Insulation levels vary from place to place and with the age of the home (and whether it's had extra added in more recent times), just as in Britain.
Here are a couple of pictures of the insulation we have in the attic of our house, built in 1991:
That's pretty deep fill, which in this area is as important for keeping heat out in summer as it is for keeping heat in during winter.
As for energy costs, there are variations around the country as you might expect for a nation of this size, and even prices within a state can vary from place to place, but it's not as cheap (even allowing for general inflation) as it once was.
At this house we have natural gas supplied by PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) which is charged on a tiered basis: Tier 1 allowance is 1.79 therms per day calculated as being the average baseline usage, and has just gone up to $1.21 per therm. Over that is tier 2 which has just increased to $1.70 per therm. On top of that is an extra charge of about 10 cents per therm for various programs.
Electricity in Redding is supplied by the city-owned REU (Redding Electric Utility), and we're currently paying 15.28 cents per kW-hr., plus sundry state & federal surcharges which bring it up to 15.9 cents. There's a further $13 per month network access charge on that.
Gasoline in this area is about $2.40 per gallon for regular unleaded at the supermarket stations such as Safeway, up to $2.60 or $2.70 or so at the "big name" stations like 76, Chevron, etc. But bear in mind that California gas prices are higher than the national average. These prices are actually down considerably from a peak a while ago; back about 18 months ago it was running around $4.00 per gallon in a lot of places.
Here are a couple of pictures of the insulation we have in the attic of our house, built in 1991:
That's pretty deep fill, which in this area is as important for keeping heat out in summer as it is for keeping heat in during winter.
As for energy costs, there are variations around the country as you might expect for a nation of this size, and even prices within a state can vary from place to place, but it's not as cheap (even allowing for general inflation) as it once was.
At this house we have natural gas supplied by PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) which is charged on a tiered basis: Tier 1 allowance is 1.79 therms per day calculated as being the average baseline usage, and has just gone up to $1.21 per therm. Over that is tier 2 which has just increased to $1.70 per therm. On top of that is an extra charge of about 10 cents per therm for various programs.
Electricity in Redding is supplied by the city-owned REU (Redding Electric Utility), and we're currently paying 15.28 cents per kW-hr., plus sundry state & federal surcharges which bring it up to 15.9 cents. There's a further $13 per month network access charge on that.
Gasoline in this area is about $2.40 per gallon for regular unleaded at the supermarket stations such as Safeway, up to $2.60 or $2.70 or so at the "big name" stations like 76, Chevron, etc. But bear in mind that California gas prices are higher than the national average. These prices are actually down considerably from a peak a while ago; back about 18 months ago it was running around $4.00 per gallon in a lot of places.