Helios at Home

Green Heating System on a Tight Budget

2010-11-15T07:23:00.002-05:00

This week we're retrofitting a very green heating system in a former summer cottage. Unico high-velocity low volume air duct system, low-mass Biasi boiler with Riello burner, flat plate high-efficiency heat exchanger for domestic hot water. The overall efficiency of the system should be in the very high 80s, and the best part? Our bid came in lower than another company's proposal to install a conventional hot air furnace. Green doesn't mean an arm and a leg. And it pays dividends for a long, long time.

Connecticut Clean Energy Fund Shifts Focus

2010-11-06T16:29:00.001-04:00

The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, a utility-funded quasi-public fund administered by the State of CT, has refocused its funding initiatives away from residential photovoltaic subsidies.
All forms of commercial and industrial on-site co-generation, including wind, hydro, PV, and solar thermal, are being subsidized by grants already funded in the amount of 12.86 million dollars. Any project projected to yield more than 10,000 watts of peak power qualifies.
Subsidies are also available, at reduced rates, for residential PV installations up to 5,000 watts peak, when installed by "eligible" contractors.
The good news is that solar hot water subsidies, which do apply to residential consumers, have been increased by 60% and funded through March 2012. That's actually the bargain of the month from subsidies, as solar hot water in CT has a typical payback of 5-6 years, much more attractive than a 12-14 year payback on PV purchases and 20 year leases.
Adding up federal tax incentives, state tax incentives and Clean Energy subsidies, solar hot water is a fabulous deal, yielding solar hot water covering app. 75% of yearly costs for about one third the total installed cost of the system. If this appeals to you, even as we move toward colder weather in CT (my panels were cooking over 100 degrees all day, pre-heating my 80 gallons of storage), leave a comment or contact me.

Solar Panels not Historic--- Duh.

2010-10-30T11:07:00.004-04:00

The link accesses a New London Day article covering a Ledyard Zoning Commission meeting in which PV panels recently installed on the roofs of Town Hall and the Bill Public Library were described as "ugly" and as having no place in a historic New England Village. May the day never come, but PV naysayers in Ledyard are presumably not ready to return to candles and privies, are they? No. Thought not.
An interesting contrast appears when we examine Europe's PV co-generating industry, actively supported by governments and utilities, in which panels are being installed on the roofs of buildings MUCH older than Ledyard Town Hall and Bill Library, with no objections from architectural purists.

Britain's Prince Charles exhorts owners of historic buildings in UK to refit them with energy features that make the buildings more liveable and energy-efficient, including roof panels.
A German study finds historic buildings apt candidates for energy retrofits and the mounting of panels, particularly flat roof PVs, and indeed, much of the architecture of Europe is older, but not likely to be torn down in favor of more modern, PV-friendly design.
Even the Vatican has installed an experimental PV array on one of their buildings, and advocates more energy equipment on Vatican rooftops, excepting possibly St. Peter's Cathedral. I can see the point.
Few New England historic buildings retain their original cedar shingle roofs, and thatch never really caught on in the Colonies, for some reason. What we find on Town Halls and other public historic buildings is mostly modern asphalt shingles put there not to look good but to keep rain and wind out. We've gotten used to these modern roof coverings, and they're now considered not jarring to historic sensibilities.
In time, we'll come to view PV arrays as acceptable aesthetic on our Town Halls, and indeed, concerned citizens will learn to expect such energy-saving features as signs of good stewardship from town officials and echoes of New England frugality, another historic value that could stand a revival.

