Pilot Project Demonstrates How to Reduce Energy Costs By 20 Percent
In a joint effort between the NAHB Research Center and Rebuilding Together, the nation’s largest volunteer home rehab organization, a home in suburban Annapolis, MD, is showing builders, remodelers and consumers how they can maximize residential energy efficiency.
Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the home demonstrates how energy-efficient home building technologies and practices can cut annual energy costs by 20%.
These savings are especially important to the low-income families served by Rebuilding Together, according to its president, Patty Johnson, and even simple home improvements “can have an enormous impact on reducing energy consumption and improving living conditions.”
In each of the 8,000 homes that were rehabbed by her organization last year, said Johnson, “even if just 10 standard light bulbs were replaced with compact fluorescents, we could realize a savings of three million kilowatts per year, assuming they were on about two hours a day.”