or other building, you'll want to
start with an energy audit to measure how much energy your home uses and discover
where/how your home wastes energy.
Then you can evaluate what measures you can take to improve your home's energy efficiency.
Assessing your home's energy use
Assessing your home's energy use
What professional energy auditors do and when it makes sense to hire one
Information for do-it-yourself energy audits
New Hampshire energy-audit service providers
Home Energy Yardstick If you have five minutes and your energy bills are handy, you can find out
how your home's energy use measures up.
Take a "whole-house systems approach" to building or remodeling Recognizing that decisions about one design element may affect many others, a whole-house systems approach considers the interaction between you, your building site, your climate, and other elements or components of your home.
How do you choose a contractor who's well trained, experienced, and up-to-date on the latest energy-saving materials and building techniques? How do you evaluate the cost-effectiveness of one efficiency strategy over another? These resources can help.
Glossary of Energy-Related Terms For those terms of the trade you haven't yet learned.
Elements of an Energy-Efficient Home Eight-page U.S. Department of Energy
guide makes a good place to start learning.
Green Basics A comprehensive, well-organized online Green Building Encyclopedia
to guide you through every step of an energy-efficient building project, from site selection to building design, construction, and interior finishing.
Thinning the Herd: How to pick the best eco-builder 11-page workbook advises prospective homebuilders on questions to ask and characteristics to look for in a builder.
Green Building Primer Excellent pages that help explain what it means to "build green."
Residential Energy Performance Association (REPA) Nonprofit membership organization aims
tostimulate public awareness of the energy-efficiency services available throughout New Hampshire.
Building techniques that improve energy efficiency
Insulation, air-sealing and moisture control
You can reduce your home's heating and cooling costs, increase its structural durability, and make
your living space healthier and more comfortable through proper insulation, air-sealing, moisture-control,
and ventiliation techniques. A home's overall energy efficiency depends on a balance among these four elements:
Advanced House Framing Techniques Advanced framing techniques create a structurally sound home or addition with lower material and labor costs than conventional framing. Reduce building's heating and cooling costs and realize savings from reduced waste disposal during construction.
Ice dams (click on "expand article") This digest outlines both the causes and solutions to ice-dam problems, which can occur even in properly constructed roof assemblies.
Photo credits:
House remodeling Brock_Builders Some rights reserved
Attic insulation zieak Some rights reserved