New Rebates Make Solar Hot Water Attractive

2010-10-14T08:19:00.003-04:00

Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, a state-run and utility funded agency to promote the advance of renewable energy in CT, has increased rebate rates for solar hot water, in some cases as much as 60%. At $275 per thousand BTU per day, a two panel system with adequate tanks, connected to your existing hot water system, might yield a rebate of as much as 5500 dollars, over half the cost of the system. Add in federal tax incentives, and you get renewable, clean energy for about a third of the market cost, and a resulting payback under five years. The system I installed at our house has yielded free hot water from march to october, and will pre-heat hot water to save us money all winter. if you're interested, give us a comment or a message. And a "like," too, while you're at it.See More

Solar Energy Primer - Someday You'll Need This

2010-10-07T13:08:00.001-04:00

The links in this post will connect you fundamental data about solar power. If you're still a solar skeptic, or a climate change skeptic, don't make the mistake of closing your ears to the information that might open the topic up for you. To be skeptical is human; to be closed-minded is fatal. Some, like this vendor site, link to other sites that can help. Others, like this one from National Geographic, are very general and cover technologies not available to ordinary people like us. But all in all, it's better to know a bit about everything, if you can.

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/solar-power-profile.html

http://www.energy.gov/energysources/solar.htm

http://www.makeitsolar.com/solar-energy-information/

http://www.facts-about-solar-energy.com/ thanks for checking in.... let's keep the learning curve on the rise.....

DIY Network Sifts Your Green Options

2010-10-07T09:58:00.002-04:00

Whether you are a realtor, contractor or homeowner, the learning curve is essential, and the people at the DIY network look like good interpreters of the dizzying galaxy of options. The "Green" building movement is already full of grinning hucksters, and the consumer cannot safely pursue energy independence without a big self-education learning curve. Sorry. Or you could just follow my page. The Do It Yourself movement has become a tremendous resource for beta-testing self-styled green products and features in modern homes. Linked below, a list of green ideas is evaluated by DIY enthusiasts on a new TV show, This New House.

Rainwater for Irrigation and Emergencies

2010-09-30T08:06:00.003-04:00

The device in the photo is the legendary rain barrel of song and story, and it's staging a comeback in conservation circles. Is your water metered? do you use that water to irrigate vegetable and ornamental plants? wash the car? wash the dog?
In the rain-starved American midwest, the rain barrel was used for many purposes, including emergency potable water. We don't recommend any potable uses of collected rainwater, but we invite you to calculate the savings and independence of having 50-100 gallons of water at your disposal all the time to supply outdoor and bulk needs. If you're chlorinating your pool, this water can be used. If you're watering your plants, perfect. If you're cleaning off muddy boots, go ahead.
The movement to revive the use of collected rainwater will gain momentum as groundwater becomes more scarce and less pure. And whatever you're paying per cubic foot for the municipal water supply, this water is free, and it's rather clean, and it's soft (minerally speaking). There's a national association at this link.
Observe safety precautions, please. Keep the lid secured, don't let the kids drink out of it or dance on the cover, and if it freezes in your climate, drain before winter sets in.

Passive Solar Gain From South Facing Windows

2010-09-19T09:33:00.004-04:00

Sunset through dirty windows, as shown at left, is beautiful. But it's not efficient. Clean your windows, at least the south and west facing windows, and pull those drapes aside to let more sunight in, especially now while outside temperatures are moderate and the sun is still high and able to deliver comforting heat to your home.
You don't have to mortgage your house to get into the passive solar game. Figure out which windows in your house, if you haven't already noticed, get the most sun, and put them to work for you. If you're having trouble locating the most solar-friendly windows, follow your cat around one day. Modest-sized south facing windows can transmit as much as 15% of the house's heat load, depending upon many factors, results will certainly vary. But the gain is always in the positive, and it doesn't cost you anything but a little thoughtful planning.
You can, of course, spend thousands of dollars replacing all the windows in your house with low emissivity argon barrier double glazed windows. And if you want to, go ahead. But if your budget doesn't allow for that, substitute your brain for your credit cards and get those south facing windows working for you. When it's colder, and here in New England it certainly will get colder as the year wanes, we'll check in again and give you some additional strategies for covering those windows at night after they've worked for you all day. Be careful washing those second floor windows, please.

Green Builder Shares Wisdom

2010-09-15T07:55:00.002-04:00

Attended an open house/ green building discussion at 419 Norwich Road in Salem CT yesterday. Jim Pepitone, green builder, showed off the distinctive features of the home, his second in this area, for sale at 359,000 on 4 acres of land. The link below is his first green project in the area, a few miles away in Montville.... The takeaway for this short post is: green features raise the price of a building by a smaller fraction than anyone would think, in this case about 10% overall. We'll revisit this topic and point out things builders can do to inch toward energy-efficient building in a very conservative industry.

