Residential Buildings
Home Energy Briefs: #2 Lighting
This Home Energy Brief gives an overview of steps to take in making your home lighting more energy efficient while maintaining and improving lighting quality. Improving the efficiency of your home lighting can not only reduce your electric bills, it can also improve the atmosphere, comfort, and safety of the…
Home Energy Briefs: #4 Space Heating
This Home Energy Brief serves as a guide for home-heating options. It covers the topics of heat loss and passive heating; the efficiency, maintenance, and costs of heating systems; and what you should consider when purchasing a heating system. Investing in space heating systems is an expensive and long-term decision.
Home Energy Briefs: #7 Electronics
This Home Energy Brief focuses on electronics. This Brief covers energy efficient office equipment and Energy Star appliances, power management for computers, standby mode, paper use, and the life-cycle cost of electronics. Great economic and energy savings can be found by simply changing our patterns of use with electronic devices.
Home Energy Briefs: #3 Space Cooling
This Home Energy Brief focuses on space cooling. The Brief covers the issues of heat gain, passive cooling, and space cooling systems. Using a conventional air conditioning system is often the most expensive and energy intensive way to cool a home. If you are buying a new air conditioner, first…
Home Energy Briefs: #5 Water Heating
This Home Energy Brief covers water heating. The brief goes over storage tank heaters, demand water heaters, solar thermal water heating, heat pump water heaters, and drain-water heat recovery. You can save money immediately by changing how you use your hot water, for example, by lowering the temperature on your…