Energy Tip- Light The Natural Way

In the past I have written about using CFL or LED lighting for your home. Well there is another solution to lighting your home and guess what, its free! Before the widespread use of electric lighting architecs and builders constructed buildings to take advantage of natural light. Well this way of thinking and building has gone by the wayside and in its place we want homes that are pretty and people seem to not worry so much about effeciency and lighting (at least until we open our utility bills anyway).

What can natural daylight do for you and your home? Natural lighting will not cost you anything in utility bills for one, but sunlight also help aid in relaxation and happiness and helps reduce seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as the winter blues. Natural daylight has also been proven to improve students test scores, double retail sales in stores, and boost factory workers productivity.

What will it do for our planet? If we all reduced our electric lighting in our homes by 25%, natural daylight could save enough energy to power 17 million homes a year. WOW!!!! 

Who do you call? Here in Kansas City we have one of the best daylighters in the business. Sam Kane with Solar Solutions can install a tubular skylight and bring in the natural daylight for you and your family. Sam and his crew have great knowledge and look at each home on an individual basis to determine where natural lighting would best be served. They can install one tube if you would like and build onto it from there. To get in contact with Sam visit their website at http://daylightkc.com/. They also have some other great products available.

Check out the two photos below of a before and after shot that Sam and his gang took on one of there jobs. Please feel free to pass this along to others and let me know if you have any energy or green tips to pass my way.

Thanks

James Gallet



Before Natural Daylight




After Natural Daylight

 

Comfort Tip- Mini Split A/C & Heat Pumps

What is a Mini Split? Well if you have ever traveled to Europe or Asia (I have not but have had a good customer and friend of mine inform me of this) you have probably had your hotel room or living quarters heating and cooled with this type of system. I know that most Asian areas have very limited amounts of space, therefore this system is perfect for tight areas with little or no space outside or on the ground. If you are not into traveling abroad, here in the US the mini split systems are catching on due to their high energy efficiency and also for space conditioning of hard to heat rooms, rooms with no access to duct work, room additions, attics and spot heating and cooling.

Fujitsu Outdoor Heat pump Unit

Did you know that as much as half of the energy used in our homes and offices are for heating and cooling purposes? Out of that we lose up to 30% of the efficiency in a standard heating and cooling system through leaky duct work, improperly sized or improperly installed equipment. The top of the line air conditioning units today being installed are rated at 16-18SEER, I like to compare SEER (or Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating) to miles per gallon on a car. The higher the SEER the better your MPG or utility usage is. The Mini-Split systems can achieve upwards of 26 SEER.....WOW!

The most common type of Mini Split that we install are the wall hung heat pump models. There is no duct work for this system and it will heat as well as cool. We have grown to love the quietness, ease of installation and operation of the Fujitsu brand systems. Some of the jobs in which we have installed the Mini Split systems are room additions, sun rooms (formerly a screened in porch), upstairs master suites, computer server rooms, finished basements with no duct work access, master bedroom additions and office spaces.

If you would like to see a video of one of our installs please visit the Envirotech Youtube page. I will be posting a newer installation in the coming months of a job we are doing now that is under construction. We are installing two outdoor units with five indoor units, so what that means is there are two heat pumps outside and a total of five indoor spaces with their own independent temperature controls. You can also view some photo's of the installs on the Envirotech Facebook page.

Please call me if you have any questions, comments or energy savings tips.

Thanks

James Gallet

Energy Tip-"Seal Your Ducts"

Right now we (Envirotech) are in the middle of our air conditioning clean and tune season. We are in several homes and businesses each day getting their systems ready for the summer heat, if it ever shows up. One item that we look at as part of your comfort system clean and tune is your ductwork. The ductwork can be overlooked by many as I know that homeowners pay no attention to it, in fact they would probably prefer not to have it at all. The ductwork serves a crucial role in delivering the proper amount of cool air in the summer and the warm air to our living spaces in the winter. When new ductwork is installed there are certain items that need look at to determine sizing, location and length. Unfortunately most ductwork installed is not sealed so this is something that has to be done after it is already hung.

This is Really Bad Ductwork!

A typical home contains about 180 linear feet of duct work. Nearly 30% of a home's conditioned air leaks out of these ducts, wasting energy in the process. Sealing the ducts will save you a significant amount of energy and money and also improves the indoor air quality in a home. Ducts accumulate more than 40lbs of household dust each year. Leaky ducts spread that dusty air throughout the home, while sealed ducts deliver cleaner and better air.

Your home might have leaky or bad ductwork if you experience high utility bills, if you have stuffy rooms that never seem to be comfortable, if you have rooms in your home that are difficult to heat and cool or if you experience alot of dust problems. If you look at your homes ductwork and see dirt streaks or lines at a seam or joint, this is a leak.

