As our planet is heating up and our savings are cooling down, household energy efficiency is quickly becoming a hot topic.

Natural Resources Canada (NRC) claims that approximately 17% of Canada’s total secondary energy use in 2005 was consumed by the residential sector.

Environment Canada defines secondary energy use as “energy used by final consumers for residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation purposes.

Between 1990 and 2005, residential energy use in Canada increased by 9%, from 1286 picojoules to 1408 picojoules, while the average size of a home per square foot increased by 19% during the same time period. The increase in energy demand is largely due to there being fewer individuals per household, thus stimulating a rise in the number of households per capita.

NCR states that the number of households is forecast to increase by 1.2% per year between 2005 and 2020, an overall increase of 20%.  Population increase estimates over the same period show an 11% jump, indicating a continual decrease in the average number of people per household.  All of this will amount to a 15% increase in energy demand, reaching 1609 picojoules in Canada by 2020.

While we continue to build larger houses for fewer people it is paramount that we appreciate the necessity of minimizing our personal environmental impact.  Household energy efficiency is the most important aspect of green living that individuals should consider.  Green Energy Efficient Homes, a website dedicated to spreading crucial information about household energy efficiency, discusses many reasons for maximizing your household’s energy efficiency.  For example, energy efficient houses,

• Reduce your personal CO2 emissions, thereby lowering your personal impact on human-induced global warming.

• Use more natural light and less artificial light, which is better for your health and eyesight.

• Are more comfortable due to fewer drafts and regulated temperature throughout the house.

• Reduce your personal consumption of the world’s limited fossil fuels.

Although there are many more reasons, especially environmental reasons, why making the most of household energy efficiency is vital to an eco-friendly lifestyle, only one reason sticks out as particularly pertinent.

MONEY! Getting the most out of household energy efficiency will do just that, get you the most. An energy efficient home will drastically reduce your utility bills.  And putting those energy efficient savings into more energy-saving upgrades is an excellent way to continue progressing toward minimal household energy consumption. Household energy efficient upgrades are often tax deductable, so be sure to check Energy Star for U.S. residents and the Office of Energy Efficiency for Canadian residents.

The most important aspect of household energy efficiency is heating.  According to NRC, residential space-heating systems account for up to 60% of household energy use.  Of great concern is that approximately 80% of residential greenhouse gas emissions in Canada stem from household heating.  Thus, it is clear that improving household heating system efficiency is immensely effective in reducing one’s carbon footprint and saving money.

It is fundamental to ensure that your home is as well insulated as possible in order to create a sealed thermal envelope (or air-tight for us laymen) to prevent heat escape.  Approximately 20% of household heat is lost around doors and windows, while small cracks and holes in a home can add up to an opening that is big enough for a large dog to crawl through.  Addressing these issues is relatively easy and inexpensive through weather-stripping and caulking techniques.

Once your household is as insulated and air-tight as possible, then the next step is upgrading your home heating system.  Green Energy Efficient Homes (GEEH) provides excellent information on this issue.  Below is a list of heating options in order of efficiency:

1. Solar
2. Geothermal
3. Wood
4. Heat Pump
5. Natural Gas
6. Oil
7. Electric

GEEH ranks solar heating as the cheapest in terms of installation and operation as no special equipment is required.  All that is required is a home design that can take advantage of sunlight’s ability to be converted into heat once it passes through closed, sun-facing windows. Such a home can retain the heat given off by sunlight inside through proper sealing and insulation.

Other systems also possess notable benefits.  Solar electric systems, for example, pump some or all of their power back into the local power grid.  Depending on the rules of your local utility, this can either drastically cut your energy bills, or in some cases earn you money at a much higher rate per kilowatt hour than you pay for consumed electricity.  Once the system is set up there are no operating costs.  The energy is provided free by the only safe nuclear reactor in the solar system, which fortunately stores its nuclear waste 93 million miles away, unlike nuclear facilities on earth which have never found a permanent and safe waste repository.  Solar energy is 100% renewable and clean, with no CO2 emissions contributing to climate change.  The advantages of solar energy are most convincingly stated by GEEH;

"There are no acid rain emissions (from nitrous oxide or sulphur dioxide such as we find from burning coal). There is no mercury released from solar energy, unlike from burning coal or from large-scale hydro-electric reservoirs. Solar energy does not cause oil spills off the coast of Alaska, or sour gas flares at refineries, or contaminated waterways in Third World countries with few or unenforced environmental regulations."

In terms of environmental costs, geothermal energy is the next home heating system with the highest efficiency as it extracts energy from the ground.  The high installation costs associated with geothermal systems can be restrictive, especially in densely populated areas.  But once installed a geothermal home heating system is almost as cost free as a solar home heating system, meaning once the payback period is reached you will experience huge savings on your utility bills.

Burning wood as a heating system is relatively carbon neutral, and  can be extremely cheap if you have access to free firewood.  But, on the other hand, if everyone switched to wood we would have to cut down all our forests in order to heat our homes, which is not exactly an ideal situation

As you can see from the chart below, 90% of households are being heated by the most environmentally inefficient and costly systems;

Natural gas home heating systems have traditionally been the cheapest conventional heating system.  Although natural gas has been linked to serious health concerns, it is substantially cheaper than electricity and more eco-friendly than both electricity and heating oil.

Because of the environmental and health risks associated with having a storage tank, home heating oil is dropping in popularity.  Although oil and gas prices fluctuate regularly, below is a helpful comparative estimation of associated costs:

• One gallon of heating oil produces 138,500 BTU. A barrel consists of 42 U.S. gallons, and costs $86.50, so a gallon costs $2.06. This equates to 67,000 BTU per dollar

• Natural gas is sold in units of 1,000,000 BTU at a current cost of $6.58, which is 151,975 BTU per dollar.

• In terms of CO2 emissions per BTU, natural gas and heating oil are very comparable – per BTU of heat output you’ll get around the same CO2 emissions.

While 30% of North American households are heated by electric home heating systems, GEEH claims that unless you have an unlimited source of renewable electric power that no else can use, heating with electric heat is both expensive and environmentally wasteful.  An electric home heating system is almost always the most expensive heating system, except for areas where electricity rates are artificially subsidized.

Electricity produced from heat involves the production of steam, then the conversion of that steam to mechanical work moving a turbine, followed by the conversion of that motion to electricity in a generator.  The steam can be produced either by burning coal, natural gas, oil, or other fossil fuels, or by nuclear, solar, or geothermal energy.

The inefficiency of electric home heating is due to the conversion of the original heat energy into electricity, which reaches a maximum efficiency of conversion at around 40%.  If the original energy source is heat, you could very well be losing around 60% of the energy to waste heat at the power plant.  3-6% of what is left disappears as transmission losses on its way to your home from the plant.  You could therefore be left with as little as 37% of the original heat energy available to heat your home.

As you can see, maximizing household energy efficiency is one of, if not the most crucial step in minimizing your personal carbon footprint as well as increasing your savings.  Governments have been slow to get on board but are beginning to introduce some tax credits and rebate incentives in order to encourage homeowners to retrofit their homes into eco-friendly living establishments.

For information on tax credits and incentives visit Energy Star for U.S. residents and the Office of Energy Efficiency for Canadian residents.

Written by Christopher Campbell

Images Courtesy of Creative Commons

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