The machine room: most houses in the US have them, a machine room for the furnace, the water heater, the fuse box, all the things which bring modern conveniences like heat and water into the home.
My house doesn't have a furnace or a water heater. When I moved in the only heat was from the baseboard electric heaters. I turned them on once, they burned the carpet. I switched off all the circuit breakers to the electric heaters immediately.
My first major improvement on the house was double paned windows and then gas fireplaces all attached to programmable thermostats. The big advantage to the house is fabulous south facing windows and a half basement bottom floor. I'll get into that later, but just know it's a constant source of "fiddling" in the house to maximize the passive solar gain above and the air cooled by the earth below.
Here's my single best energy saving money saving investment: an "on demand" water heater. We called them "rapide" in France. The second I removed the 80 gallon water heater and put this puppy in my gas bills were cut in half and that's with the water temperature set at a luxurious 125 degrees F. This paid for itself in under 2 years. I love this thing.
If there is a downside it's that you have to let the hot water move through the pipes to where you need it- so brush your teeth until the water gets hot in the shower- find a way to deal with it and think of the $150 which will stay in your pocket that month instead of going to the gas company. It's arguable that the minor excess water you're using compared to the extraordinary amount of water contaminated by fracking for natural gas is a pretty "green" trade off. (Yes, solar water heating may be in my future, but not quite yet.)
My latest upgrade has been a saltless water softner. My well water is hard, very hard. The flavor is great but it clogs the appliances. Besides, I was sick and tired of buying bags of salt- so here goes the "Easywater" saltless water softner. Basically you're creating an electromagnet to pull the minerals off the water.
First you mount the control unit on the wall. Make sure you're close to an outlet and also close to the pipe coming out of the pressure tank (for those of us who are on well water).
I'm using the pipe which comes directly off the pressure tank. It's copper which is a different install than for PVC. First you measure off 11" (for copper 3/4" pipe) and tie wrap the insulated wire to the pipe.
Leave a 5" tail off the end of the tie wrap.
Start wrapping the wire around the pipe- do a nice clean tight wrap.
Keep wrapping up the full 11" and use a zip tie to hold the top in place. For copper pipe start a second layer of wrap going over the first.
When you get back to where you started use a zip tie to secure the wrap and leave a 5" tail past the zip ties.
Use the connectors which come with the softer and connect one of the wires you just wrapped to one of the wires coming out of the controller.
You have to be careful when you crimp it there's a vaseline like lubricant inside the connector and the wires want to slip out. Make sure they're both firmly in place and then crimp it with a pliers or something similar. This will break through the insulation and make the electrical connection. Then do this again with the second wire wrap tail and the second wire from the controller.
Don't clip the wires if they're too long- coil them.
Now you're ready to plug in the controller and see the lights come on.
I'll let you know how this works. I'm very happy not to be hauling bags of salt anymore.
I have a fantasy of a house which doesn't use any natural gas and doesn't have a single surface which needs to be painted. This fantasy house stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It's a house which harvests it's own water, grows it's own food and gives back more than it takes. This fantasy house would have been easier with a complete tear down and installing state of the art greenie echo feel good stuff in new construction. Where's the challenge in that? Doing the maximum good with what you have... now that's a challenge.
