Who wants to save money??

So I've blogged before about the benefits of energy conservation in our homes, e.g. saving money. I linked to a website where you could get an approximate calculation of how much money you could save, but I didn't have a whole lot of data. Now I do. Julie Satow, a writer for the NY Times, recently posted an article that addresses this. She writes that Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and Living Cities commissioned a report that illustrates the significant benefits of efficiency in homes. An 88-unit, 2-building housing complex in Manhattan saved 50% of fuel costs by installing new boilers and heating controls. Another building saved $551 a year per apartment. "Marc Zuluaga, a vice president and director of the multifamily energy services group at Steven Winter Associates, a building consultant in New York" was interviewed for Satow's article. He pointed out that these savings were achieved without implementation of any "particularly exotic technologies" like solar panels. They just made small changes to make the homes more efficient. One way that people were inspired to make these changes is that each apartment was responsible for paying the electric bill. When the money was coming from their pocket, they cared more about saving money. If it's this easy, why isn't everybody doing it? I don't really know. Partially because there isn't much data to support these claims. But here is an example of one study at least that does prove that you can save money!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/realestate/commercial/study-clarifies-the-energy-savings-in-retrofitted-buildings.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=energy-environment&adxnnlx=1321641289-nYfGjYuNKmAcPev8TwvOjg