Posts Tagged ‘energy savings’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

How will our homes change in the next 5-10 years?

May 5, 2011

If we ask the question what will the price of heating oil or natural gas be in the next 5 or 10 years or electricity if we start using more electric cars, we get a sense of what we need Design and Construction in our homes to be. If we don’t change how we look at what is important in housing we may not be able to afford them for the long term.

As a Home Performance contractor, we find the same problems in new homes you might expect to see only in older ones. Air leakage, lack of or poor insulation, comfort issues, inefficient heating systems with poor distribution are all common in the newest of construction.

There has been change in design and construction towards efficiency, comfort and conscientious building. We are finally coming to a point where outside pressures such as limited building resources, illness indoor air quality issues, as well as the instability of the price of heating our homes may force us to reconsider what is important.

I hope design and construction will take a turn for the better for our health, safety, comfort as well as our wallets when he heat and cool these homes, it needs to happen. Put the fancy counter-tops and other luxuries in later. What we need are homes with good insulation and air barriers, deal with moisture well, have efficient heating and cooling equipment sized to accommodate the reduced demand because of an exceptional building envelope. This is our goal when we fix existing homes and can really only be achieved when we take a house as a system approach to building.

I do not wish for the construction of homes to continue in the ‘just adequate’ fashion that potentially creates un-healthy and inefficient buildings. Building to code is the bare minimum standard. It might be seen as good for business for GreenHomes America to carry on in the usual fashion since each home built this way is one that we could fix in the next 5 to 10 years, but the fact is there is plenty of work already for many years to come. The future holds comfort, health and safety wrapped up in efficiency. Homes as they should be: a safe haven new or old.

eLocal Blog Off Best Advice
 

Exclusive to eLocal Blog-Off Experts

 

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Bio-fuels: everything comes with a cost

April 7, 2011

 

image from Wikimedia Commons

The New York Times has recently reported that the increase in production of bio-fuels is altering the price of food despite efforts to avoid it and has also raised other concerns such as hunger issues as well as the potential for political instability.   

Demand for plant based fuel sources can be found in industrially developing areas such as China as well as established countries in Europe and here in the United States.  In fact here at home Congress has committed us to using 36 billion gallons of bio-fuels annually by 2022.

As one could imagine prices are affected by many things including the success of the growing season.  Ironically high oil prices and transportation costs also affect the cost of bio-fuel production.  We too easily forget the interwoven nature of so many aspects of our lives.   

Bio-fuels such as bio-diesel and ethanol can be used to suppliment or replace gasoline and diesel for cars and trucks. Bio-Bio-fuels can also fill in as well as heating oil is in our homes.  They can reduce our dependency on foreign oil when, but not without a cost.  In the U.S. there has been an increase in the use of corn for fuel production and an associated cost increase. 

When the cost of oil goes above $100 a barrel—and we closed above $109 yesterday—bio-fuels start to look more enticing.  We saw a surge in interest in bio-fuels back in 2008 when oil prices skyrocketed.  I suspect it may happen again.

Switching the type of fuel we burn is not really the answer.  For sure there are benefits to bio-fuels, and I won’t discourage the use of them.  There are jobs created, localized production and independence from foreign sources for sure.  In the Home Performance work we recognize how important it is to look at houses as a system.  Like our homes, there is a great deal of interaction that takes place in producing bio-fuels.  What is the impact of switching fuels? 

Home performance retrofit improvements reduce usage in a home.  The best part of a home performance retrofit is that not only do we create a more efficient home, but we create a safer and more comfortable one.  It’s a win-win situation.

So before we start driving the price of crops up by buying all the cassava root we can find as China is doing and raising the price we pay for groceries , consider the less exotic option of fixing things right at home creating the increased efficiency and comfort we need right under our roofs.  Once you’ve taken care of the easy things then consider running your car on beans or root vegetables.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Spring ahead–daylight savings time

March 12, 2011

Don’t forget to turn those clocks ahead an hour tonight (or at 2am if you’re still up).  Dang, I hate “losing” that hour!

We can have a debate about whether daylight savings time actually saves energy as it’s intended.  The research is mixed.  And it in part depends on where in your time zone you live–to the East or to the West.  And I’m sure there are a few opinions, to boot.   There’s a interesting overview of the whens and whys in National Geographic.

But whether it saves energy or not, if you don’t set you clocks ahead, you’ll be late today or tomorrow.  (Folks in Arizona and Hawaii–nevermind.  Your states don’t recognize daylight savings time!)

Thanks,
Mike

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Energy Geeks / Energy Policy, Wild Stuff | Leave a Comment »

Service agreements – a smart way to save.

January 25, 2011

Expensive things, like cars, come with a warranty, which is the manufacturer’s guarantee that your purchase will keep on working the way it should for the life of the warranty… IF you uphold your end of the bargain. When you buy a new HVAC system, read the fine print of your warranty, and you will find that in order to keep it valid you must have the unit serviced annually.

Is this just a scam for these companies to get more money out of you?

Actually, no. There are two very good reasons to make sure you have your heating and cooling system checked and tuned annually.

