ABM, GreenHomes America’s parent company, helped the US Navy celebrate the 1st EV Charging Station to be installed at a US NAVY site on the West Coast.
Great to see charging stations going up in all areas. Vroom!
Thanks,
Jason
Archive for the ‘Electricity Use’ Category
GreenHomes Parent Company installs EV Charging Station
April 2, 2013Fall Clean Up!
November 16, 2012In New England it is easy to see the seasons change. It’s a time of harvest and preparation for our comfort through the coldest part of the year. There’s plenty to do outside the home never mind on the inside.
For one thing it is time to tune up the furnace or boiler before the heating season begins. Preventative maintenance is a good thing and worth the minor expense to ward of a major one in the middle of the heating season. With a contractor you trust, that clean and tune may be part of a service agreement and can save you even more.
Your heating system is not the only thing that should get a tune up though. For many of us, it’s the home too! Even with the cleanest running furnace or boiler in your home, it is important to consider how well the building is insulated, resists air leakage, deals with moisture and provides indoor air quality.
Since heating systems and buildings interact with each other, it’s a great idea to consider treating them together. Seek out certified and experienced heating and cooling technicians, and the same for your home. Consider a BPI accredited contractor that will look at your home as a system and help you prepare for the coming season making it healthier, safer and more energy efficient.
Thanks,
Jason
In home electric monitoring, Real Time Data and Age Old Adages
May 24, 2012
By U.S. Air Force photo by Edward Aspera Jr. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Blending physics, and metaphor, with this age old adage (I can’t resist throwing in some physics), power implies transformation. It is a function of using energy to do work. My point is that energy monitors aren’t worth squat unless we change our behavior based on what they tell us. In fact, since you plug them in, they use electricity, they don’t save it.
Local utilities are offering energy data with things like the green button which we’ve written about in the past. Changing light bulbs to CFLs or LEDs can make a big impact with electric loads. When you use electricity—for A/C or to heat water for example—more efficient systems can make a difference; and so can improving the home in other ways. The gains in insulating and air sealing, proper shading, and good windows can really make an impact on your energy usage as well as your comfort.
I wonder if the adage “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is relevant? Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to keep an eye on your electrical usage, but don’t get caught watching and not acting. Or maybe, “a fool and his money will soon part” fits too.
Thanks,
Jason
Drive for Free
May 14, 2012A few weeks back I touched on some of the hidden costs in our home (http://blog.greenhomesamerica.com/2012/04/12/fixes-for-hidden-costs-reveal-hidden-benefits/). There is a tie between our houses and our cars and energy use.
Fixing up your home could even help you drive for free. The Florida solar energy center created this great video:
The benefits of home performance improvements are clear and widespread. You can be more comfortable, safer, and healthier and save money. Money you can put elsewhere, such as towards the expense of driving with an electric vehicle. What I think is important here is that this isn’t just for Florida. Florida is of course a great place for solar power being the “Sunshine State”, but this isn’t really part of the formula for most homeowners. Generating electricity can be done in many ways, and energy efficient homes are the key to being able to drive for free.
What’s all the hubbub about the “green button”?
January 20, 2012
The White House announced that PG&E, and San Diego Gas & Electric have launched the “green button”, an online tool that allows customers to download their own energy data.
[Watch California utilities PG&E, and San Diego Gas & Electric in the video of the Green Button launch.]
That is certainly good news. We’ve long used a good look an utility bill history and energy usage to help figure out what going on in a home. Something that makes it easier for a homeowner to track down that history is a good thing. And we look forward to a host of third-party aps that can help consumers save energy and money.
But from the hoopla, you’d think our energy woes are over.
Not so fast. Access to household energy use data is really important. And Facebook aps might be fun. But when it’s 105 degrees out and you have a poorly insulated house, with south- and west-facing glass, and an old air-conditioner, are you going to be able to stay comfortable without paying a lot of money to the utilities? No. Good information helps, but it doesn’t change physics. To make your home more comfortable and not break the bank with utility bills, you’ve got to make actual improvements!
And the fundamentals still apply. You need good insulation and air-sealing, tight duct work, efficient heating and cooling equipment, efficient lighting. And you also need to know if your water heater, furnace, or any other combustion appliance in your home is operating safely and efficiently. The green button won’t don’t that for you.
Fortunately, for California residents, the statewide Energy Upgrade California (EUC) program can provide up to $4,000 in rebates to help make smart improvements (some cities and counties are offering even more in matching rebates). And certified contractors can give you access to these incentives. GreenHomes America partners have BPI-certified staff, and can provide access to the EUC incentives.
The best way to find out what you might qualify for is to have a real home energy audit conducted by a participating contractor—and then get the rebate by having the contractor make the improvements. You can contact participating experts in the following areas to learn more:
- Hayward & the East Bay, ABC Cooling
- Campbell & the South Bay, Residential Energy Pros
- Los Banos, Young’s Air-Conditioning
- Greater Fresno, ABC Cooling
- San Diego, ASI Hastings
So bring the green button on. Check it out. Easier access to utility information is great (after all, we’re paying the bills, aren’t we—shouldn’t we be able to get the information?) Kudos to PG&E and SDGE for stepping up to lead the nation with this. The rest of the country? Well, a handful of additional uttilies have said they’re interested, so stay tuned. And if GreenHomes has a location near you, we’ll help you find applicable rebates, incentives, and loans.