Point of Use Hot Water Heaters

2010-09-14T08:38:00.003-04:00

We solar contractors generally disparage electric tank water heaters, except when used for solar storage. But sooner or later, solar is going to let you down, in cloudy weather or when it's very cold, and you'll need hot water for dishes, hands, cleaning and filling the pasta pot (who wants to wait for that cold water to boil?).
Whatever backup system you use to close the gap between solar and the American lifestyle, it has to be available all the time, not dependent upon the solar equipment at all, and capable of supplying your assessed need for hot water until the sun replenishes your tanks.
Consider putting a little tank of electrically heated water under your kitchen sink. Two, three, five gallons of water, kept hot all the time (you can have a switch if you can plan those solar outages an hour in advance), ready to fill a pot, wash your hands, feed the dishwasher (yes, the dishwasher has a heater, but it lengthens the cycle by about an hour waiting for it), and even draw a mug of water for tea, almost hot enough to brew the leaves, can be had for the price of some electric power and an upfront cost ranging from $500 to $1000 US. How long will it take you to pay that investment off? Not sure that's the right question.
What you're buying with your money is convenience. It's not easy to calculate a payback on that. If you're able, by means of two or so installed point of use heaters, to turn off your backup, whether it was a gas fired boiler, oil fired tank, or big electric tank, you may save enough energy from that idle system to give yourself a payback on the point of use heaters. But showers and laundry are not served by these relatively tiny devices, and you may need to use your backup hot water source just to keep those important services going. Go ahead. Tell me you wash all your clothes in cold water, all the time. Ok; I believe you. I don't; and I don't recommend it, unless you dry them thoroughly at rather high temperature. Don't make the world a better place for all those bacteria, allergens and dust mites you want to remove from your clothes. Do you think you're making them dizzy in the spin cycle?
For houses with multiple baths, long piping runs, and several occcupants, point of use water heaters can be a real convenience and an energy saver. I say if your hot water source is less than thirty feet from your faucets, tank insulation and a timer are your best tactics. You can decide whether a significant upfront investment and the privilege of turning off your backup source for the day balance for you economically and energy-wise.

Fuses and Breakers and Meters, Oh, My

2010-09-12T21:18:00.002-04:00

The mess at left may not actually be so bad, but it could have been neater. Your electrical service, from the rooftop attachment (weatherhead) to the bottom of the breaker (or fuse) panel, is a critical and expensive part of your house infrastructure. It isn't beautiful, but it's important.
Keeping this system clean, dry and free of rust is worth paying some attention to. Ensuring that the service is grounded, either to a buried water pipe or to driven rods, is vital to your safety.
If you have an old fuse panel, do not despair. Fuses are in disfavor with inspectors and insurance companies, but fuses are not intrinsically inferior to breakers. They do tend to be older and more liable to fail, though.
Here's a link to a site that gives the dope on panels, grounding, meters and upgrades. Please take a look and cast a critical eye on that grey box outside your house, along with any suspicious wiring. If you see anything you don't like, take a photo and send me a comment.

