ChooseRenewables.com - Blog

Icicles, cracks, gaps and other indicators...

2008-01-28T19:13:00.000-08:00

Americans, on average, invest more than 20% of their overall energy use in heating and cooling their homes and offices. That's thousands of gallons, cubic feet, and kilowatt hours of energy dedicated to keeping our bodies surrounded by an ambient 65-75 degrees.

Given our collective investment in comfort, the least we can do is to use that energy efficiently. As such, ChooseRenewables has identified 5 things you can do to heat/cool more efficiently. We borrowed a $15,000 thermal imaging camera so we could objectively identify inefficiencies in heating and cooling. We hope to save you the $15k by providing a few simple and readily identifiable indicators. Another option is to hire a professional to perform an energy audit of your home or office...

This post is a bit biased to those of us living in snow country. Fear not snowbirds since the same concepts apply to cooling a home.

1. Fill the cracks
Gaps and cracks in the exterior of a building allow preciously treated air to escape and wasteful warm or cool air to enter a conditioned environment.

The bright line indicates a significant amount of heat leaving my home. You can see that the surface temperature of the well-insulated siding is about 9 degrees, while the gap in the awning is over 30 degrees. Here's the indicator:

The two small dark marks in the picture indicate gaps. A closer inspection shows a clear gap between both boards. The solution - fill the gap with insulating foam like Great Stuff.

2. Close the gaps
This next one is the most embarrassing. Check out the veritable flood of energy escaping our home in near the walk-out basement.

There is so much heat escaping that it melts the snow.
Already embarrassed (and cold), I fled inside to identify the culprit of our energy loss. It didn't take long to see this glaring hole. The big indicator is the significant gap between the concrete floor and the wall. Luckily, this is a quick fix with insulating and expanding foam like Great Stuff.
I have a strong suspicion that filling that gap will also eliminate an entry-point for little critters. We'll consider that a positive by-product of saving energy!

3. Weatherstrip the windows and doors
Here's another easy one to fix. Check out the cool blue air entering our house from the garage.
It appears that the weatherstripping is doing it's job around the upper half of the door. However, we'll see some really energy savings from re-weatherstripping the bottom half of the door and installing a door sweep.

4. Insulate yourself from evil icicles
Worried about polar ice caps melting? Then you better work your magic to eliminate icicles from forming at your own home. That's right - the best indicator of heating/cooling inefficiency (i.e. cracks, gaps, and poor insulation) is ICICLES!

The bright yellow area next to the "purple" icicle indicates escaping heat. That escaping heat causes the snow to melt, which then leads to the formation of icicles.
To fix this, I need to fill the crack between those adjoining board with an insulating foam like Great Stuff. We're pretty lucky given the great insulation in our roof (we have SIP panels). For many homes, icicles will form around the entire perimeter of the home - indicating a general lack of insulation throughout the roofing membrane.

5. Close the fireplace flue
This is likely the easiest, and certainly the cheapest, activity that one can perform to eliminate heating/cooling inefficiencies. The thermal image below shows my fireplace with the flue closed and the ambient room temperature set to approximately 68 degrees (using an energy efficient programmable thermostat). The outside temp is approximately 10 degrees. The flue has been closed for at least 24 hours. As you can see, the surface temperature of the fireplace ranges from 58.2 to 71.2 degrees when the flue is closed with an average temp of 65.5 degrees. I subsequently opened the flue and took a similar photo about 75 minutes later:
After a short 75 minutes, the surface temperature range had fallen to 51.5 to 64.1 degrees - with an average of 57.8 degrees. So, by simply leaving the fireplace flue open the surface temperature dropped 7.7 degrees (or almost 12%). What a waste...

