Home energy use can be reduced by undertaking various energy upgrades, which can be light or deep retrofits. Energy retrofits help homeowners to cut down their energy bills and at the same time contributes a positive role in alleviating environmental impacts. Some feasible energy upgrades that can be easily done in residential houses are adding insulation to attic, above grade and foundation walls, weatherization, upgrading windows and doors, and also installing high efficiency mechanical systems. Now, let’s see energy saving potential of these upgrades by considering a loose house with a 100 square meter floor areas, and building enclosure property as shown in the figure below. The graph compares energy saving by different upgrades from the base case as labelled on the graph, and shows a different energy saving potential with combined reduction of more than 50%. Here it’s vital to observe the impact of air sealing a house since a 30% reduction in air leakage could save a proportional amount of energy. The decision on which upgrades to undertake is all up to homeowners, but as a principle it’s recommended to consider your priority based on a higher impact as you may factored out cost among other factors.
Figure 1: Base case building.
Figure 2: Energy saving potential by different upgrades.