Hi:
It's been a long time without a post, but that's what happens when your subject becomes your habitat: life just takes over! I did want to share some information with anyone who happens upon this, about our current energy consumption. I used the Energy Star calculator to compare our energy use with other homes of similar size, occupancy, and climatic conditions. Not surprisingly, we fared much better than the average home. Here's a link to the site so you can go through this exercise too:

https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=HOME_ENERGY_YARDSTICK.showGetStarted

Blower Door Test #1

For the calculator, I entered our kWh and therm readings for a year. We have four full-time residents (I didn't count the dog), with many visitors who come for weekends and more. In case you have forgotten from earlier posts, we rely on natural gas for heating, our hot water when the solar thermal isn't producing enough (which was only fully operational half way through the year I used), and for our gas cooking stove. Everything else is electricity (remember too, that over 95% of our lights are LED or fluorescent and every appliance within the house has an energy star rating). All told, we used 458 therms, and 5,897 kWh. Based on the Energy Star metric, we rated a 9.7 on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being the most energy efficient. I guess because we are a country addicted to our cars, Energy Star provided the following information to help us understand our impact, "Annual pollution resulting from energy use in this household is 4 MtCo2eq of greenhouse gas emissions--the equivalent of .78 car." So, we still need to plant some trees!

While the calculator is an imperfect tool, the results are still positive. However, a more realistic gauge of our efficiency would compare us to the segment of the housing stock that has been built or improved to higher energy standards. Perhaps the US Green Building Council has this information, at least for LEED Homes? Any ideas?

And yes, I'm still working on the paperwork for certification.