And the profits grow

[kandrathe]

So this 877kWH per month includes water heating (normally done by gas) ? If so, the previously mentioned sun boiler can take care of that in many place son this earth.....and heating our water is often a very large part of the total energy costs (especially when people don't use air conditioning)

I doubt it includes/excludes water heating as every household is different. Solar hot water is a great idea, and if someone would get going and market an easily installable unit for our roofs it would sell like hot cakes. Another technology often overlooked is the idea of a "swamp cooler" for AC.

I saw a mansion built up on Lake Superior in the late 1800's that had incorporated a wind generated AC system for the house using a slow fan pushing the cool air down a central shaft, and pumping a small amount of well water up to the roof to evaporate around that central air shaft. The air shaft also had a duel use, it contained the dumb waiter which was hand powered and usually remained in the basement when not used to allow for air circulation. Pete was grousing a bit about high ceilings, but this huge house had them... in the summer, the hottest air will be above the human occupants. In the winter all the rooms had pocket doors so you could close off most of the unused rooms to conserve heat for those that were being used. The original heat plant in that house was a coal (it might have originally been wood) fired boiler in the basement, and each room had a couple radiators with handy valves for adjusting the heat to the rooms most used. Old farm houses had all the bedrooms in the 2nd floor to maximize heat conservation in winter, and in the summer the 2nd floor with open windows was cooled by frequent breezes. And, on the farm where I grew up, in the summer we left the house at day break, and really didn't spend much time inside the house until evening. In the winter, we shut off parts of the house which were kept just above freezing (and actually often used for food storage). Anyway, enough rambling... My point is that some of the older ideas on home architecture were very energy efficient.