San Diego California Home Owners - Energy Saving Tips For A San Diego Summer
San Diego has been enjoying moderately cool temperatures of late but heat will be returning soon and here are some ways to conserve energy that can be implemented now and help you remain comfortable as the heat begins to rise. While the San Diego climate is moderate year around, in the summer, our temperatures can very warm especially inland and away from the coast.
Living in San Diego, we need fans to circulate the wonderful breezes we are get living near the ocean. But if your windows are closed up and if you have no fans, you are missing one of the best features of living here in San Diego. Ceiling fans today are a very affordable alternative to air conditioning and reasonably easy to install.
So for starters lets turn off the air conditioning on those days when the temperature starts rising into the high 70’s and 80’s. Open up the windows and turn on the fans. Costco sells these portable misters and a quick shot on the face or neck and you will be cooled right down. The Misting Mates are made for outside, but if you don’t tell, I won’t. And don’t fear getting wet, just take a quick spray and with the air being circulated through your home you will feel very comfortable.
I would recommend that you invest in a programmable Thermostat. These can be purchased in the range of $30. You will save an energy costs the first year, as much as several hundred dollars. In a few years, we’re talking real money.
The cost of a new energy wise air-conditioning system on average runs in the range of about $2500-$3000. It will only take a few years to earn all that savings back and there may also be some local and state tax incentives for upgrading. Making a phone call to your power company and following that up with a couple calls to the leading HVAC suppliers should give you all the information and related contact information you need.
Installing a whole house fan will also dramatically help lift up and out, a lot of warm air trapped near your ceilings or in your upstairs level. You will notice the change rather immediately once this is installed.
In the hottest summer months, lower the temperature on your water heater. The recommended temperature should be somewhere between 110 and 115°. Taking cooler showers will also make you feel cooler and save a lot of energy.
Consider doing most of your cooking outside on the grill. It keeps the house a lot cooler and saves boatloads of energy. Besides that clean up is a lot easier and you save using so much hot water in cutting the cooking grease that most of which burns off. I won't get into the potential of the increased carbon footprint at our homes because of the additional smoke we create when cooking outside but I do think this is a real energy saver. It's not like the smoke billowing from an energy plant.
Wash clothes in cold water. Even the dirtiest whites will come clean with the warm setting. Be sure to also reduce the amount of detergent. Less is more in most cases.
The summer months provide so many wonderful activities for outside. Turn off the TV or at least try watching it less. This may be too much of an editorial but I think we could all use a break from our TV's and computers alike. Turn em off and enjoy the fresh air, family and friends.
Overhead recessed lighting also generates a lot of heat and using these lights less will cut down on your energy bills. There is one way however that is proven to be very cost-effective. Change out all those incandescent bulbs to the new low-energy fluorescent. These bulbs may be a little more costly up front, but they last longer and they virtually give off no heat. Check with your city power companies. They have periodically set up free exchanges and that makes these new bulbs virtually free.
There are some other more permanent and longer range ways of economizing on energy. These would include having your home well insulated and it saves a ton of money on energy costs year around. Good insulation could cut your energy costs as much as 30% a year there is a website, simply go to insulate.com that would help you get even more ideas.
A good landscaping plan of planting leafy trees on the southwest side of the house will help the extreme heat from overheating the house. In the winter months after all the leaves have fallen, the trees allow the sun to keep the house warm. It’s also wise to avoid excessive use of rock, concrete and especially asphalt, particularly on the west and south side of the house. This heats up with the sun and radiates heat to the house making it even more difficult to cool.
The south and west sides of your home as I mentioned gets the most sun and the heat can be reduced significantly by installing white blinds on the windows. The sun and heat are reflected back off of the windows and helps to keep the house a few degrees cooler as well. I have two curved windows that have no covering in the dining room. I located an opaque film at Home Depot and it looks handsome and does a great job in preventing the late day intense sun from damaging the fabrics. It also feels cooler with the direct heat of the late day sun. In the winter months, I simply remove it. In the Spring it goes up again.
There are many other heat cutting and energy savings ideas. If you know some, send me a comment and I can add them here. Thanks for sharing.
Editorial NOTE: A top real estate professional gave me a great suggestion to stay cooler in the summer months and also save energy and I am going to add it here. This is from Renee Burrows in Las Vegas.
GO TO THE BEACH
In San Diego, we have become quite accustomed to Bank Foreclosures throughout the area. And as things begin to ease a little in the housing markets, the residents of San Diego have a new little monster to stare down and deal with, rising water bills with mandatory curtailment of water use.
Barring a month of steady daily rain, San Diego homeowners are entering an era in which water usage is going to become an issue as significant as what we have been facing in the current mortgage and housing crisis.
While we are seeing the mortgage and housing crisis beginning to ease a bit in the San Diego real estate markets, it is almost beyond comprehension for it to be replaced by an epidemic of water bill foreclosures.
Now that we have our mandatory water conservation and water use curtailment under way, looming large on the horizon is the prospect of water rationing. And for those that have plants that survive the current water cut backs, it is very possible they will start to scream, " Save Me", "No, Save Me, My blooms are bigger", "But I am drought tolerant", "Don't believe him, he is tapping into the water main".
What's our choice to become? Choosing between a desert landscape of sand and cactus or plastic grass?
If that isn't isn't bad enough, we may soon be forced to take family showers in the next stage of cutbacks and it doesn't end there. It might get so bad that in order to have water to wash dishes, bathroom habits will necessarily have to change ( an unthinkable solution whose time may be coming soon). Low flow flushing may have to once again be redefined. This time with no rebates.
