Our home, built by falcon Heights Contracting, was completed in 2013.
Since then, we have been tracking our gas consumption. Despite its larger than average size, our home consumes 25% less gas than the average smaller per month.

We attribute this performance to several factors:

1. The quality of build with Falcon Heights’ effort to prevent leakage as born out by the blower door tests.
2. The decision to add extra insulation in the ceiling as per Dave’s suggestion.
3. The choice of top quality windows. We feel they are a major contributor to our low heating costs despite the presence of a lot of glass. We virtually cannot hear the 70knot storms outside as they rage on.
4. The decision to place the utility room in the middle of the basement. We find that by closing off the suite when not in use, the heat from the utility room rises to the main floor. Each morning, the main floor is a comfortable 20 degrees and we do not even go near to switching on our main floor heating at this point (November). Seems like there is enough retained heat generated by living on the main floor and the utility room to keep the main floor warm.
5. The decision to go with the 95% efficient Valor L1 fireplace was a good choice. We use it occasionally to add a few degrees of warmth and some esthetic value. The Valor raises the main floor area temperature by about 2 degrees per hour. With the timer, the unit is perfect to add a few degrees in the early mornings.

The energy efficiency of our home might allow us to not use any heat between late February and late November!

We thought we would share these comments to help when initially discussing energy usage and building design with potential customers. We customers tend to focus on initial building cost per foot and not so much on the longer-term payback.