【个人手工制作】中学生VOA英语阅读之封闭式房屋可降低能源消耗.docx

中学生VOA英语阅读之封闭式房屋可降低能源消耗Airtight Houses Lower Energy CostsWe may not be aware of it, but ordinary family homes in the U.S. and, indeed, the rest of the world are not energy-efficient.我们可能还没有意识到，但是美国的普通家庭以及世界其它地区的家庭的确没能够有效利用能源。Most of their energy goes to heating and cooling, and a lot of it is wasted,as warm and cool air escape through fireplace chimneys and thin and poorly fitting windows and doors,and because of inadequate insulation.他们的能源大多应用在了供热制冷上面，大部分都浪费掉了，热气和冷气从壁炉的烟囱、薄窗或有缝儿的窗户和门冒出，由于隔离装置欠缺。A passive house loses almost none.被动式节能屋不会浪费掉任何能源。“Imagine a thermos, you have insulation everywhere, and it’s basically completely sealed.And so the idea is to build a house not unlike a thermos so,the windows are sealed and triple-glazed, there’s insulation completely surrounding the building, we make it as airtight as possible.”“想象一个热水瓶，四处都是隔离的，处于完全密封状态。因此，这个理念就是要建造一个与热水瓶一样的房子，窗户是密封的，并且非常光滑，隔离装置四面围绕着整个建筑，我们要尽可能地将其密封。”This 147-square-meter (1,580-square-foot) passive house, recently presented as a demonstration unitjust outside Washington D.C., was prefabricated and brought to the site in two boxes.近期展现了一个147平方米（1580平方英尺）的被动式节能屋，作为华盛顿外的示范装置，我们预先制造了构件，并用两个箱子将其带到指定地点。“Once it’s set and put together, it takes roughly three or four weeks to go ahead and finish the areas of drywall that weren’t done,to put down carpeting if it’s not in the room, to put in final touches,but honestly if everything is set in place, you could put a house together like this in about three to four months.”“一旦搞定，并装在了一起，我们大约需要花费3到4周的时间来完成干式墙区域的工作，如果不在房间里面，那还需要摆好地毯，并做最后的修整，但老实说，如果一切就绪，房屋会在3-4个月建好。”The total cost of building it was $325,000, or about 17 percent more than constructing an ordinary house.But its estimated utility bill is only around $20 monthly, or ten times less than for an average house of the same size.房屋总开销325000美金，或者说是普通房屋造价的1.17倍。然而，据估计，该房屋每月账单大概只需20美元，或者说比同样大小的普通房屋开销少十倍。While passive houses have been around for a long time, the idea never take root in the U.S.然而当被动式房屋已经遍布各地的时候，其理念仍然还