How Eight Homeowners Save Over $12,275 on Energy

By: Joseph D'Agnese, This Old House magazine (Page 8 of 11)

a pellet stove helped this couple save almost 75 percent on their heating bill

Photo: Anthony Tieuli

Brent Bussey and Jessica Gervais discovered the power of pellets—and watched their fuel bills drop almost 75 percent.

Julie Tung and her partner Ed Schwartz installed heat pumps in their home to save $2,200

Ed Schwartz and Julie Tung of Ridgewood, New Jersey installed heat pumps to save $2,200 on oil heat.

solar panels on the roof helped this couple save $2,000 per year in electricity

Photo: Thayer Allyson Gowdy

Tom Hammer and Sueling Cho installed 24 solar panels and saw their electricity costs fall by $2,000 a year.

bob alcock and tim wheeler switched to solar hot water to save on heat and hot water

Bob Alcock and Tim Wheeler of Lost River, West Virginia, switched to solar hot water to save $1,500 on propane heat and hot water.

nellie aranowski put up window awnings to shield from both hot and cold weather

David and Nellie Aranowski of South Bend, Indiana put up window awnings to save $90

tube skylights help brighten the house with daylight instead of electricity

Photo: Joe Schmelzer

Justin and Kristin Gonzalez, shown with daughter Riley, pipe in daylight with tubular skylights to reduce their electricity bill.

denim batts will help the pearson's save money on heat

Bryant and Stephanie Pearson of Portland, Oregon, added denim batts to save $300 on gas heat.

the heat pump sits on top an existing water heater and uses the air temp to conserve energy

Photo: Wyatt McSpaden

Jim and Rachel King, with kids Jimmy and Ally, retrofitted their water tanks with a heat-pump device and stopped paying for propane.

geothermal heat pumps help cool in the summer and heat in the winter

David and Jen Schlegel of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania went with a geothermal heat pump to save $1,525

a whole-house fan helps cool the house by bring cooler air up through the house while drawing warm air out upper windows or roof vents

Dwight and Shannon Okahara, of Santa Clarita, California hooked up a whole-house fan to save $500

Browse Images

How-To Video

Browse More

How to Use Trees to Save Energy

In this how-to video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook and host Kevin O'Connor share tips for cutting energy costs with strategic tree planting

Watch The Video

On Newsstands Now

In the Magazine

Easy Upgrades That Say Welcome Home

What You'll Learn:

"We got hot-water heat pumps."
—Jim and Rachel King, Rosharon, Texas

How They Work: Like other heat pumps, this scaled-down version extracts heat from the surrounding air and transfers it to another medium—in this case, to water stored in a conventional standby tank. The AirTap, as it's called, measures less than two cubic feet, weighs 48 pounds, and sits on top of your existing hot-water tank. AirGenerate, the Houston company that makes the device, says it uses only one-quarter of the electricity drawn by a conventional electric hot-water tank.

What These Homeowners Did: Jim and Rachel, who live with their two kids in a 3,750-square-foot house, had been heating water with propane—at a monthly cost of $130. "You'd hear the flame go whoosh all day long," says Jim. "It was like hearing money go down the drain." When they learned about the AirTap earlier this year, they decided to buy one for each of their two 50-gallon hot-water tanks. A contractor installed them in about three hours.

What They Learned: "You still hear a bit of noise sometimes, like a bathroom fan running," says Jim, who is relieved to know his kids are no longer sleeping near a propane flame—one water tank is upstairs. And how's the water? "We haven't had a cold shower since we turned off the propane."

Keep in Mind: The manufacturer says an AirTap should last 10 years but won't perform as well or last as long if the existing tank is in poor condition.

Payback period: 7 months
Their Cost: $450 each, or $900 total, uninstalled
Yearly Savings on Propane for Hot Water: $1,560