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.

This is a hard qu because you have stated you want to save money. CFL are a lot better than they used to be and cost a lot less to run than incandescents low or line voltage. You can also now get dimmable CFLs, they are kind of pricey on the front end but they still save energy. I would say do line-voltage with a regular incandescent bulb, that way you always have the option of going to CFLs to test it to see how you like it. I don't think there are any low-v CFLs out there. I want to add that I am a lay person and am still learning a lot myself. People like Jon know a lot more that I.

I bought some at the "higher" price many years ago to try them out. I had shop lights in the basement along with a ring light down in the basement essentially since I moved into the place. Always liked fluorescents. I like the cool white much better than warm white. Warm white bulbs really hurt my eyes. I'll have a headache in short order. Daylight bulbs are the best for me. By replacing just two bulbs that were used often, I noticed the difference on the electric bill within two months. Then Menards started having rebates and sales so you could get them virtually free after rebate or definitely less than $1 ea so I started buying more and more. Last fall they had them on sale for $1 each without rebate. Cost isn't an issue anymore. Even at a higher retail price, if it's used a lot, you'll recap the cost in a respectable time. I think people will be surprised at the number of hours they actually burn light. Often they don't take into account the wintertime hours are far more than summertime. So the savings is often more than you'd initially think. Plus just common sense tells you that 13-25w vs 60-100w per bulb times the number of bulbs replaced equals savings. Yes you have a little upfront expense, but just like paying for insulation, it comes back later. It amazes me that people will pay tens of thousands of dollars to replace windows in the house to save some on their heat bill but won't spend a couple dollars on a CFL! Plus if you even start replacing burned out incandescents with CFLs you cut the upfront cost by the offset of cost. When you really look, incandescents aren't always that cheap a bulb. You can get CFLs in the candleabre shape (teardrop design), mini "floodlight" style and all sorts of shapes and sizes. Just go to a place that handles a lot of lighting. One thing that surprised me. I thought I'd have to use more of them to get the amount of light, since I was using 100w bulbs in my floor lamp by which I'd read but I have one that is a 75w comparable and I find it's just fine. And I don't think my eyes have gotten better with age! They're not ideal for places where you turn them on for 30 seconds and off again and not use them often. So I don't have CFLs in my entry foyer light or in the hallway light. I tried one in there to see how it would be, but it's brighter than I need and the amount the hall light is on is so little there'd be little savings. I've pretty much converted the whole house to fl. lighting. I do have the main kitchen fixture left, but that has a dimmer on it. Not that I use the dimmer itself, but I use a remote with it so I can turn the light on/off from across the room and not have to walk through the room in the dark. If I can get a remote switch, I'll probably put CFLs into the fixture and use it more. There's three bulbs in there. 180 watts down to 39 watts when being used. There's quite a savings. And FWIW, it doesn't bother me if the CFLs show. They have a more interesting look than a boring old bulb! But that's a personal thing. I had to chuckle at my cousin. He's realizing the value of CFLs but at his lake place he has a chandelier with an odd base size. He insisted they didn't make them to fit. I found them but he wouldn't buy them until they went on sale or rebate. I did some quick calculations and showed him that he would have saved the cost of the bulbs at full retail if purchased right away. Now it's just costing him more. Stubbornness can hurt frugalness! :)

My neighbor switched to LED outdoor Christmas lights last year. What I didn't like was how puny the light was....toooooo dim. Big contrast between our C9 reds and his LEDs. We usually run four or five strands of outdoor lights 24 hours a day for the month. We turn off the regular outdoor lights for December. In the house, the tree and a lighted garland and a couple of small lighted things are the extent of it. Our electric bill doesn't rise that much...a couple of dollars from the lights. One of the keys is that we turn off our regular outdoor lamp post and garage light. Indoors one lamp doesn't get used during Christmas. It's a trade-off. We are slowly replacing all our incandesent bulbs in the house. I'll miss the warmth of the old bulbs, but the new energy savers are looking better and better each year. For now, the LEDs are staying in the stores. Someday....maybe..... Here is a link that might be useful: Creative Soul