I live in New England, and the situation is definitely a little complex. Some factors where I live: - Firewood is really cheap. My house uses oil for its prim

I live in New England, and the situation is definitely a little complex. Some factors where I live: - Firewood is really cheap. My house uses oil for its primary heating, but we supplement with a wood stove because aesthetics and cheap heat. - A lot of the summer it's not the heat that gets you, more the humidity. We run A/C a lot, but often we could get by with just better dehumidifiers whose waste-heat stayed outside the house. - Only relatively new houses have central A/C and/or dehumidifiers. Older houses tend to use window-mounted A/C's, which are less efficient and less appealing. Unfortunately retrofitting a house with central A/C can be outside many people's budgets. - At my latitude, we get enough sunlight to make roof-mounted solar panels worthwhile for many people. But the financial break-even time can be pretty long, and there don't always seem to be government-subsidized low-interest loans to help.