Originally Posted by tsp3400
I'll take your 250 and raise you $100 more...crazy thing is my house is only 1600 square feet. but 3 kids in and out all day and central air and hot tub and garage with ceiling fans...phew DTE here love's me.
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Over the last few years, my late DH and I have tried a lot of things to keep the power bills down. We put up split bamboo shades on the South and West sides of the house. We also have lots of deciduous trees (drops their leaves in fall) to shade the house during the hot summer. I've made drapes with poly quilt batting inside the front of drapes and muslin backing. On the East side bedroom with sliding doors, I've put bubble wrap double taped to the non moving door and foil over that. The bedroom does have a tiny wall air conditioner but it's never been needed for some years. A tall, revolving fan in there is all I need to keep comfy at night. I open the drapes and blinds in the cool of the early morning and shut them during hot sunlight. And my power bills are very low, usually from 29 dollars to a height of 88 in summer. And I live in the hot, central valley of California.
If you possibly can, check out farm advisors for trees to shade the house during the hottest time of the day. Trees come in every shape and form and growing speed you can imagine.
This would entail checking different areas of the house every hour or so and marking it on many pictures of the house itself. That's one way my late DH, a Landscape Architect, did his preliminary work in this harsh climate. You can easily see where the shade comes and goes and at what hours of the day, especially the hotter hours.