Generators for Peace of Mind

2010-09-09T13:28:00.002-04:00

The generator in the photo is probably larger than you need to run your house, and it also probably costs more than a nice car. But you can rent one like that, for a reasonable fee, and have it hauled to your house/office/business after an event to supply temporary power. At home, though, a smaller, portable generator can keep the American convenience level high while you wait for the power to be restored after a storm or accidental event. Generators are stocked at your local home store (Orange front, Red and Black front) for as little as 250 US most of the year. But taking that power plant home and connecting it to your house is more involved and requires research and planning.
Connecticut Light and Power requires that portable home generators be connected to your house in compliance with the National Electric Code and its own guidelines . That means a licensed guy like me has to do the work, and the equipment has to be UL listed and approved for the purpose. The importance of all this regulatory protocol is that people die from home generator use and misuse almost as often as they die from disasters.
Major hazards are: Carbon monoxide, emitted in generator exhaust, collects in closed areas seeps down stairs into other areas, and kills people. In the 2006 storm season too many people died after the floods receded because of generator misuse. After carbon monoxide comes electrical shock caused by improper hookups in the presence of water. Electricity and water kill when mingled. And another, no less important hazard from home generators is called "islanding ," when generators feed back to the grid through home distribution panels and ad hoc hookups and send power to the transmission lines. Line workers are endangered by islanding, and there have been too many fatalities. It's hard for linepersons to guard against some joker starting up a generator while they're working on a pole. And other homeowners or licensed electricians are also endangered by islanding when work is being done on wiring in storm-damaged homes.
How big a generator do you need? To operate everything in a typical modern American home (air conditioning, cooking, lights, hot water, computers, television, etc.) a round figure would be 10 kw. That's 10,000 watts. You might do ok with 8 kw.
You might also be fine with a smaller generator and some awareness about what loads you're using at any one time. With shrewd load management I can run my house on my 5 kw generator, the same one I use to power remote or as yet unconnected construction jobs. We do fine that way. But we have to think about it.
You can have a generator, and you don't HAVE to hook it up to your house wiring. You can run extension cords to selected loads (fridge, microwave, space heater) and get by ok. And it will be safer. That's your most cost-effective route, but it's inconvenient, and probably un-American.

Heating Oil Prices Minus Politics

2010-09-07T13:50:00.002-04:00

This link is to an online trading chart describing the expected arc of fuel oil prices through December of 2010. Some of you who burn home heating oil have already bought, at rates from $2.oo US to $2.30 US. And you did well. What you can expect, according to the futures price charts, is steadily rising prices on wholesale fuel oil through December, topping out at about $2.30. Notice I said wholesale.
You will actually pay retail, which will range from 10% to 40% over wholesale. The difference pays for your oil company to operate trucks, pay licensing and insurance fees, make payroll, prebuy wholesale lots at the terminal (big tanks, usually near railroads or water ports), and make a living.
Notice I said 10% to 40%. Quite a range. So-called full service oil companies keep technicians in house to repair customers' equipment. They often claim they operate this team at a loss or at break-even. Your oil will cost more because you are paying for "good service." So-called "Discount" oil companies do not maintain service teams, or perhaps they train their drivers to perform simple repairs, and you can't get them at midnight on New Year's Eve. And you pay less for your oil. The fact is that many companies struggle to make ends meet on the "discount" model, and the most successful oil companies in our corner of Connecticut are those that maintain service teams. And they charge more for their oil.
You have another option. There are lots of companies: say mine, for instance, which sell no oil, only service. We work hard to keep customers' equipment running year-round, and you can get at least some of us on New Year's. I was out on Christmas Day last year, but it was only two hours, then back home to dinner. I don't run my service operation at a loss, and my rates are competitive with those of the "full service" oil companies. Curious, wouldn't you say? Maybe they really do lose money on their service. But I don't. That's my living.
So ponder your options as a heating oil consumer, and measure whether the convenience of calling one company for oil and equipment maintenance is worth a premium price per gallon for heating oil. Consider the numbers, ask for price quotes, inquire about budget plans and pre-buys, and make some smart choices about how to get through this winter. I'll be busy all fall with preventive cleanings and service, but not too busy to help you get your heating and hot water equipment ready for winter. Most of my customers see me just once a year, for the preventive maintenance. Sometimes we replace a part before it fails, and my customers trust me to make that judgment. Then they don't have to call me on New Year's Eve.