First, if there is a problem with your HVAC system it can become a serious health risk to you and your family. A licensed contractor can ensure that carbon monoxide is not leaking into your home.

Second, the cost of annual maintenance has been shown to pay for itself in operating cost savings during the peak season alone.

Together, these are reasons that the EPA and DOE recommend annual maintenance on your system—you should do it whether under warranty or not.

So it makes sense to have your HVAC system maintained each year, and if you’re looking to save some money it makes sense to enter into a service agreement.  This ensures your  heating and cooling system operates safely and efficiently and your protect your warranty.  Even better, service agreements allow for planned visits during regular hours, and thus we can plan for and control costs and offer special services and priority treatment to customers who sign up for these plans.  Check out the extra perks we offer to service agreement customers here at GreenHomes.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Air Conditioning, Furnaces, GreenHomes America, Health / Safety / Indoor Air, Heating & Cooling Tips, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

More on programmable thermostats

December 10, 2010

Kathryn did a good job in her post Wednesday debunking a myth and setting the record straight.  The fact is, turning down your thermostat at night or while you’re away (in the winter) saves energy and saves money.

And yes, programmable thermostats do work.  They can automate the process so you don’t have to remember.  And so the house warms up before you wake up–or before you get back from work.  Of course, they only work it you program them!  Your heating contractor should show you how if you have any questions.

When programming you setback and recovery times, consider when you normally go to sleep and wake up, and when you and everyone else is normally gone during the day.   It usually makes sense to program the temperature setback a bit earlier than you actually go to bed.   In most cases you likely won’t notice the house cooling down as you get ready for bed.   

Being an energy geek, I take it a step further with a “hybrid” approach.  I use a programmable thermostat to turn the heat up and down automatically.  But I’ve programed it so that it when it kicks back up is stops a couple degrees shy of the desired target.  For example, rather than go all the way back up to 68, I set it at 66.  If I’m late getting home I save a bit more.  When the metabolism is cranking sometimes I don’t even notice, and I save again.  The rest of the time I just manually move it up (and then the programming takes over again and moves it back down on the right schedule).

Thanks,
Mike

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Boilers, Furnaces | Leave a Comment »

Adjust Your Thermostat For Savings

December 8, 2010

One of the most prevalent (and maddening) myths about home heating is that turning the thermostat down at night and when you’re not home doesn’t save energy. Let me be clear – this is false.

The idea behind the myth is that once a house is warmed to the temperature choice (say 68 degrees F) it takes less energy to keep it at that temperature than it would to turn down your thermostat (in the winter) and let it cool by 10 or fifteen degrees when you go out, then reheat it when you come home later.  Likewise at night when you go to bed.  The idea is kind of like fuel conservation in your car. When you are stopping and going around town your fuel efficiency is much worse than when you are cruising on the highway.

But your house is not a car (thankfully).

The simple truth is that the amount of energy you use to heat your home is directly proportional to the difference between the indoor and outdoor temperature. We all know this intuitively – in a cold winter it costs more to heat your home to the same temperature than it does in a mild winter. So, if you let the temperature in your house drop (many suggest to 55 degrees F) while you are out of the house and sleeping in your cozy bed at night you will absolutely use less energy.  While it does take a little ‘extra’ energy to raise the temperature back up, this is less than the energy you save.  The actual savings you’ll see depend on a variety of factors, but a good rule of thumb is that you can save about 2% for every degree you lower the thermostat in the winter.

And a final word of advice – when you turn your thermostat back up don’t set it higher than the temperature you want, it won’t make your house warm up any faster and you will most likely forget to adjust it later, turning the exercise into a money-waster rather than a money-saver.

Here at GreenHomes America we usually advise customers to set back their thermostats by 10 degrees F when they are not home, or are asleep (unless you have extenuating circumstances such as an infant, ill, or elderly family members, in which case you should defer to your doctor’s advice). For the best reliability, and a toasty warm house upon waking or arriving home, a programmable thermostat can be used… more on them next time.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Heating & Cooling Tips, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Happy Customers–one of the reasons I love my job

November 9, 2010

A home performance approach allows us to really figure out what’s going on in a house.  This in turn let’s us provide real solutions that actually address people’s problems in their current homes.  The result is better, safer, and more energy-efficient homes.  And happy customers.  This is something we at GreenHomes are proud of and work very hard at to make sure it happens time and time again.  Thanks to the Murphy’s for sharing their story.

Thanks,
Mike

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Consumer Protection, Energy Audits, Furnaces, Insulation, Water Heaters / Hot Water, Windows and Doors | Leave a Comment »

New homes “can” be energy efficient–but you don’t have to buy a new home to lower your bills!

October 26, 2010

According to a NY Times article, home builders can build more efficient homes than they used to.  Go figure! 

“Rapid advances in building technologies and appliances have made it easier to build more energy-efficient homes, but builders are only just beginning to promote the savings for consumers, said Liz Verna, the president-elect of the Home Builders Association of Connecticut, and developer of the Willows, a 65-house development in Wallingford.”