But if you want a more comfortable, healthier, and more energy-efficiency home, data alone won’t do it. A good home assessment followed by the right, professionally installed, measures, will.
Cheers,
Mike
Lights, Vampires and Holiday Wishes!
December 6, 2011 
Maybe you’ve seen this already, its’ been floating around the web, but I Love this picture. Some of us go for broke when it comes to holiday decoration. I’m only lightly (sorry) using the metaphor “going for broke”.
We celebrate this time of year as the skies grow darker earlier and the season shortens for cultural and religious reasons and just plain fun. I’m more in the Ditto camp, but we do have a Christmas tree.
Out of curiosity I used a nifty device called a Kill-A-Watt, and I metered my own Christmas tree at home. We like the old school lights, the big bulbs and the bubbling ones. One year we left a strip plugged in lying on the couch and burned a hole in it.
Well, my little tree with a few strips of lights big and small draws about 320watts. I have an electric tea kettle that boils water with less wattage. I can make coffee with that. A co-worker’s tree with LED lights draws about 20watts.
I’m probably not going to change. I like the light from the tree. It makes me happy. I suppose although it’s not efficient, it helps heat my house. (Yes, heating my house in Maine with light bulbs is not necessarily the smartest economic move I’ve made!)
Question I have now is “how about all the other things with clocks and lights, plugged in but not doing anything.” Mike has mentioned “smart” power strips in the past. This might be a good stocking stuffer for some (well if you have a big stocking I suppose). Our TV’s and their electronic entourage, sit around waiting to entertain drawing power with their clocks lights and standby modes. Set top boxes and DVR’s can have a huge draw and can be worse than a good refrigerator!
We make choices with our home and what we do to run the things in them, and it’s good to make informed ones. Using energy costs money. Wasting energy costs even more. Maybe the “Ditto” family has some extra cash for the presents under the tree instead, or a week in the Bahamas. What would you do with the money you’re wasting needlessly on phantom loads? Oh, don’t forget: air leaks, spotty insulation, old inefficient heating equipment, leaky ductwork….What does your holiday wish list look like?
Cheers!
Jason.
Where does your power come from? In the UK it might surprise you
December 2, 2011
I’d rather not think about this one too much and just focus on energy efficiency but this article from the Telegraph is in some ways as strange as it sounds. It’s about heat recovery and generating electricity from the steam produced used to cool the hot gasses from the cremation process. You have to admit, it’s umm…. thinking outside the box (sorry bad pun)
Thanks,
Jason
photo from wiki commons
Occupy…St. Louis?
October 28, 2011We all know that energy-efficiency is a way to shrink utility bills. Aggregated, energy-efficiency means we don’t have to pay for as money power plants or as costly distribution upgrades (oddly enough, power lines aren’t free—we pay for them). The rub is that utilities make money selling electricity, and generally they don’t make money selling less electricity.
And thus, it’s not surprising, although it’s surely disappointing, to read that Ameren Missouri is slashing its efficiency spending by 70%. Better for them to build more power plants that they charge us for, and sell us more electricity. We get whacked twice, with higher rates and the same or higher usage. People and companies deserve to profit from their investments–but it sure smells better when someone else benefits, too.
Saving energy at home saves you money at home. When a lot of us do it together, we save even more, because we avoid the costs of new power plants and power lines (and dirty air and dirty water). Unfortunately, as individuals, we don’t get to decide who the public good is protected from Ameren’s short-sighted behavior. We need our elected officials to make smart decisions there (someone should start an office pool on that one!). But we can take steps to insulate ourselves from activities like Ameren’s in Missouri. We can slash our own utility bills, and invest in our homes and our futures instead of Ameren’s. That we can start doing today. The rest, well, we may have to wait until election day…although I do wonder what a tent would like on Ameren’s front lawn.
Thanks,
Mike
Coming down the road–Nissan Leaf to Power Homes?
August 15, 2011A few weeks ago, I showed an example of the Nissan Leaf charging stations that our sister company, Linc Lighting & Electrical, is installing in California. That’s cool. And it’s even more exciting when we’re able to look at the whole house while we’re there, and boost the energy-efficiency to help offset the car’s electricity us. [And the Energy Upgrade California incentives are a financial boost!]
Looking down the street and around the corner, there may be even more interesting possibilities integrating Home/Car/Electricity. For example, Nissan has unveiled and is testing a new system allowing the car to supply electricity to the house. This has applications from off-peak (and lower rate) power storage to emergency back-up power. We’ll have to wait and see how this pans out. Roll this in with smart meters, renewable generation, and community-scale projects, and things get even more interesting. And that is what is keeping the elves in our Energy Hub workshop busy!
Meanwhile, one thing we know for certain, focusing on efficiency first makes sense! And at home you get to do this by making your home more comfortable, durable, and healthier.
Thanks,
Mike
Light Bulb Options
August 14, 2011With the new light bulb regulations hitting the 100-watt bulbs in January (lower-wattage bulbs will be phased in later over the next few years), Bob Tedeschi has a good article in the NY Times about different light bulb options, and based his his preferences, what works where.
There’s no need to panic–we won’t be living in the dark!
[And a long-term follow-up--still love those CREE CR6 for recessed lighting, LED or otherwise. It's just darned good!]