Offshore Oil Rigs Are Walrus-Proof

2010-09-01T15:22:00.003-04:00

At left are two conjoined off shore oil rigs. The whale seen venting in the foreground was cited for ruining the photo and released on his own cognizance. Hurricane Earl is headed toward us here on the Atlantic coast, and the best thing about Earl, according to those posted on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, is that Earl will be our problem, not theirs. Offshore drilling, under discussion and proposed to begin soon before BP's Deepwater Horizon rig blew up, killed its crew, and began hemmorrhaging oil into the Gulf at a furious rate, is now suspended for the time being. Good call, DOE and President Obama.
But what if Earl, as of this date threatening the Outer Banks of North Carolina, a prime area proposed for offshore oil drilling, were bearing down on hundreds of offshore rigs, as Katrina and Rita did in the Gulf five years ago. Over a hundred rigs were damaged or destroyed in that storm season, although no catastrophic spills were recorded on the scale of this year's Deepwater Horizon disaster. What would be the real impact of a big storm unfettered by the shore effects present in the Gulf, a storm free to go wild in the open sea?
When my children were small, we vacationed for several years in the Outer Banks area, in a non-posh resort community I will not name but remember fondly. We swam, we waded, we walked the hot sands, we ate shrimp cooked in iced tea (a local speciality and acquired taste), we visited the dune shrine where the Wright brothers risked life, limb and their death of cold to keep a wild , Newton-defying contraption airborne for a few seconds. We carried our children out into the surf and dropped them into the roiling, emerald waves. We gazed out toward Europe across the farthest horizon and saw----- nothing. We also saw the erosive effects of recent storms and congratulated ourselves that we would soon return to New England, where we get a fraction of the storm activity of the Outer Banks, and most often weary storms that had already spent their strength on the lower Atlantic coast.
Oil rigs offshore in the Atlantic? This link from the Christian Science Monitor of 05 describes the damage done by storms of that year to oil rigs in the Gulf. It was scary. The two largest rigs in operation at the time were both damaged, one actually capsized. This link cites a common safety contractor and consulting firm hired by several oil companies to strategize spill control before Deepwater Horizon. The report did not go into detail about the not-yet-imagined Deepwater scenario. What it did was assure its clients that no significant impact would be felt in the indigenous walrus population. Goo goo gajoob. No walruses have been sighted in the Gulf of Mexico since Rush Limbaugh fell off his yacht a while back, and not for ians and ians before that.
If we can't trust our energy suppliers to be governed by their better selves, then I for one am willing to let Energy Secretary Stephen Chu look into it and give me a thumbnail. As Shakespeare's Beatrice said, I can see a church by daylight. What I don't want to see is the Atlantic coast looking like the Caspian Sea viewed from the hills over Baku (see photo below). Or clouds of petroleum rolling in where my children used to play, and where their children will want to play, if they can.

Electric Tankless Water Heater Caveats

2010-08-27T08:27:00.002-04:00

We've posted on tankless water heaters before, but an inquiry from a client prompts us to revisit some of our reservations about tankless units. Wonderful idea, of course, good for energy, wish I'd thought of it myself, and all; but do your homework and keep your eyes open. Claims made for tankless heaters are larger than they seem in real life.
First, flow rate. You need at least three gallons per minute of hot water at 125 degrees fahrenheit to operate a laundry machine, dishwasher, shower, kitchen sink or any combination of two faucets or appliances in the house. if your teenager is in the shower and you go downstairs to start the dishwasher, you will be cited by Family Services in this litigious society, for cruelty to a teenager. Sharing the output of a tankless electric unit is dicey. And families living in multi-bathroom houses will, sooner or later, need to share that output.
Second, power needs. The only electric tankless that begins to fill the bill for a family is something like the Bosch AE 125 . The power requirement of this water heater is app. 125 amps at full load. Do you have a 100 amp service feeding your entire house, as I do? Fuhgeddabouddit. You can't install electric tankless in your house. Do you have a 200 amp service? Expect to give away 60% of that capacity while using hot water, which means that you can't operate your electric range, air conditioning, and clothes dryer all in tandem with this water heater. You have to do what we call "load management," in which you stop to think, ok, toaster is 110 watts, dryer 4500, range is 8000 unless I only use one burner, turn up the air conditioning thermostat, and,,,, ok, now we can do hot water. And if you have electric heat, you'll have to shut some of it off to avoid an overload, even with a 200 amp service. No, you can't have a 300 amp service on a house, not without paying lots of money. Perhaps in the "home of the future."
If it's just two of you in the house, or if the kids only come home for Christmas, this all may work out well. You can save up to 25% over electric tank hot water by virtue of lowering your standby costs (the expense of keeping the tank hot and losing heat to the surrounding air). If your house is large, full of kids, or if you have a big kitchen and you're always in it, beware.
Electric tankless water heaters are growing in popularity, and they should. But i'm always concerned when a past or potential client buys one off the internet and asks for a quote to install it. My bill for installation will commonly exceed the cost of the water heater, if indeed I can even shoehorn it into the house's electrical system. Then I'm delivering the bad news, the phone goes "click," and the unhappy client is off down the road to a plumbing company which knows not-so-much about electrical loading and is willing to take the client's money for installing an inadequately sized unit. Happens several times a year.
Other technologies are more practical. Oil, natural gas, LP gas, almost any fuel other than electric power makes for a better performance in water heating, due to the ability of those fuels to deliver larger amounts of energy instantaneously to the water, exceeding electricity by far in the critical category of "recovery rate." Watch your loading, watch your pricing, beware of claims made by salesmen bearing gifts, and consider all your options. Sometimes a heavy insulation blanket and a simple timer can turn an old electric tank into a lean, mean green machine, for a lot less money.

