The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has unveiled its renovated E-House, an educational tool designed to showcase the latest and greatest in energy efficiency techniques and materials in new home building and existing home remodeling. The latest is a vastly upgraded version of the previous model thousands of SMUD customers have visited over the years.

The full-scale, walk-through model includes many features like the latest advances in home framing that uses less wood. There are new roofing technologies and improved insulation. The new model contains energy-efficient windows, the newest daylighting products, advanced lighting, cooling products like a whole house fan, solar panels that look like roof shingles, radiant barriers; “cool” roofing, and sustainable exterior finishes.

E-House is located in the lobby of the SMUD Customer Service Center located at 6301 S Street. The lobby is open to customers from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Residential customers can see new technologies that can help them save money on their energy bills. Commercial contractors and building designers can utilize E-House for energy education purposes and to understand specific energy- efficient products and applications. It is also a favorite prop for local news media to visually demonstrate for their audiences ways to save money on their energy bills without sacrificing comfort.

E-House is an exhibit for the SMUD Energy & Technology Center (E&TC), which promotes market acceptance and transformation of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and safe energy-usage products and processes. With workshops, exhibits, and consultations, the E&TC educates many residential customers, critical decision makers, and change agents in the greater Sacramento area.

The original E-House was constructed in 1996. Many of the features included in the renovation were donated by partners to minimize cost impact to SMUD customer-owners.

For more information about the SMUD E-House, the Energy & Technology Center or SMUD’s many energy efficiency programs that can save residential and business customer money on their energy bills, please visit smud.org.