Of course, they could have been building more efficient homes for decades.  Now builders and developers would like you to buy a new home to replace your less efficient home.  Sure, you can do that if you’d like to.  However, “new” doesn’t automatically mean “energy-efficient”.  We fix a lot of newer homes.  And a good assessment of your current home, combined with quality energy and money savings improvements, can make your home perform as well as most newly built homes.  This is the “home performance” approach being touted by EPA, DOE, and many state and local programs.  And the approach that’s transformed so many of our customers homes.

You don’t have to build a new home to save money!

Thanks,
Mike

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Energy Audits, Green | 1 Comment »

Solar hot water can be a smart option.

September 1, 2010

Scott Adams’ WSJ article continues to keep me thinking… in it he talks about the solar photovoltaic array he installed on his roof, and his disappointment with the results, or rather the lack thereof. According to Wikipedia, Scott lives in Pleasanton, California. If you’ve ever been to Pleasanton you’ll know that it is a fairly sunny place with a pleasant climate (perhaps why it’s called Pleasanton). A photovoltaic array probably seemed like a good idea. An even better, and less expensive, idea might have been to install a solar hot water system on the roof.

Solar hot water can be a great entree into renewable energy

Pleasanton has an average temperature of about 63 degrees Fahrenheit, which means the water that comes out of the taps is around that temperature. This is because water pipes are buried a few feet below the surface of the ground, where daily fluctuations are negligible and seasonal effects are minimal due to the insulation afforded by the soil. If you want to know the average temperature where you live, stick a thermometer in a glass of tap water (taken after the faucet has been flowing for about a minute), it should be fairly close in the lower latitudes of the continental US. If you live up north you will probably notice some seasonal effects (i.e. your tap water is a little cooler in winter and a little warmer in summer).

The upshot of this is that in Pleasanton homeowners typically use fossil fuels to heat water from ~63 degrees to the temperature of choice for clothes washing, dishwashing and showering, somewhere around 100 degrees. Solar hot water lets the sun to do some of the hard work – heating the water from 63 degrees to say, 90 degrees – and relies on fossil fuels to kick in for the final push to ~100 degrees. In this example the sun has done almost three quarters of the work, which would reduce your expenditure on water heating by almost three quarters.

Solar hot water can reduce water heating expenditure by nearly 100% in favorable regions in the summer months. In Pleasanton we would expect annual saving to be on the order of ~70 – 75% of water heating costs. Given that 14 – 25 % of energy consumed in the typical home is used to heat water, this could result in significant savings.

Of course the suitability of your house for a solar hot water system depends on many factors and only a qualified professional, such as those at GreenHomes America, can tutor you on the best options for your building. Having said that, here is a link to a quick video tutorial on solar hot water from our V.P. Mike Rogers.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Solar / Renewables, Water Heaters / Hot Water | Leave a Comment »

TV saves the day (??)

August 21, 2010

When my husband learned of my new energy-saving crusade there was just one word on his lips… television.

“Ours is so old,” he complained. “I’m sure it is eating up energy like nobody’s business. What we need is a shiny, new flat-screen TV… preferably 40 inches or larger.”

I was hesitant to agree. Our TV was a big old dinosaur, but I don’t want to encourage my family to spend more time in front of the idiot box, and wouldn’t that be the result of getting a new model?

Reluctantly, I agreed to accompany him to the electronics store, ‘just to look’ at new models. Of course we left the store with something that, while not the biggest and the best, was certainly closer to my husbands vision of a television befitting a man such as he.

In the store, I was gob smacked by his expertise. A keen interest in televisions, I have decided, comes as a standard feature of the y-chromosome. I have a Ph.D. in the sciences and I work for an energy efficiency company, I should be the expert, but here he was explaining to me the difference in energy consumption between the LED and plasma models and how the energy star rating works for televisions. Here’s what I learned…

  1. As a general rule, plasma televisions use more energy than their LCD counterparts.
  2. It is easy to be misled by TV manufacturers that boast about their energy efficiency, because they’re allowed to decide on the picture settings under which the energy use test is conducted. Of course they’re going to choose the dimmest setting as the testing mode. In reality you’re going to be watching your TV at a brighter setting.
  3. Bigger means higher energy consumption, in an approximately linear way. For example, a 32 inch LCD screen uses about half the energy the 52 inch version of the same television does, which is proportional to the area of the screen (614 square inches vs. 1,440 square inches).
  4. If you’re forgetful like me, you’ll want to buy a model that uses a very small amount of energy when turned off (stand-by mode). If you’re on top of things you’ll probably remember to unplug your electronics when they’re not in use.

If you read my last post on using my SmartMeter, you’ll know that my gas and electric company gave me the power to monitor my energy consumption on an hourly basis. By comparing the base load my house used on the nights before and after the new TV arrived I was able to figure out how much we’re saving with a new, more energy efficient TV.

Much to my husband’s delight, he was right… our old TV was an energy hog, even when it was turned off. We’ve reduced our base load by 50 Watts, which might not sound like a lot, but actually equates to about 35 kW-h each month, or close to $4/month. Not something that you’d run all the way to the bank screaming about, but sufficient excitement to warrant a good old-fashioned air punch, I think.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Electricity Use, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,374 other followers