The solution is kindergarten simple. Here's some facts though to ease your mind. Every square foot of sunlight carries almost 100 watts of heat. It's really about 88 watts but say 100. We'll subtract 12% (100-88) later. So imagine you have windows 24" x 36" . That's about 6 sq feet. And they can let in 100 watts per sq foot. how many watts of power = 600 watts. Here's where that makes sense: An electric floor heater is about 1500 watts. So imagine in the Summer turning on a floor heater and leaving it on for 1/2 hour then turn it off for 1/2 hour all during the day. That's about how much heat can come through that one window. Will putting something to keep heat out help. --- Next on the roof. Insulation doesn't keep heat in or out. Is slows down how long it takes to come. So it's going to come in no matter what unless. You block it. Imagine your roof is 20 feet x 40 feet and you have a 2 story house. That's a 1600 sq foot house. 800 on the top floor = 20 x 40 and 800 on the bottom. that's no matter. So 100 watts x 800 = 80,000 watts of heat It's going to get through. So will it help to shade it? Let's be real. If only 1/10th of that heat gets into the house that's still the same as 5 x 1500 watts of heat on all day in Summer. Would you turn on a heater in those examples above. Then don't let the heat come in How to do it cheap. Anything on the windows help. Foil is ok. it will last for years if you fit it to the window first and then glue it down on cardboard. Then you can place it into the window. Maybe even make it so it flips down , etc , for the view. Roof. Painting the roof white helps a lot compared to black roofs. Is the cost worth it? It's probably not compared to other choices like planting tress but a. Tress can ruin a roof. Chinese elm puts tiny leaves which keep water on a roof no matter what. That rots and so some tress avoid. b. Trees take time to grow but you can buy them 'fully' grown. And install them fully grown. b2) Palm ? They're not going to shade much but you just calculate what they'll shade , the cost, the cost per sq ft of shading and pick the tree with the lowest cost per sq foot of shading. c. Other roofing choices. Foam roofing is not hard to do yourself. You must read up on it. Practice. Then you can do it yourself. Pull a permit from the city. The equipment used is $15,000. You can sell it again for probably the same price if you clean it. That cleaning IS a part of reading how to maintain it. Cost for 2000 sq foot roof in materials is about $3000 for everything. Foam and the white latex coating that's reapplied every 10-15 years. As long as it's reapplied the foam should last a 'lifetime' (50 to 200 years) Without reading any of the posts there's are other ideas probably. Have a flat roof? here's an idea. Put up trees on the roof. Be sure to have a registered architect or structural engineer. But you could have a garden on the roof shading within a few weeks. put a lot of trees in containers and you could make some money selling them as they got too big. And birds lvoe it if there's grass and wild plants. it's a real viable 'way to do business' now a days in old and new construction. KEYWORDS To search Coolroofs Green roofs Attic insulation. It's easy and cheap. If you can put it under the actual roof rather than on top of the attic 'floor' it will do more for the amount. In fact that under the actual roof is an ideal place to practice when you buy the foam machine. Again you must read and study before you do it. But it really is 'stupid simple' You can foam the under roof for $2000 and put an r-8 or r-12 where it will do a lot of good. Cost is about $1500 for 2000 sq feet. You can't rent the foam equipment from my research but buying it is not a bad choice. It's simple well designed equipment nearly identical to airless spray paint sprayer. do both. under actual roof and top of attic floor. THere's no reason not to. Here's an FYI. Making your own insulation is 'easy' . 5 layers (about) of paper, foil, paper, foil, etc is exactly what was used in the commercial building trade for under the roof insulation. The paper can be from newspaper end rolls. Fireproofing it can be done with a couple of cheap, safe to use, easy to buy chemicals. Read up by reading about fireproofing for theaters and stage productions. If you have a community theater ask the director or stage production manager where they buy fireproofing liquids. Or make your own as was done for hundreds of years. To save money always. Go to a Chinese bulk product site. Look up the price they sell a TON of something for. Then look at what you pay. You'll soon figure out a decent multiple, say 10x , their price and then never pay more than that. in the case of fireproofing sodium silicate also called 'water glass' is $250 / ton or 10c / lb. Buy 50 lbs for $10 and you've got yourself a deal. Mix it with water, spray it on , let it dry and try to burn the paper or cloth. It won't burn. Ok that's my dump. Enjoy and keep it cool. Putting up a few solar panels to heat water will keep heat off that part of the roof. Just a thought.

Jeremy, you're right, any vehicle that gets X miles per gallon would have the same benefits to the environment and to owners. But that's one problem with hybrids: To get those benefits with a hybrid, you have to subject yourself to a more complex drivetrain that brings with it scary future costs. (Battery replacement will run $5,000 on a Prius and $7,000 on a Ford Escape.) Then there's the whole control mechanism which switches from gas to electric drive. That's reportedly been causing some problems on the Prius. So the question you have to ask as a consumer is, if I can get 50 mpg with a diesel or 50 mpg with a hybrid, both of which are going to have the same effect on the environment and my fuel costs, why am I going to pay more for a hybrid now so I can also have the privilege of paying more to keep it on the road later on? In addition, the diesel is going to deliver its rated mileage in the city, on the highway, in the winter, in the summer, with the heat and/or defroster on, and in various other conditions which knock a hybrid's mileage down.

Well, the price for the shell is great and they look durable. Aesthetically you could do better than they did in those promotional pictures. The built in garages were a poor choice, but the fourth house photo was quite nice really. It's all about presentation. My main two concerns are that it's not thermally insulated, which would prove extra expense and trouble to install, and also that while it builds a good priced shell much of the cost of a building is in the finishing. How favourably the final price and insulation levels will compare against SIPs, for example, is difficult to determine. The SIPs should go together easily as well, and both will require the same amount of plasterboard for finishing the inside. The SIPs however have excellent thermal properties that reduce the energy useage for the entire life time of the building, they also don't require insulation to be added and some come with built-in wiring conduits. Unfortunately SIPs will require more external finishing as you'll have to buy some kind of siding. I'll probably install plain T&G cedar as the price is good and it looks nice, but you can do anything you want really, including aluminium/steel if woodpecker damage is a concern. I admit I don't have any extensive research or figures, but I have a feeling the end price may not be much different between the two. SIPs may even prove cheaper in the long term through energy savings.

I was just at a local grocery store and the 15w CFLs were $2.99 for a 3 pack. Finding them shouldn't be a problem. When a CFL burns out, most larger places take them and recycle them. Menard's, Home Depot, Lowe's all recycle them and a number of other places like hardware stores and such take them. Just drop them off when you go there. Course some people think it's too much of an invasion to recycle something. And that really annoys me. It never ceases to amaze me how people get so paranoid when they WANT to be afraid of something. The amount of mercury in a CFL is so little when you check it out. A coal fired power plant puts more mercury into the air in one day than all the mercury in all the CFLs. So geez people... Pick your battles. LEDs will likely be the next generation in energy efficiency. I hope it happens soon. There's another significant savings but some people will still say a few dollars is insignificant to them. And then people will scream about the bluish tint they put off and how they "can't stand" the light from them. They'll be proudly going to their pole barn filled with Y2k duct tape, bottled water and incandescent light bulbs to keep the g-men from telling them what kind of bulbs to use. I'd like to do a poll sometime. See how many of the people who refuse to use CFLs use front load washers "to save money". I think that could be interesting. People are strange. They get a burr in their bonnet over the thought of a light bulb being regulated, yet having the feds listen to phone calls or reading emails doesn't seem to bother anyone. It's amazing.