[Sam500]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

I have very few west facing windows and most of the west side of the house is in "shadow" all afternoon. I do have lots of north facing windows. South facing windows have "eyebrow" architectural elements over them so that summer sunlight doesn't hit the window panes. It is a custom-built home and I designed many components & features with an eye towards energy efficiency. I went overboard -- for example a high ceramic content exterior coating (looks like paint but technically is quite different), open-cell & closed-cell foam insulation, and some very efficient air conditioners. I have 6 separate HVAC units (7 if you count the garage), with 10 zones (11 if you count the garage) where I worked with the mechanical engineer on the design based on our best guess of our living habits. For example, if I've been in the exercise room for the past hour & hence it is nice & cool, once I go to my office the dampers open & close & draw already cool air from the exercise room to push into my office (or anywhere else I want).

Sounds quite advanced! I've never heard of such a thing... (Buck Rogers came to mind)

Is this totally custom or available "off the shelf" by certain contractors or Cooling Specialists?

[OmegaSupreme]

Sounds like my entire house is the size of one room in some of the houses posted about here

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by Sam500

Sounds quite advanced! I've never heard of such a thing... (Buck Rogers came to mind)

Is this totally custom or available "off the shelf" by certain contractors or Cooling Specialists?

To get most of these features, you need to make it a fully custom house. Mine is fully custom but made from currently available technologies available in the marketplace. Make no mistake - some are not cost effective, but I chose to implement them anyway.

One of the biggest things anyone can do when they choose a regular home (not custom) in a development is to take a good compass with you. Do what you can to avoid west facing windows. Try to get shade on the west side of the house. I have a neighbor about 5 houses down with a large house who has a ton of 2-story west facing glass. He has something like 18 KW of solar panels to generate electridity and STILL has to fork over $1K per month to nevada energy during the summer.

Elsewhere there have been discussions of painting the roof white, because white reflects more energy than dark colors. Mine is pretty reflective and almost white.

Put aside the HOA issue for a moment. If the roof were designed to reflect energy (heat), that would help quite a bit with your AC bill. But -- and there is a big but -- some computer models say if we all did this, the air temperature of Las Vegas would increase because of all the reflected energy.

And, there are always the solar photovoltaic roof shingles such as http://news.energysage.com/tesla-sol...olar-shingles/.

[Sam500]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

To get most of these features, you need to make it a fully custom house. Mine is fully custom but made from currently available technologies available in the marketplace. Make no mistake - some are not cost effective, but I chose to implement them anyway.

One of the biggest things anyone can do when they choose a regular home (not custom) in a development is to take a good compass with you. Do what you can to avoid west facing windows. Try to get shade on the west side of the house. I have a neighbor about 5 houses down with a large house who has a ton of 2-story west facing glass. He has something like 18 KW of solar panels to generate electridity and STILL has to fork over $1K per month to nevada energy during the summer.

Elsewhere there have been discussions of painting the roof white, because white reflects more energy than dark colors. Mine is pretty reflective and almost white.

Put aside the HOA issue for a moment. If the roof were designed to reflect energy (heat), that would help quite a bit with your AC bill. But -- and there is a big but -- some computer models say if we all did this, the air temperature of Las Vegas would increase because of all the reflected energy.

And, there are always the solar photovoltaic roof shingles such as Tesla's Solar Roof 2017: Solar Shingles Reimagined | EnergySage.

Kudos to you good sir.. sounds like you're a long time Nevada resident and know your stuff when it comes to keeping the heat out of the house...

[OmegaSupreme]

White roofs/rooves are a no brainer. There is absolutely a net positive impact on the environment and obviously our summer electric bills

http://www.whiteroofproject.org/faq

Unfortunately, we out here in the desert, don't like to use our brain. Maybe they're all cooked from the heat

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by Sam500

Kudos to you good sir.. sounds like you're a long time Nevada resident and know your stuff when it comes to keeping the heat out of the house...

Actually, I'm a transplant. I came here from Silicon Valley during the recession after our daughter went off to college. I'm just an old retired guy.

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by OmegaSupreme

White roofs/rooves are a no brainer. There is absolutely a net positive impact on the environment and obviously our summer electric bills

FAQs

Unfortunately, we out here in the desert, don't like to use our brain. Maybe they're all cooked from the heat

Have you seen many here?

[OmegaSupreme]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

Have you seen many here?

I haven't really noticed any. I suppose someone with a drone can go scouting

[hotjambalaya]

No idea how your bills are so low.

2600 sqft, 1 unit out of 3 on most of the time another one infrequently, another never on.

$828...

Without ac as an empty house it's about $120 a month due to pool etc

[LVAllen]

Originally Posted by hotjambalaya

No idea how your bills are so low.

2600 sqft, 1 unit out of 3 on most of the time another one infrequently, another never on.

$828...

Without ac as an empty house it's about $120 a month due to pool etc

$120 for the pool pump? You may want to think about investing in a two-speed or variable speed pump. Running a pump longer at lower rpms results in huge power savings over a high speed pump.

You get reductions in bills in 2 ways: using less power, or using cheaper power. Using less power may require investments, like swamp coolers, more insulation, a powered attic fan, heavy duty sun screens, etc. ScoopLv has had a few posts giving 14 upgrades from most to lease effective. They absolutely work.

Using cheaper power means avoiding power use when the cost is high and taking advantage of cheap rates in the time of use program. For example, the cost of power on TOU A is about half as much as non-TOU during non-peak hours. So that's when you run your pool pump, your dishwasher, and any high-draw appliances.