If you have leaks in your ductwork you can seal them yourself using a mastic seal or metal tape. The old grey duct tape wont due the trick, it tends to dry up over a few years and peel off. We can also provide this service for you if you would like. If your ductwork is located in an attic or crawlspace, it not only needs to be sealed (so you are not heating your attic in the winter and cooling it in the summer) but it also needs to be insulated. In our climate if your ductwork is located in a basement or within the conditioned space it can typically just be sealed and not insulated.

If you have questions on this please give me a call and I will happily answer them.

Thanks and have a great day!

James Gallet

Green Tip "Toilet Water"

This weekend we got the opportunity to enjoy some fantastic weather, it was a reminder that spring is almost here. I enjoy this time of year when everything is blooming, the sun shines into the evening, grass turns from brown to green and the kids get to burn off their energy outside.

One thing that I do not look forward to about spring and summer, at our home, is the higher demand for water. This not only causes our water bills to go up, it also makes me feel a bit guilty of the waste that seems to take place at times. The increase in water use is due to watering flowers, watering areas of the lawn, the kids 4H project animals and so on.

Last spring I installed a rain barrel and this really helped cut down on some of our water use. But the rain

barrel basically got shut down over the winter in fear of it freezing and causing downspout freeze issues. So during the winter months the rain barrel was no help to me and my water consumption efforts.

I recently ran across a few articles on what you can do to save or conserve water inside your home and found one that talked about toilets. Did you know that most toilets in the US will use over 3.5 gallons of water per flush? There are however some low flow toilets in some of our homes however they still use almost 2 gallons per flush. On average toilets account for 26% of your homes water usage, WOW! 

So what can you do to help? Well one thing you could do is install a dual flush toilet. A dual flush toilet has two flush buttons, you push the #1 button if you go #1, which uses very little water, or if you go #2 then press button #2 which uses more water (for obvious reasons). This option would require you to replace your current toilet.

Another option is to adjust your tanks fill level by either adjusting the float inside your tank or using what I am recommending which is an empty one gallon milk container or two liter pop bottle. What you do here is fill the empty container with a few rocks or sand and then fill it the rest of the way with water (preferably water from your rain barrel). You then take the tank lid off of your toilet's tank (the tank is the upper part of the toilet where your flush handle is located) and place the container in the tank. Make sure that you place the container as far away from the valve or any moving parts as you can. You will need to flush the toilet to get the water to run out of it in order to get the container in without making a big wet mess. The container should sit up by itself and should not interfer with any of the moving parts inside the tank. After you verify that it is in a good upright place, put the lid back on. You now saved yourself almost a gallon of water per flush. Add that up and in a weeks time and that could be several hundreds of gallons saved!

The photo above shows what a one gallon milk jug looks like inside one of our toilets at our office. Just a quick note is to make sure your container fits into the tank before you place it in there. One of our toilets at the office would not allow a one gallon milk jug to fit without interfering with the float assembly so I had to use a two liter pop container. 

Please share this with others and share any of your "Green Tips" or ideas with me.

James 

Cool New Management Device- Ecobee T-Stat

Here is a question for the ladies reading this: Have you ever left the house and wondered if you left your curling irons plugged in, the clothes iron plugged in or the stove still on? More than likely you answered yes to all of the above. In the past, I know that my wife has done this, heck we have even pulled back into the driveway a time or two so she can go check these items.

Today, I cant help you with the curling iron, iron or stove issue, but what I can help you with is the other question that people ask themselves when they either go out of town or just leave for the day. What is the thermostat set at?

I know a lot of people own setback thermostats that change the temperature in their homes at certain times of the day, but lets face it our schedules are constantly changing. I encourage you to use this setback feature on your thermostat, if you have one that allows this, and you will save money on your utility bills. In reality most of the setback thermostats are set to HOLD, which means it is just set at a certain temperature and left there. So today I want to introduce you to an even cooler, more up to date way to control your homes temperature from anywhere in the country.

I recently installed an Ecobee thermostat at my home as a way of trying it before we offer them to our customers. We love it! The Ecobee smart thermostat is by far one of the coolest new thermostats I have seen. This thermostat is Internet based and can be controlled remotely from anywhere you have Internet access. It also works with you iPhone or Android using the Ecobee App. I have been meaning to write about this new thermostat for a while and we have been testing ours so I could give you some great feedback and answer questions if you had any. Well my buddy, Daniel Sinclair down in Lubbock, Texas beat me to it. He blogged about this last week so now I am sure I will have to hear from him about me being a follower, instead of the leader (just kidding Dan).

