Home Sweet Zero Energy Home by Barry Rehfeld

Author:Barry Rehfeld [Rehfeld, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: book, HOM017000
ISBN: 9781550924923
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2012-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

7

All-Year All-Electric Comfort

VISIT BELFAST, MAINE, in winter and global warming will seem very far away. The rural town midway up the state’s long and jagged coast near a bay over 20 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean appears frozen in time. Temperatures in the coldest state in the lower 48° average below freezing during the season with days below zero not uncommon. Frost covers forests of snow into spring.

Closed shutters and smoking chimneys are signs of the centuries-old battle against the cold. It’s a dirty, costly battle too. A typical Maine homeowner will need an efficient boiler or furnace costing some $3,000 or more new and feed it about $2,000 worth of heating oil, the primary residential fuel in the state, every year. The cost of oil alone is about as much as the average American pays for all their utilities and more than three times what they’ll spend — $662 annually — on heating, the biggest energy expense.

Matt O’Malia’s two-story, 1,500-square-foot cube-shaped home in a field off Crocker Road is fighting the same battle as any of its Belfast neighbors. With its fire-engine-red clapboard siding the house appears to promise plenty of heat too and with just one window above the porch over the north-side entrance by the road, it projects a fortress-like defense against cold northern winds.

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