Jeffrey Tamburro - Watts In This For Me?: a Skeptics Guide to Home Energy Efficiency

ISBN: 9781927677216

Dedication

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

Thornton Wilder

For Cary, with all my love

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.

John E. Southard

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Voltaire

This book didnt start out as a book. The bulk of the material in it was actually for a website I developed in 2012 ( www.RealEnergyTips.com ). Not long after launching the website, I began getting feedback from visitors who asked if I had either written a book on energy efficiency or was considering doing so. People seemed to really like the material I covered and how it was presented. Needless to say, I was highly flattered. That feedback got me thinking about what it would be like to write a book on home energy efficiency. The big stumbling block was how to handle the logistics of such a project. The time and effort, not to mention the expense, of getting a book designed, published and marketed made the huge task of actually writing it seem like the easy part. All of that changed in early December of 2012, when I was introduced to the New York Times bestselling author Raymond Aaron at a financial seminar I was attending in California. During the seminar, Raymond talked about a program he has to help budding (or, in my case, clueless) authors make their dream of writing a book become a reality. It was in that moment, the proverbial light bulb lit up and my life changed. I was going to write a book.

Rather than reinventing all the content from scratch, the material on my website got repurposed, reshaped and expanded to become the book you are now holding. With the backing of someone who knew the ropes of getting a book published, I initially thought the process would be very quick and relatively easy. It actually turned out to be harder than I thought, but was still one of the most rewarding things Ive ever done. Along the way, there were several people who played important parts in the process and made it all work. Without them, this book would never have been possible.

A big thank you, obviously, goes to Raymond Aaron and his staff at The Raymond Aaron Group and his amazing training program The 10-10-10 Program ( www.10-10-10program.com ). Special thanks go to my assistant, Lori Murphy, for keeping me focused and on track throughout the entire process, my editor, Pat Johnson, for his insightful input, as well as putting up with my protests about changing things, and my graphic designer, Lian, for his amazing talent and vision in creating my book cover. My greatest thanks, however, go to my long-suffering wife, Cary. She has lived with the consequences of the peaks and valleys of my career over the past seven years. It was with her amazing support that I was able to walk away from a secure job, in the middle of an economic downturn no less, in order to pursue my crazy dream of writing a book. Words alone cannot even begin to express my full love and gratitude for her.

Jeffrey Tamburro

Would you like your home to be more comfortable and safer, while at the same time make it more efficient? If you are like most people, you probably answered yes. At the same time, you are probably not sure how to actually go about doing this or if it is something worth doing at all. You have also probably seen and heard plenty of information, both for and against home energy efficiency that left you confused or feeling it was not going to meet your needs. If you are one of those people, then this book is for you. What you are about to read in this book will change for the better the way you think about energy efficiency as well as change the way you live in your home.

Jeffrey Tamburro combines his passion for and extensive hands on experience in home energy efficiency with an incredible ability to explain things clearly. He covers the often dry technical aspects of energy efficiency in a light, easy-to-read and entertaining style. You get the information you need to make an informed decision about your homes needs without a technical, political or moral lecture. As the title of this book implies, Jeffrey sticks to explaining what energy efficiency has to offer you. He breaks down the goal of energy efficiency into ten easy to understand steps involving proven methods and technologies. Some of these steps you can not only start doing right away, but can do yourself. Everything explained in this book not only works, but is more affordable than most people realize. This book really will convince the skeptics among you that there really is something energy efficiency has to offer in making your life better and lowering your costs.

Time and again, while reading this book, I came across information I did not know existed or never saw presented as Jeffrey has done. His analogies and explanations of personal experiences are not only informative, but eye opening and fun to read. If you have been on the fence about making your home more energy efficient, here is the place for you to start. It is a goal worth achieving. I wish you great success!

Raymond Aaron

New York Times Bestselling Author

www.millionairebusinessbootcamp.com

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.

H.P. Lovecraft

If you cant explain it simply, you dont understand it well enough.

Albert Einstein

Energy efficiency is a hot topic right now. Its also a very contentious topic. Theres plenty of noise about what energy efficiency is and what it can do. Much of that noise is based on fear, or at least is intended to influence your opinion (and ultimately your buying decisions) by making you fearful.

Fear is a strong emotion. Humans are hardwired to be fearful as a means of survival. The media, advertisers, salespeople, politicians, employers and countless others capitalize on that sense of fear to get your attention, to motivate you or to get you to buy into their opinion. For example, on one side of the political spectrum, politicians and the media are saying the government wants to steal your money and take away your constitutional rights. On the other side of the political spectrum, politicians and the media are telling you corporations want to steal your money and take away your constitutional rights. Both sides are using fear to get your attention and get you to believe only they are looking out for your best interests.

Much the same thing is happening with the energy efficiency industry. Supporters of the industry try to scare you with dire warnings that we will all die very soon if you dont take immediate action to reduce your energy usage and lower your carbon emissions. Critics of the industry try to scare you by warning that you will be forced to give up your lifestyle and freeze in a darkened home because you will be made to use grossly expensive, unproven and ineffective technologies.

I beg to differ with both sides of that argument. The answer, thankfully, is somewhere in the middle. And that, my friends, is the reason for this book. To cut through all of the noise, hype, rhetoric and outright fear-mongering B.S. and honestly and sensibly talk about solutions that can definitely benefit you. These solutions range from the very simple, such as replacing light bulbs, to the more complex, such as completely retrofitting a house. Many of these solutions are much easier, more effective and affordable than youve been led to believe. I know this because the technologies I mention in this book are all in my house and I see the results every day. With that experience, I can simply tell you what works and what doesnt. Its information nobody else seems to want you to hear. Its definitely not information that is based on fear.