Testimony on Energy Star from Stierwalt Hi Jim - I thought i would just take a moment and share some personal anecdotal data with you - for your own information so you have the actual real scenario numbers to back up what you say and to share with Ryan as well. we have received our first two electric bills for June and July (both months with many warm days!)...the June bill was $231.00, July $219.00...that is for a house of finished area of 6500 sq ft. compared to our bills last year for our home of approximately 3200 sq ft finished: $285.00 and $238.00 respectively. In our Sawmill house, regardless of what the thermostat was set, the upper second floor rooms were never cool and the basement area was unbelievably freezing. If you remember, we have four zones for the basement furnace. Except to test to see if it was actually working, we have yet had to turn the air conditioning on in the basement and it stays pretty consistently 71 degrees even with the full sun westerrn exposure. I may run the air in the master bedroom zone when we go to bed for a few hours - i usually have it off during the day when we rarely are in there. It coos down very quickly...I don't think I have turned on the study/powder room/mudroom/laundry room zone yet either. We have kept the family room/kitchen/dining room zone pretty much set at around 72 - 75 degrees during the day and then turn it up to 78 while we sleep - again the western exposure definitely exposes those areas to high temperatures. We run the upstairs furnace primarily during the evening and night - there might have to be some adjustments made up there in some of the areas eventually. Between the windows, the insulation, and the efficient system we've seen electric bills that are comparable, if not less than what we experienced in our old home and we have probably twice the area which as i said has been a pleasant and economical surprise - I'm somewhat of a skeptic at times wondering if the literature and research is always true, always doing my own analysis as well - in this case, it is ha ha...we are hoping this keeps up! have a great week... Dr. Rob and Dawn Stierwalt