Hi Amendoim
I’m a residential builder that only builds very energy efficient new homes. Not as much experience with retro-fitting, but I’ll give it a shot. Of course these all depend on your local climate. You didn’t say if you lived in a hot/temperate/cold area, so I’ll assume temperate.
This is in order of bang for buck.
#1 : Seal drafts. No-More-Gaps is very cheap, and is by far the cheapest way to dramatically improve your house’s ability to stay warm, so less heating required. But a very serious disclaimer is this : If you live in a rocky area (especially granite), and you have a concrete basement of slab, you might have Radon present, a dangerous gas. Get tested for it if you’re unsure. If you do, you can still seal up cracks, but need to give the house a good air out once a day or so.
#2 Water saving taps/toilets/devices. These save lots of water, and if it’s hot water being saved, you’ll also save a LOT of energy from not needing to heat that water.
#2 Light bulbs. Get rid of the incandescents and halogen downlights. Replace the incans with CLFs, and the halogens with CREE LEDs.
#3 Insulate insulate insluate. Roof first, as it’s easy and gets best results. Walls are next but can be hard to install as wall cladding needs to come down. If you do do walls, a good tip is to start with insulating the top half of the outside walls of the living rooms. Top half because heat rises so that’s were the insulation is most needed… Do floors last. If they’re timber, use perforated concertina foil (reflective insulation). If you have a slab put foam sandwich board around the outside edge (you don’t need to insulate right under the slab, as most heat transfer is from the edge.
#4 Shade selected windows. Use trees and/or shade screens to help shade summer sun from westerly windows. Make them deciduous if you want sun to get through and warm in winter, and evergreen to shade all year round.
#5 Solar hot water. Bigger investment but that’s what it is. An investment that WILL pay for itself given time (7 years or so if you’re replacing electric). But more than money, these save a LOT of energy so are an essential part of any sustainable house.
#6 Better appliances. This doesn’t have to cost a lot, but you need patience. Basically, if you need something, buy the best available that you can afford. Not just the best efficiency, but also the overall quality, as an appliance that lasts for 30 years is MUCH more green than one that blows up in five years… And the most important one of all is your fridge, as this is the only appliance that is turned on ALL the time, so gives you the best annual saving. Make sure you have a good fridge.
#6 Renewable energy. Solar PV panels don’t cost as much as they used to, mainly because most people have access to grants/rebates/etc. For example in my State I can get a grid-connected 1kw system for about $5,000 installed. 1kw is not big, but a very efficient house will be able to to get virtually ALL it’s (annualised) power needs from it. Wind/micro-hydro are a bit more specialised and not really suited to most people (yet).
By the way they’re expected to drop about 50% within the next 2 years as more factories come online and end the panel shortage that’s keeping prices up. So it might be worth spending money on other things right now until the drop is in effect. Then you’ll get them VERY cheap as any rebates will hopefully remain.
#7 Double/triple glazing. Another investment, especially for a retro-fit. It’s important to know there’s crap double glazing and VERY good double glazing. Crap is aluminium frames with 3mm glass/6mm air gap/3mm glass glazing. For very good you’d get timber (plantation of course!) with 4/10/4 or more, with a low-E coating and argon gas in the air gap. Also, keep in mind different windows are needed for different aspects and climates. It’s worth going through your entire house plans with someone who knows their stuff (energy consultant) as a lot of salespeople know less that you’d expect.
#8 Water harvesting/recycling. Water tanks are easy to fit to downpipes and can at least be used for gardening and toilets. People also use the water for washing and drinking, but that depends on you air/rain quality, and if you have lead products on your roof (DON’T drink water from a roof with lead on it!!!).
Water recycling is cleaning grey water (laundry & bathrooms) and black water (toilets and kitchen) for another use. The simplest and cheapest is to just run greywater out to non food producing plants like lawn. The best is to get a recycling unit that turns ALL waste (grey and black) into A+ quality water! These are very good if you’re in a very dry area.
#9 Get rid of all the toxic materials. Can be pretty hard, as virtually every product we use has chemicals of some kind. Some are pretty safe, some are VERY unsafe. Get rid of asbestos (use a professional company to do this) and lead-based paints. There’s much better paints coming out now that are toxin/VOC free.
#10 Rebuild. If the house is an inefficient crappy design, the ultimate is to totally demolish your home, and then rebuild it using as many original materials as possible (except the crap and toxic ones!). The house design can then be vastly improved, and done with a small overall impact for a huge gain. Of course this is probably not going to happen, but it’s nice to throw out there…
I haven’t included stuff like recycle/compost/grow food/etc, as these are more lifestyle than actual house, but hey do them too!
Hope that helps, and all the best.
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