? your light bill, in florida, in summer is $76 bucks??

thats not bad at all!

a friend has radiant barriers, and solar powered
attic fans, she said her bills dropped quite a bit,
but the most important, for her, was the fact that
she's up in her attic alot, as their house is small,
and she uses it for storage, that she gets into regurally

so when she's up there, diggin' thru boxes, its not 125 degrees!

she noticed a change the day after they installed everything

passive solar design is hard for retrofitting, but
our cabin plans a covered porch the entire length of
the south side of our house, only one window on the west
side of the house

s time goes by, i plan to grow vines on the east, and
west sides of the cabin, to help with solar gain

i know sometimes thats not a great answer, as many vines
can be damaging to your walls, but i adore the look and
i'm gonna do it.

also, from a pure heating point of view, your traditional
incandecent lights produce tons of heat, just go touch one,
i'd try and change them out to CF's, not only will you save
watts, but the heat they produce is less than traditional
bulbs.

depending on how often your lights are on, that might
produce quite a bit of heat

in the summer, i rarley use my stove we cook out on the
grill at least three times a week, we tend to eat a bit
lighter in summer too

i use the heck out of my crockpot too, as i'd rather have
that on for 4 hours, than hover over a hot stove stirrin'
stew for 4 hours, heatin' up the place

tesa

Tesa...sorry my post wasn't as clear as it should have been...the 70's numbers were degrees...bill runs about $100 although lower in spring or fall when A/C-heat isn't being used.

Not a practical retrofit but during design, a hip roof that allows 24" overhang shades windows in the summer but allows the lower winter sun in helps (my house included that). As for vines, a shopping center in Oviedo Fl placed vinyl coated mesh several inches off the walls and the vines grow on that. I think a reasonable cost substitute would be vinyl coated chain link fence..look a little funky until your vines got established, but would keep the vegetation from touching the house though..

my biggest saver was replacing 30 year old HVAC system with a new heat pump and set back stats for the new one and my other system for the rear of the house. cut my peak usage from over 6000KWH(yes 6K!) to just a hair over 3000. when i get to replace the other system that should drop even more.

i still ahve to do some investigating though, cause we went 7 weeks with neither system turned on and still avg 1000kwh a month. of course we have electric stove and WH, and cook a lot, so that may be the hogs. the stove is 4 years old and energy star, but the WH is 7 years old.

If you are in a hot climate, try a heat recovery unit on your A/C for free hot water.
Also, read this report for an interesting scientific comparison of various insulation strategies. I am concerned with the spray foams on the underside of roof decks setting the stage for serious damage down the road from undetected roof leaks.
http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/publications/html/fsec-cr-1220-00/

If you heat your garage - I have a heater set up in there turned low, just to prevent stuff in there freezing - you could put a door switch on the garage door that would activate a relay that would disable the heater from coming on whilst the door is open.