With all this talk of high utility bills..

[ducklite]

Thank you Anne! Could you explain this a little more to me?

This is a great article about it, and has some tables that show the types of savings and costs associated with it. Ours is attached to the underside of the roof deck.

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/radiant/rb_01.html

Anne

 

[Michie]

I am not sure how much heating you will need in your area, but I have acathedral ceiling in my living room ( which I will never get again!). That is the hardest room to heat of course. We have 2 celing fans with downrods, that have built in heaters! They really help!


http://www.fanheatlight.com/

My living room is roughly 20 x 18 and the fans keep it nice and toasty.

 

[gottaluvdis]

Thank you Anne! Could you explain this a little more to me?



This is exactly what I wanted to do! I love a gas cooktop, but have to have an electric oven!

Right now I have a brand new (in storage) total electric convection oven that I love. I got to use it about 3 times before we moved, so it will be going into this house!

I would love to have it set up where I could change it out later to my ideal set up.

We built our house 14 years ago and had the same dilemma with cooking. We ended up installing a gas cooktop and a separate electric oven directly beneath it. That was how you had to do it at the time. We re-modeled our kitchen last year and bought a new duel fuel range. It is 5 burner gas on top (with different btu's for simmering, power cooking etc.) and an electric-convection oven. It has been wonderful to cook with. We bought a Kenmore from Sears (stainless) even though DH drooled over Vikings, Thermadors etc. He does a lot of cooking, but we couldn't justify the price or size requirements of the professional models. The Kenmore is a standard 30" model. You could always change to this down the road.

 

[Kay7979]

On the theme of cooking, I forgot to say that we have a propane convection range, but when we bought our over-the-range microwave, we bought one that is combination microwave-convection oven. So now, when I have something small and don't need the full size oven, I can use the electric convection oven, or use microwave and convection at the same time. It saves a lot of energy, and also serves the purpose of having an additional oven when I need to have two things cooking/baking that require different temperatures.

 

[Brier Rose]

OMG Kay...I LOVE your house and "train station"!

That really makes me miss living in the country for the first time since we became city folk.

That is exactly the style of house I would love to have if it would fit in around here! There are a few subdivisions around that are primarily set up with that style, but honestly they're just out of our price range right now.
Of course DH would prefer not to be in a subdivision at all, but that's hard to do around here!

My hope is to only be in the house were looking to buy now for 5-8 years, and then start all over again with what I really want!
I wish I could wait for it now, but we have GOT to get out of this apartment!!

 

[nick262]

You could also look into having a whole house fan(s) installed. They will help cool the house and attice with out the AC unit. My house is 2750 sqft and it is costing us around 1700.00 to install it and will will get a 100.00 rebate from the electric company.

 

[ducklite]

You could also look into having a whole house fan(s) installed. They will help cool the house and attice with out the AC unit. My house is 2750 sqft and it is costing us around 1700.00 to install it and will will get a 100.00 rebate from the electric company.

That generally won't work in the southeast as it doesn't help draw out the humidity. We had one in NJ and it worked great on all but the hottest, most humid days.

Anne

 

[Hotdoggie1977]

I would stay away from a 2 story home. Even if you have 2 c h/a units, your heating/cooling expenses are going to be more than a single story home.

This isnt always true. We have a new two story house about 2300Sq and our energy bills are lower than most. Last month we only paid 93. I would say we avg 100-120 in summer and 160-175 in the winter.