Shane, Since cooling is such a big factor for you, don't forget that landscaping may also be very useful. Take all the advice you've gotten so far, and add in some trees and shrubbery to shade the house. Do trees grow in South Texas or do they just burst into flames?
One of the women on my Peru trek built a house and went off the grid. She uses solar hot water for the under floor radiant heat, and for her hot water. She has several solar panels for electricity. She has no other electric, but I think she said she has a generator. She is in Colorado outside of Denver. If you really want to lower your electric costs, you may want to look into a solar panel or two. They are freakin expensive but you might be able to get a good rebate with all the green stimulus stuff going on these days. I got a quote of about 5 grand installed, after some rebates, but that was before the big stimulus package passed, so I might be able to nock some off of that price. For 5 grand, I would get 1100 KWH a year in the Pittsburgh area. You would get more in Texas. For numbers sake, 1100 KWH a year is about half of my total electric usage. We don't use a lot of electricity, gas hot water heat, gas hot water, gas stove. My annual electric cost is roughly 400 bucks a year. So, a single solar panel would save me about 200 bucks a year, so would take about 25 years to pay it off. Of course, electricity will get more expensive over the years, so my payback time will probably be a fair bit less than 25 years. You may save more depending on how much your electric costs. Never-the-less, if you can suck up the up-front cost, it will certainly save you on your monthly budget. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: d...@andrew.cmu.edu Tel: (412) 268-9081