American Wind) Technology Will Save the World (?)

2010-08-17T08:54:00.003-04:00

The device in the picture looks like a hubcap, I know. Is what it is is, it's the single most encouraging breakthrough in small-output wind-powered electrical generation since, I don't know, maybe Ben Franklin. The engineering genius of the Honeywell Wind Turbine is a bit over my head, but I'm an old electrician, and I know a superior motor when I see one: replaceable vanes for easy maintenance, vane orientation works with off-angle winds (obviating pivot bearings), weighs app. 170 lb. with six foot diameter, threshold generating begins at two mph wind speed, and the field windings are in the rim, out where turbine speed produces the greatest possible inductive force. Recommended minimum mounting height is 33 feet (the roof of a two-story American house with attic, roughly) and the retail package is self-contained, with inverter, charge controller and safety switches right in the box. Suggested retail price $6495 US. I found them being marketed at $4500 US, plus shipping. The Honeywell turbine will be marketed, initially, through Ace Hardware retail stores, and its output is estimated at app. 2750 kilowatt-hours/year in winds ranging from 2 mph to 42 mph. Depending upon your local utility rate, that probably means $$300 US or so in energy savings, all put back on the grid, operating, unlike solar PV, 24 hours a day, whenever the wind blows. Service life is estimated at twenty years, with a manufacturer's five-year warranty. This technology didn't come from China, it didn't come from Europe, locations where energy is a higher priority socially and politically. It came from Honeywell's R&D in the great USA, where innovation has for two hundred years been only one of the things we offer to a hungry global economy. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys, Willie Nelson sang. For heaven's sake, encourage them to be engineers and researchers.