In the latter stage of mandatory cutbacks we may ultimately need to implement water use multitasking. While the sprinklers water what little living grass we have left, it may become necessary to fit in our daily showers using an organic fertilizer based body wash and shampoo combination. Additionally, washing dishes in the water sprinklers also with an organic fertilizer dish soap, brushing out teeth and filling the coffee pot, all on our allocated 10 minutes per station, 3 times per week lawn watering.
And failing to implement anything less than this new creative conservation of water multi taking effort , could result in fines that may exceed the typical mortgage. And if the water bills keep getting bigger and they surely will, we could also start to see Real Estate For Sale signs in our neighborhoods that read " Water Bill Foreclosure". Don't laugh, it could happen!
This past week provided me a very special and rare experience of being an invited lunch guest by a patron of the Golden Door, The World famous Health Spa. From the moment the front gate opened, you feel the exclusive nature of this amazing luxury spa. Set on over several hundreds acres of the most magnificent grounds, one is easily taken in by its sheer beauty and tranquility.
A family friend who frequents the spa with annual regularity, invited me to join her and her two daughters for a specially prepared lunch at the koi pond. The stylings at this spa opened since 1958 are of the Japanese Honjin Inns famous in Japan. And as far as I could tell, from style of the architecture to the sheer beauty of the surroundings, that I just as well could have been in Japan.
Tucked away in an area north of Escondido, the location of this exclusive spa would be missed unless you knew exactly how to get to to it. There are no signs and if you have to ask, you probably wouldn't be on the list for visiting.
I brought my camera to take some pictures but as you see there are no pictures here. Out of my respect for it’s exclusive nature, nothing I could take pictures of could even come close to capturing what I was taking in using all of my senses. Pictures even with my written description could never do justice to what I was experiencing. The Golden Door has a web site and they even have a picture gallery but I can tell you from my own eyes, the pictures they include don’t even come close to the splendor and tranquility of the magnificent surroundings. The entire experience can not be expressed in pictures anyway. The total of all your senses would be needed to fully appreciate.
The luncheon was served by the coy pond in a setting that was almost hypnotic in its calming beauty. The attention to details as well as the lunch itself was unlike anything I have experienced. I was gifted the while there the Golden Door Cookbook signed by the world famous executive chef, Michael Stroot. It contains over 200 recipes of what the patrons of the this most exclusive spa experience 3 times a day while there are a guest.
My impressions of this most tranquil spa was that of a trespasser, wondering if my mind would make any disturbing noise as took it all in through my senses. A magnificent place and I hope I am invited again and again as my family friend makes her annual pilgrimage for a week of de-stressing and pampering at this most celebrated spa.
The largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere is finally a go! That is if there are no more delays. I have written several posts about the Poseidon Resources proposal and the approval plan to build the largest desalination plant in western hemisphere in Carlsbad, California.
It has been an uphill battle for Poseidon Resources to gets it Desalination built having gone through an enormous approval process with the Coastal commission and state and regional water boards. And with intermittent lawsuits by environmental groups who are opposed it its construction and operation plans. ( 2 lawsuits still pending decision at this time) after years of prevailing against these lawsuits, it seemed that the final hurdle has been cleared.
With a final approval of a compromise deal to provide 55.4 acres of wetlands to be used as a marine nursery to replace marine life that would be killed off by the desalination process, Poseidon expects to finally begin construction of the new plant by the end of this year.
The plant will turn 50 million gallons a day of ocean water into drinking water and with San Diego currently facing a severe water supply shortage, this new plant will be a welcome addition to offset some of the dwindling supply.
It is hoped that this plant will become the new model of what needs to be provided state wide along the coastal cities to provide a self generated supply of usable water needed to offset the drought that has left California "High and Dry" for years on end. With the further curtailment of imported water for the Sacramento River Delta and other suppliers, California needs to do what it can to offset the now lacking supply.
With this desalination concept having taken so much effort in getting through the bureaucratic and judicial quagmire , not to mention how much in financial resources have been expended to even get to this point, it is little wonder that a state that has lead the way in so many other arenas, especially research and development in technology and medicine, is now falling far behind in answering the call of its citizens for even one of life's basics, water.
Here are couple other articles for reference :
Update May 18th, 2009: I am 81 comments away from Goal of 10,000 comments made by June 1st
There is a A Dream Home in San Diego Everyone Can Afford. I ran across this little property over the weekend and I asked the builder/designer how the homes were selling. She said things had been pretty slow but that sales were definitely picking up. And she was prepared to make a real deal on the little beauty.
I did some quick calculations of what the incentives were with the 15% allowance and this charmer seemed to pencil out. But then I heard about the bad news in the newspaper of the free fall of prices , the new higher proposed taxes and thought I should think about it a while and I did keep thinking about it the whole day. So I went back for another look at the end of the day just hoping the perfect little place would still be there and that the seller might come down even more. When I returned there was a qualified Buyer making the deal and I lost out.
I wonder how many other would be Buyers are making the same evaluation to rethink their decision based on news stories and when they come back, the deal is gone? This house should have come with a caveat that while many can afford to take advantage of these great buying opportunities out there too many are hesitating and they need to know that if they wait too long, the opportunity will just simply pass them by.
This mostly true tale was brought to you by The Voice of San Diego Real Estate.
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I consider San Diego an excellent place to live and would love to share with you my enthusiasm for the numerous communities that encompass it. Looking forward to working with you. CA Lic # 01048160
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