Here's our advice:

Inspect your home twice a year for cracks and gaps (once in the Spring to prepare for the cooling season, and once in the Fall to prepare for winter). Pay particularly close attention to adjoining walls/eves and trimwork. Look for any dark spots - and fill the gaps/cracks with sealant/caulking/insulating foam. We've had very good luck with Great Stuff!
Inspect your doors/windows once a year for adequate weatherstripping. We recommend doing this in the winter so you can actually feel the colder air entering around and under your door.
Rid yourself of icicles by better insulating your walls and roof. While icicles may be pretty, so are Polar Bears. And your icicles are indicative of your contribution to melting polar ice caps. Poor polar bears...
Enjoy the fireplace, but close the flue the following morning.

Reindeer Math

2007-11-27T11:17:00.000-08:00

While putting up our LED lights last night, I was joking around with Michael that it would be really funny if one could calculate the emissions of reindeer. Lo and behold, about ten minutes of searching on Google later and someone already has. According to articles published on Christmas Eve 2005, Santa’s reindeer potentially emit 40,667 metric tons of carbon dioxide during their 122 million mile trip around the world. (Technically, I think the calculators were assuming the majority of it was methane, which has 23 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.)

Maybe it’s the fact that I am a science teacher and can’t resist such a plum learning opportunity utilizing a “’real’ world” example. Or, that I’m just an EcoGeek at heart. But, I couldn’t resist trying to run the numbers for myself. How much carbon dioxide would Santa’s team emit during the trip from the North Pole to my chimney? And, what would it take to offset the trip?

First, I typed my address into Google maps and identified my latitude. (42.991068 N)
I subtracted my l latitude from 90 to calculate the distance to the North Pole. (47.008932 degrees)
Another Google search yielded the approximate number of miles per degree of latitude: 69. Multiplying my number of degrees by this gave me my distance to the north pole. (3,243.62 miles)
The articles said 122 million miles of travel produced 40,667 tones of carbon dioxide, so that is 0.000333 tons of carbon dioxide/mile. Multiply that by the number of miles. (1.08 tons of Carbon Dioxide)
The RECs that Choose Renewables sells are produced in North Dakota at a rate of 1,092 kWh eliminates 1.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or 1.10 tons offset for 1 MWh produced. Dividing the amount created by the visit to my rooftop by the 1.10 conversion factor yields the number of MWh (0.98 MWh)
Since 1 REC is roughly equivalent to 1 MWh, I would need to purchase 0.98 MWh to offset Rudolph’s journey.

Granted, this doesn’t take into account that the sleigh stops at thousands and thousands of homes before and after ours, etc., but I don’t think Santa would want us to take this TOO seriously. And, it WOULD be a great idea for practicing unit conversion with chemistry students!

I convinced Michael that he had to put something in the ChooseRenewables product line to help green Santa's Ride. Its for a generic middle-latitude, but if you want to run the numbers and buy one specific for your chimney, let us know! I know what Michael is getting in his stocking this year. Perhaps this is a new holiday tradition? Coal for the bad girls and boys, and RECs for the good ones in the Ford household.

Articles:

Official Launch of ChooseRenewables!

2007-09-19T05:01:00.000-07:00

Today is a very exciting day for all of us at ChooseRenewables. The entire time has been working tirelessly to create features and tools to excite people's interest in saving energy, promoting clean energy, and generating on-site renewable energy. Until now, we have tried to stay under the radar screen a bit - just to focus on creating the best possible user experience for our community.

That's going to change today with the formal launch of www.ChooseRenewables.com. We welcome all of our new members and look forward to providing you with leading edge renewable energy information as well as enabling you with outstanding products and services that will save you money and improve your energy impact. Today's press release is included below.

Feel free to contact me with any questions, suggestions, or thoughts.