The Ecobee thermostat is a WIFI enabled thermostat that has tons of features on it. You can operate this thermostat on your phone just like when you are at home and there are no additional monthly fees for this service! The photo above is my lovely bride controlling our home thermostat from here I-Phone. Pretty Cool, Right? Also you can setup a program for your home comfort system from any computer on the Ecobee website. Another really neat feature about this thermostat is that you can look at reports that show everything you would ever want to know about your home comfort system and thermostat. You can see run times, temperature fluctuations, humidity levels, and be alerted (by email) when something is wrong or needs attention.

One of the coolest things that I personally like is the weather button on the thermostat. I can walk up to my thermostat and see what the current weather condition is outside or I can push the weather button and get a 7-day extended forecast. So if I miss the news and don't see the weather report I just walk a few feet and push a button and there it is.

For the commercial customers, if you own several different businesses or one business, you can access this thermostat at any time! You can set temperature limits and even lock out the thermostat (passwords can be enabled) if you want. This can help you save money with your energy bills and know that you still have some control over what happens at your business.

This thermostat has so much more to offer with the phone applications, web portal, and reporting.

If you have any questions about this Ecobee thermostat you can either visit their website or give me a call.

You can also view Daniels blog site for more information. 

Make it a great day!

James Gallet

Energy Tip-Window Coverings

Do you ever get drug into the middle of an arguement or discussion between two friends? Well last week I got drug right into the middle of a discussion between some friends my family.

They were discussing if they should leave their blinds open in the winter to let some sunlight (heat) in or closed to keep the cold out. That is a really good question and if you do some research you will get different answers I am sure. Well I shared with them my "green" opinion, which was to open their South facing blinds in the day time and close them at night.

Well this ended up not being my buddies opinion, but rather that of his cute wife (so another win for the girls). I hated to take a side in this discussion and hope that just because my advice was not the one my buddy wanted to hear he wont write me off as a friend (haha).

There are several different window coverings out there and alot of the newer blinds and drapes actually seal off pretty tight to reduce drafts. The heat that you will gain through the glass during a sunny day will offset any heat that you may lose through the glass or window from the blinds being open. Of course if you have bad windows or leaky window frames then you may want to purchase a few tubes of silicone or caulk to cut down on the drafts around the window seals or even have the window replaced.

So my suggestions are:

1. Make sure your windows are not excessively leaky, if they are leaky you can do wonders with a couple tubes of caulk or call me and I will get you the name of a company that we refer for window replacements.

2. On Sunny winter days open the south facing blinds and use that big ball of energy in the sky for some free heat. This also gives you free room lighting and will lower the need for lights to be on in those rooms.

3. Close your blinds at night to add some extra insulation value to your windows.

If you have any green ideas or tips please share them with me.

Thanks

James

Green Tip-Electric Cars Are They Really Coming?

One of my favorite commercials on TV right now is the latest one that Nissan has rolled out. In this commercial it shows a polar bear (Aggie is the actual bears name in the video) sitting on a melting ice berg. Aggie then swims to shore, walks through town and goes up to a guy getting out of his new Nissan Leaf, an all electric car Nissan is manufacturing, and gives him a big hug. This commercial in my opinion is creative and also makes me think about My global footprint. The commercial also seems more realistic since we recently witnessed one of the largest oil spills or "oil gushes" in history. The images of the wildlife, beaches and businesses that suffered from the "oil gush" was horrible.

Well I do not know if electric cars are going to take over and replace the gasoline vehicles we drive today, but I do know that there is a lot of talk going on and Nissan is not the only player in the game. Electric cars are not a new idea by any means, in fact back in the early 90's California had a program going with GM and there were thousands of these cars on the roads. Where did they go? Well I am not sure but there is a real interesting documentary called "Who Killed the Electric Car". I have not found or seen any videos that represent any other opinions on what happened to the electric car program in California, so until something surfaces you will just have to draw your own opinion. If you don't want to watch the full 2hr version of the documentary, you can view a short portion of the video by clicking on this link: Who Killed The Electric Car, Youtube 

The negatives about the Electric cars, from what I have found has been the batteries and ability to charge the vehicles. A few weeks ago I attended a networking breakfast and ran into a guy who is with Lily Pad EV. Lily Pad is a distributor of Coulomb Electric Vehicle Charging Stations, they sale and install the charging systems that actually keep the electric cars going. Lily Pad has charging units that range in the ability to be mounted in your homes garage for a single vehicle, charging units that can be mounted at an office for multiple vehicles and also charging units that would have the ability to do a quick charge, just like we fill up our cars today. You can view their products on their website at LilyPad EV

So are electric cars really coming? Only time will tell, but for the sake of Aggie I sure hope they do.

If you have any energy or green tips you would like to share, please send them my way.

Thanks and have a great day,

James Gallet
Envirotech