The elements in new San Diego homes that a builder is most likely to skimp on are the insulation and the heating, and the air-conditioning systems. (As a general rule, with current building codes you do not have to worry about bathroom and kitchen plumbing in a new house.) The first thing you need to know is how the house will be heated. Most new San Diego homes today come with electric, gas or oil furnace heating systems, not boilers. The difference between a furnace and a boiler is that a furnace creates heat within the furnace itself and blows that heat with fans through ducts to the rest of the house. A boiler heats water, which is fed through pipes in the house. The pipes give off heat that warms the home. If you have a choice between gas and oil to heat a home, always choose gas. It is cheaper to buy, operate and install, it is cleaner and simpler, and it requires less service and maintenance.

For cooling, you are better off with central air-conditioning. Individual room air conditioners are not economical. Sometimes an inexpensive heating or cooling unit with a low capacity will have to overwork to cool or heat a CA home. If you buy a large furnace that has to work only 80 percent of the time to heat a 2,000-square-foot home (as opposed to a furnace that must work full-time) you will save 25 to 30 percent on your fuel bill. It is the same principle as that of an automobile with a four-cylinder engine working at total capacity to go up a hill versus an eight-cylinder engine working at 40 to 50 percent of capacity to get up the same hill.

Get as much insulation as possible. The best heating and air-conditioning systems will not save you a dime, or make you feel more comfortable, if your home is poorly insulated. You want double-paned insulated glass windows. If these are not available, are storm windows included? What about window shades and curtains? What about ceiling fans? Yes, you will spend more for these items when you buy a new California home than you will on a resale house, but they are worth it. In new construction, super-insulating a house (which brings energy bills down 35 to 50 percent) costs 2 to 5 percent on the total cost of the home. Let us assume you pay $10,000 for super-insulation on a $400,000 CA home. You live there for the next 10 years. During the course of your stay, the cost of super-insulation will be less than $40 a month, and your savings on heating and air-conditioning will be closer to $100 a month. Makes sense, doesn't it?

The quality of insulation is expressed in terms of an R factor. R stands for resistance to heat flow. The R factor is used by the heating and air-conditioning industry to rate various grades of insulation, just as the auto industry uses horsepower to indicate the power of an engine. All builders and insulation salesmen are required by law to tell you the R values in all parts of the home and the type of insulation you are getting. The optimal R factor for the floor of a house built on a basement is around R-19. For a floor on a slab, R-11 is optimal. For walls, the optimum is around R-30, and for an attic, about R-38 is optimal. Anything less than R-10 means the insulation is inefficient. So show off your newly acquired knowledge when you question a builder - do not ask for adjectives like thermal but for BTUs and R factors.

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