Ask the Right Questions About World Oil Supply

2010-05-21T10:32:00.002-04:00

The oil derricks shown at left against a smoggy sky are located in........go on, you'll never guess-- Southern California. And they could have been located outside Philadelphia, along the Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or in the Caspian Sea of Central Asia. Oil derricks are everywhere, just not in your back yard yet. We are in a great and conflicted discussion about how and whether to tap the undersea oil reserves off our own coasts, and enduring a humiliating and damaging spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
I have noted in past posts that our reserves of oil, natural gas and coal are estimated to last us, globally, for at least 250 years. Is that comforting? For maximum comfort, stop reading here. Don't go on and ruin a good mood.
One of the "right questions" to ask about world fossil fuel supplies is: when do we START running out of fossil fuels? When does world daily demand outstrip world daily production? When does demand begin to bring about stupid foreign policy behaviors designed to secure a supply of oil, gas and coal against future scarcity? When do the suppliers of oil begin to manipulate and torture (acceptable in economic circles, not so much in terror suspects) the consumers of oil by raising prices to punitive levels and controlling supplies to create artificial scarcities for their own purposes? When are we faced with the datum that we have used well over half of the original deposit of oil in the earth's crust, and from here on the picture is going to get more and more difficult as we face slowly, almost imperceptibly dwindling supplies?
Probably you've stopped reading before now. If you're not reading this, lucky you. The questions listed above are some of the many good questions that need answering as we contemplate the future of fossil fuels as our energy supply. We write these posts for ordinary people like ourselves, and we aren't really up to the detailed math anyway. So here are some answers for ordinary people, and some opinions based on reasonable thinking. And here's a wiki link to some straight talk about those hard questions.
Even if the hard data on fossil fuel reserves globally was not widely available (it is, but say it was a secret), we could make an observation or two about the behaviors of those powerful custodians of our present and future in recent years. Foreign policy in America is complex, but no one except a 9-11 consipiracy theorist (which puts Michael Moore and Rand Paul in the same cozy little bed, what a happy thought) could deny that oil drives much of American foreign policy for the last 20 years. OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries) has been staging artificial scarcities and fixing the price of oil for some years now, exerting an influence over world affairs out of proportion to the size and influence of the member countries. Remember, if you're over 40, the Great Gas Crunches of the early 70s. And the equipoise of world daily oil consumption and production? We're there. We consume more than we produce. By just 50,000 barrels a day as of late 2008. Think we've reduced our consumption since then?
So the information that we've got "lots of time, hundreds of years" to solve the energy equation and escape our deepening bondage to oil and the forces that control its supply, is deceptive. Seventy five years of clear oil reserves, 250 years of coal reserves don't seem as reassuring as they did. We're already displaying scarcity behaviors. Our own American oil companies and financial investment industries manipulate the price and availability of oil for their own purposes. Hard to deny, then, that we're in twilight, or at least the late afternoon, of the fossil fuel era. Won't trouble you in your lifetime? All shortsighted, self-absorbed people get the hell out of the discussion right now. Goofy will begin your Disneyworld tour at five minutes before the hour. This is the Gotterdamerung of oil, the long retreat. Those who stay awake and keep watching won't get fooled again. This is a time for serious people, both expert and ordinary, to do lots of thinking and a bit of talking about where we're going as consumers of energy.
Renewables, including solar pv, solar thermal, wind and fuel cells, are a long, long, long payoff. Add two more 'longs' to that statement. We had a comment from a reader lately which quoted a conservative think tank to the effect that the numbers on renewables in the short term are laughable. The numbers said what the correspondent wanted them to, but they didn't lie. Renewables is a long haul. And the owner of the first solar pv system in your neighborhood is sure to get laughed at for the huge investment and slow payoff. But those individuals and nations that are already acknowledging the slow decline of fossil fuels as a viable energy source are the far-sighted ones. Even their mistakes do them prouder than the smokestack economies and Drill, Baby Drillers. It will take daring, not denial, to secure an energy future for ordinary people like us as fossil fuels continue, year after year, to grow just a tiny little bit more scarce, and a measurable amount more expensive.

