While attending a local event for home performance contractors recently, one subject popped up in two separate conversations that I have been thinking about for awhile now and would like to open up for comment: Time of Sale Energy Labeling of Homes. This is the practice of having a mandatory energy rating or audit done of [...]
Archive for category energy efficiency
Here’s a good article and graphic from Fine Homebuilding by Martin Holladay, Senior Editor of GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. It outlines a 10 step program that’s guaranteed to reduce your utility costs. It’s along the lines of the page found on this site, but includes a pyramid shaped graphic that’s kinda cool. As always the first step is a [...]
Here’s a great graphic of the impact that the 285,000,000 new computers that will be sold this year will have on the environment. For instance, the fossil fuels required to manufacture those computers will be more than the annual consumption by the entire state of Iowa. The water required could fill 65 olympic sized swimming [...]
Catherine Mohr is a self admitted geek. An organic food eating, carbon footprint minimilizing, robotic surgery geek. She also wants to build her house green but is supicious of all the well meaning but ultimately materials focused “go green” articles in the media. I don’t claim to agree with everything she says, but I love the presentation [...]
“The American way is to invent our future, to seize control of our destiny.” “Innovation is the essence of American economic strength.” So states the introduction to a report released by the American Energy Innovation Council. A group made up of some of the greatest business leaders in our country with the mission to foster [...]
The last post in this series discussed the benefits of a comprehensive energy audit as a starting point for any serious energy improvements. Not only will the information gathered assist in putting together an effective game plan, it will be required for most incentive programs including SMUD‘s Home Performance Program and Home Star. The [...]
Efficiency First is reporting this afternoon that the HomeStar legislation which would provide incentives for home energy retrofit projects passed the U.S. House of Representatives today with bipartisan support. The HomeStar Energy Retrofit Act of 2010 (H.R. 5019) passed with a vote of 246-161. Though this is a major milestone for this legislation and the [...]
In an assembly where components have different R-values, thermal bridging occurs when the component with the lower R-value spans from the inside surface to the outside. A wood framed wall is a perfect example of this. The studs have an R of 1.0 per inch of thickness, compared to fiberglass batt insulation at 3.5 R [...]
There have been a lot of marketing dollars spent promoting the advantages of tankless water heaters, but little attention given to the issues that could reduce those advantages. In the last couple of posts in this series, we examined a number of important issues any homeowner needs to weigh before deciding to replace their existing [...]
In the last post we examined tha actual efficiencies of tankless waterheaters apart from the industry claims. We discussed the high upfront cost against the actual savings in dollars. A couple of other issues to keep in mind if considering going tankless: “Cold Water Sandwich” Imagine a common situation we have all experienced. You turn [...]
Tankless or on-demand waterheaters have been enjoying a rising popularity for a number of years now. During my years of custom homebuilding they were considered a must have feature for a number of reasons. They are purported to save energy over a standard storage type waterheater because you aren’t paying for the standbuy losses of heating a tank [...]
Before I weigh in on the question of windows and energy efficiency, let me first say that there are plenty of great reasons to upgrade your windows. Aesthetics would be high on the list, along with improved function and definitely resale value. It’s a no-brainer that all things being equal, you would choose house A [...]