Best,
Michael Ford
Founder and President
fordm@chooserenewables.com

ChooseRenewables.com Launches – Offers Free Custom Data and Evaluations for At-Home Wind and Solar Energy Solutions

New York Tops List of Most Renewable-Friendly Governors’ Mansions in the Nation

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- September 19, 2007 – ChooseRenewables™ today announced the launch of its Web site at www.ChooseRenewables.com, offering a one-stop destination that helps consumers understand their energy impact and take action to improve it. As global warming continues to generate headlines and energy prices escalate, consumers are increasingly seeking ways to reduce the impact of their energy use and save money. With ChooseRenewables’ free MyEnergy Analyst™ consumers receive a clear picture of their personal energy impact and can implement a simple plan to reduce it with a MyEnergy Makeover™. The one-of-a-kind MyWatts Renewables Estimator™ allows users to simply enter their address and receive a free evaluation of potential solar and wind options they may be eligible to install at their home or business.

“Our mission is to not only educate consumers, but to empower them to take action by connecting them with realistic, easy-to-implement solutions that can dramatically reduce and diversify their energy use,” said Michael Ford, founder and president of ChooseRenewables. “We encourage our customers to focus on reducing their energy use by adopting energy efficient technologies and changing their own behavior – and then use a portion of the savings reaped by energy conservation to support a clean and independent energy future through on-site renewable energy generation and other means.”

Personalized Energy Tools and Solutions
ChooseRenewables offers three main measurement tools that together offer the most comprehensive way for consumers to reduce their energy impact. They include:

• The MyEnergy Analyst helps consumers calculate the impact of their annual energy use by pooling statistics and data from the U.S. Department of Energy to measure emissions of carbon, mercury, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and total cost of energy. Once calculated, the MyEnergy Analyst breaks down the energy impact at home, while driving, and while flying and compares the consumer’s impact to that of the average individual with a similarly-sized home in their region.

• Users can then create and implement a MyEnergy Makeover to reduce their energy use through conservation, offsets or generation of renewable energy. ChooseRenewables encourages its customers to implement energy saving technology and behavior, and then use a portion of those dollar savings to fund their commitment to renewable energy.

• ChooseRenewables’ exclusive MyWatts Renewables Estimator allows users to enter their home or business address and instantly see their on-site wind and solar power potential. The tool provides an estimated payback period for a wind turbine or solar installation based on the magnitude of wind and solar incentives available to them, combined with the average wind speed, solar radiation, state and federal incentives and current electricity cost at that location. An algorithm then examines the viability of an on-site wind or solar power installation, and within seconds provides an intelligent display of the on-site solar and wind power potential coupled with a detailed Google Earth map of the physical location. The tool uses data published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to estimate the average wind speed and solar radiation.

The U.S. market for small wind solutions is estimated to continue growing at a 14-25% annual rate , with solar solutions forecasted to grow 27-32% per year . For consumers with a good site for wind or solar energy generation, ChooseRenewables offers a detailed analysis of their options based on local market data and site-specific wind speed data to arm them with the information they need to make a sound renewable energy investment.
If consumers discover they have limited wind and solar options for their home, the ChooseRenewables Online Store also offers a variety of products and services to help homeowners conserve as much energy as possible, including an energy conservation kit that contains compact florescent light bulbs, insulation and gap fillers, low-flow shower heads and a programmable thermostat.

ChooseRenewables also provides options to help consumers offset their conventional energy use through renewable energy credits (RECs). By purchasing RECs, consumers can displace other non-renewable sources from the electric grid.

Top Renewable-Friendly Governors’ Mansions
In conjunction with the site’s launch, ChooseRenewables also announced the 10 most renewable-friendly Governors’ Mansions in the country based on analysis using the MyWatts Renewables Estimator. The New York Governors’ Mansion, home of Governor Eliot Spitzer, tops the list with the most affordable on-site wind and solar power potential in the nation. The Governor's Mansion in Honolulu, HI, home of Governor Linda Lingle, also makes the top 10 with potential for both wind and solar solutions. Other homes that top the list include:

