The Home Energy Diet: How to Save Money by Making Your House Energy-Smart (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)

• P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
• P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor
• The Complete Guide to Reducing Energy Costs (Consumer Reports: You Need to Know)
• Insulate and Weatherize: Expert Advice from Start to Finish (Build Like A Pro)
• Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings, 9th Edition: Save Money, Save the Earth

With rising energy costs, homeowners are beginning to examine the energy efficiency of their own homes, asking questions about where energy comes from and how much it costs, how to choose new appliances and what options exist for renewable energy.

The Home Energy Diet answers all these questions and more while helping readers take control of their personal energy use and costs so they can save money, live more comfortably and help the environment. Energy auditor Paul Scheckel first explores energy literacy, and then describes how your home uses-and loses-energy you pay for via:

Electricity
Hot water
Heating and air conditioning
Windows, walls and insulation

The Home Energy Diet involves readers in learning about their own homes by: measuring, metering, investigating and considering habits related to household energy use; learning how to quantify energy consumption and cost and making informed decisions about cost-effective improvements and upgrades. The book explores the misunderstood concept of efficiency versus cost by comparing fuel costs and equipment choices, including the possibility of using renewable energy for meeting home energy needs. This authoritative guide makes efficiency fun through personal anecdotes and humorous "tales-from-the-basement" energy misadventures.

Since energy efficiency is an investment that offers returns greater than Wall Street, readers can earn several hundred dollars every year just by following the advice in this book. As a bonus, many of the energy-saving strategies described can make for improved indoor air quality and healthier, more comfortable homes.

Paul Scheckel is an energy auditor who has visited thousands of homes, educating people about energy efficiency, cost-effective improvements and indoor air quality. With a passion for efficiency and renewables, he walks the talk by living in a solar-powered house and driving a car powered by vegetable oil in his home state of Vermont.

Highly recommended. I learned so much from it and the author is very good at explaining things to you in easy to understand terms. I was so happy with this book. The author also did an excellent job of making good energy saving suggestions and ideas for home improvements. ++ This is a book I would give to family and friends.

Consider starting with "Insulate and Weatherize: Expert Advice from Start to Finish" by Bruce Harley instead which is a more practical "Go Do It" book with lots of photographs.

A thorough review of everything you can do to save money and make your home energy efficient. Good resource for understanding and maintaining major systems of a house such as heating and cooling, electric and appliances. Helpful photos, illustrations and charts.

These are sidebars that present sample calculations for the various topics, e.g. I was pleasantly surprised to find detailed explanations on why things should be done, situations where a particular improvement may not be the best, and how to approach the many different systems in a house - air heating and cooling, envelope, insulation, water heating, ventilation, etc. I'd prefer the Math Boxes to be contained in an appendix with references in the main body of the book, but that's just me. This is the best book I've read on the subject of improving household energy efficiency. The book surprised me when I first started reading it. I expected another "easy reader" on the subject. efficiency, fuel used for different heating systems, etc. Other readers may not find this annoying, and it's certainly not enough for me to reduce my rating of the book.I highly recommend this book if you are serious about exploring ways to improve your house's efficiency.

Many of the books I've read in the past go through the basic things that homeowners can do to improve efficience, but this book explains the hows AND the whys. It was also refreshing to find different ways of examining the same system - for example, amount of fuel used for different heating systems, amount of heat generated for a particular type of fuel, and all the relationships between them.As you start reading, you will find a lot of sidebars and short stories to highlight the discussion in the chapter. It's not an "easy reader", but it's well worth the time to read through it. One thing I found slightly annoying is the number of Math Boxes that interrupt the flow of the book early on.

The real meat starts at about page 93 with some very important electrical power safety tips, followed by an appliance-by-appliance list of items that use energy in a typical North American home. The book has a handy chart, as appendix C, which does a good job answering that question. More importantly, it provides focus for action by letting you identify the big energy users in your home. It should be a required class textbook for High School seniors. The book is targeted at folks who own a house, but renters should read it too. Each item listed includes information about the amount of energy it uses and tips on how to save money using it.

The "what to do" information is very specific and easy to put into practice. I am forever getting questions from folks wanting to know how much they save when they shut off the item in question. The biggest energy users get the most page space. If you pay the energy bill at your home this book will pay back the cover price many times over. I get too many questions from people worried about the cost of running a computer when they should be focused on their heating, cooling and kitchen energy use. The first third of the book is general information about energy, how it is made, how to count it, how to work the numbers.

It is alphabetical and organized like an index. It starts with Air Cleaners and goes right through to Well Pumps. This background information is very well written and easy to understand. In fact, there is so much good stuff in this book that I put it on the shelf next to my desk where it will be a handy reference. But, that is not why folks should buy this book. Some items get just a sentence or two and others get a whole chapter.

That approach was rewarded with frustration. Hot water, heating and air conditioning get their own chapters, as they should.Like most grouchy old engineers, I read the book looking for details to disagree with.