White House Energy Efficiency: Air Conditioning
My focus is typically on Air Conditioning in Houston Texas, however, this topic was like a tractor beam….. ‘it sucked me right in’. I admit, I am coming at this discussion with a tilt toward Air Conditioning and Heating since it is my industry but remember for the average home heating and cooling constitute the largest portion of any energy bill. Yes I know this is no normal house. Beacon of the Free World and all, I would like to pose several questions about the Energy Consumption and potential optimization of the president’s mansion with the main crux of the discussion being,
“Is the White House as energy efficient as possible?”.
What can the executive branch tell us about how energy efficient the white house is?
If you are reading this and you are an industry expert, I encourage you to please chime in. This is meant to be a discussion.
Now back to it. Are there minor alterations(or major) that could improve the utility spending of the White House? Yes I know they recently put on Solar panels. Still this does not imply that the home is being run optimally. It could be, who knows.
Before we launch too much further and the FBI start looking at me like Snowden I’d like to first offer a personal note: Yes, I spent a large potion of my childhood in the suburbs of Washington D.C. but I have NO INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE of the heating and cooling equipment, design, etc of the White House. I’ve toured the West Wing while in college but this was before I entered the HVAC industry.
DATA ON THE WHITEHOUSE: I found the information I have through public websites like Zillow, RuudDesignStar.com, and the ever reliable Wikipedia.org.
16 Bedroom, 35 Bathrooms, taking up 55,000 square feet total. (Remember the last post, supposedly Downton Abbey is twice this size) Still, this is huge!!. US median single family home size is ~2,100. So we are talking about a the equivalent of 26 HOUSES!!! Yet compared to some other major developed countries the White House is modest. The Royal Palace of Madrid(Spain) is 1.5 million square feet and the Quirinal Palace in Rome is 1.1 million square feet. Yeesh – it also doesnt help that their economy’s are on the ropes.
Coming back to the White House. Assuming that the Design Star information provided is correct, the annual bill for the heating and cooling costs of the White House is a whopping $41,790. A total Bill for utilities reaching $61k.
White House Heating and Air Conditioning Costs
Design Star Claims that the house has heat bleed constituting $24,052 in lost utility where the White house could be more energy efficient? Is this true? Is design star accurate? Surely there are limitations to the calculations but how limited? Most houses I’ve seen have been pretty spot on. Are the solar panels on the roof of the White House handling the entire energy usage of the home? Seems doubtful at this kind of usage.
Is it true that the white house is loosing $24,052 per year by not being energy efficient enough?
For those more intimately involved in the topic. Please chime in and let us know.