Most Wind Power-Friendly Governor’s Mansions:
1. New York Governor’s Mansion, Albany, NY
2. Hawaii Governor’s Mansion, Honolulu, HI
3. Illinois Governor’s Mansion, Springfield, IL
4. Massachusetts Governor’s Mansion, Boston, MA
5. North Dakota Governor’s Mansion, Bismarck, ND
6. Ohio Governor’s Mansion, Columbus, OH
7. Iowa Governor’s Mansion, Des Moines, IA
8. Rhode Island Governor’s Mansion, Providence, RI
9. Oklahoma Governor’s Mansion, Oklahoma City, OK
10. Kansas Governor’s Mansion, Topeka, KS

Most Solar Power-Friendly Governor’s Mansions:
1. New York Governor’s Mansion, Albany, NY
2. Connecticut Governor’s Mansion, Hartford, CT
3. Delaware Governor’s Mansion, Dover, DE
4. Arizona Governor’s Mansion, Phoenix, AZ
5. Florida Governor’s Mansion, Tallahassee, FL
6. Colorado Governor’s Mansion, Denver, CO
7. New Jersey Governor’s Mansion, Princeton, NJ
8. California Governor’s Mansion, Sacramento, CA
9. Hawaii Governor’s Mansion, Honolulu, HI
10. Nevada Governor’s Mansion, Carson City, NV

According to the MyWatts Renewables Estimator, if Governor Spitzer were to install a 3kW wind turbine at the Governor’s Mansion in Albany, NY, he could receive a $12,000 state incentive, which would cover nearly two-thirds of the total cost. If he installed a 3kW solar panel, he could receive up to $17,000 in state and federal incentives covering well more than 60% of the total installed cost. ChooseRenewables estimates that a 3kW wind turbine or solar panel could provide Governor Spitzer’s residence with 2,500 to 3,500 kWh per year of renewable energy for the next twenty years.

Wind and solar incentives are distributed on both a state and federal level and are designed to encourage home and business-owners to install renewable energy solutions. They vary greatly by state, city or even neighborhood. ChooseRenewables gathers data on a national and local level to determine the viability of on-site wind or solar solutions for any location.

About ChooseRenewables
Choose Renewables, LLC, is a leading provider of renewable energy content and commerce via the World Wide Web. The company is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and strives to promote a clean and independent energy future by enabling individuals, organizations, and communities to save energy, support clean energy, and generate their own renewable energy.

CFL: Skeptic Turned Advocate

2007-06-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

I will be the first to tell you that I had no intentions of buying compact fluorescent light bulbs (CLF) for my house. They were expensive! I purchase the cheapest incandescent lights I can find and they work fine.

I had a co-worker who went through his house and replaced all the bulbs. My first thought is what a nut! Does he realize how much money he has just spent?! He continued to try and convince me these actions will impact the environment, while it is important to me; it is not necessarily something I was going to run out and pay a bunch of extra money for. I thought maybe as my incandescent lights burnt out I would try a CFL.

After trying to sell me on this idea he started talking about the cost implications if I changed out just 5 of my most used bulbs it would have an impact on my electricity bill. Now he was talking about something I could understand, saving money! I went out and bought the cheapest CFL’s I could find because of course I didn’t want to spend much money. I hated them. You flipped the switch on and there was a delay, the color made everything look blue, and I instantly thought, I was right these things not only cost more but are terrible!! I am going back to my cheap incandescent bulbs.

After going back to my co-worker and telling him of my experience we decided to do a little experiment. We bought all the different brands of CFL’s we could find. During the testing we found lights that buzzed, lighting was weird colors, and there was a delay in the start of some bulbs, as well as some had to warm up to reach full strength. End result not all CFL’s are created equal! We did identify one bulb that was far superior that all others. It is not available in most retail stores and is a little higher in cost however the lighting was great, no delay, and you can’t tell you are not using an incandescent bulb except for the fact that you are using a fraction of the wattage and saving money. I changed out my 5 most used bulbs and my electricity bill went down $10 a month!!! The change paid for itself in 2 months.

I am not only sold on these bulbs but have suggested them to all my friends and family. Just remember not all bulbs are created equal. Ours are far superior to the others. Try them and you will not only love the light but also the savings!!

Jessica Lehti
Sales and Marketing