Mexican Power Crisis -- A Modest Proposal

2010-05-04T10:25:00.003-04:00

The photo at left shows Laguna Verde, the site of Mexico's two nuclear reactors presently generating almost 5% of its electric power. Mexico has some oil and natural gas reserves, and has always been a net energy exporter. If you sense an irony in building a nuke plant in a place named Laguna Verde (Green Cove), don't make a big thing of it. They haven't had an environment-threatening accident since commissioning in1989, and recently Mexico announced its intention to convert the two reactors to operate on low-enriched uranium, greatly reducing its output of nuclear waste and reducing the possibility that waste from the plant could be used to manufacture a weapon.
Apart from the nukes at Laguna Verde, Mexico generates the bulk of its power from, you'll never guess, hydro-electric. Mexico has only two fossil fuel plants, each generating about the same power as the Laguna Verde plant. Total generating capacity in 07 was calculated at 50 megawatts (total US capacity is estimated at just over 1 MILLION megawatts). The economy of Mexico is centered around agriculture, light industry and tourism. Any jokes about the drug trade at this point would be in very poor taste. Mexico struggles; Mexico survives; Mexico finds it very difficult to live in the shadow of the world's largest consumer economy. Mexico needs a break.
Hence my modest proposal. The power utility in Mexico is government-owned. Mexican energy policy is already more progressive than that of the privately owned power utilities in the US, by quite a bit. Mexico's power consumption is estimated to grow by 6% per year for the foreseeable future (US power consumption is estimated to grow by half that much). The Vicente Fox administration, recently replaced by the slightly more conservative Calderon administration in 2009, has outlined ambitious programs for exploiting the wind and wave potential of Mexico's climate for power generation.
Why not make Mexico a solar test bed for the skeptics of the world? Mexico's governmental power rests heavily in the centralized administration of the Presidency. The initiatives for massive solar projects would not be held up by, for instance, wounded bellowing from oil-addicted naysayers whose last names rhyme with McConnell and Palin and Cheney. The problem, as is so often the problem, is money.
Mexico is relatively poor. Mexico is also beset by a thriving drug industry that operates within and without its system of laws and enforcement agencies. Mexico is Colombia ten years ago, in one sense. If the Chinese, Saudis, Venezuelans and other cash-rich groups want to foster the next emerging superstate on the globe, why not Mexico? The credit of the nation is not perfect; a credit crisis in 1994 was embarrassing; the recent US recession has prostrated Mexico's GDP for reasons that are widely discussed in the media. For good or bad, Mexico's economy is tied to that of the US.
What if Mexico had an energy surplus, a power distribution system that was spread over the country via solar PV farms and wind farms to permit the growth of local industry (and yes, i'm no fool, the possible relocation of more manufacturing jobs from US companies, to the detriment of the US job situation, already strained) and entrepreneurship by local and foreign interests?
What if Mexico could offer solar power constructed near the site of any proposed manufacturing facility, creating a national grid with flexibility and extra capacity to accommodate new growth? What if solar electric power came to the countryside and permitted the campesinos to farm more aggressively and operate light industry for export? what if every small city in Mexico had a solar plant to cogenerate along with the national grid and produce revenue and a bit of energy independence, leading to a more decentrialized economy?
What if? I don't know where the money will come from. But the world has money, and the world's creditors should be taking another look at a society that already has progressive energy policies, a workforce proven in its desire to earn higher wages (that's why they cross that river, Bob), and a centralized government in which things can get done without undue wrangling from a stubborn obstructionist ox-brained unlettered shrill-messaged war-friendly faux-religious opposition. Unlike any other society bordering Mexico, in any way at all, certainly.
Mexico is ready for alternative energy. The US is mired in denial and old-time religions centered around oil. The Mexican people are already motivated to pursue economic improvement, even to the point of moving to the US and sending their meager wages back home to loved ones. Mexico deserves a chance. An alternative energy boom in Mexico could take on the excitement of another gold rush, and the result can only strengthen a state that needs every advantage to deal with its internal problems.

Beyond Coal: What Future Lies There?

2010-04-16T20:23:00.005-04:00

Bluntly put, 23% of our national energy consumption comes from coal. We have enough coal to meet our complete energy needs for app. 250 years. Natural gas, a byproduct or co-recoverable resource found with oil and coal deposits, supplies 24% of our energy needs, and we increase our ability to recover and store it each year. Crude oil, about which so much political ado has prevailed in the last 50 years, is still partly a domestic resource. We only import about half of our yearly consumed aliquot. And oil supplies about 37% of our national energy needs per year.

If you subtract industrial use and home heating, coal supplies, through generating plants, about half of our nation's electric power. Natural gas generation, nuclear generation, and renewables do not promise to put coal out of the picture soon. A huge portion of the nation's carbon footprint, if you care about global climate change, comes from the burning of coal.

We recently lost 29 miners in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion, and we lost 47 miners in 2006 in the Sago mining disaster. Coal mining ranks with commercial fishing and military service as the most dangerous professions in this society. We all listened and watched as prayers, opinions and excuses went up all over the country over the fate of those 29 men, and the question came up once or twice: Do we have to do this? Do we have to put men and women at risk to gouge coal from the earth profitably, burn the coal in some of the dirtiest smokestacks to generate our electricity, and deal with the effects of rapid climate change while wringing our hands and engaging in denial, while our hunger for energy as a society grows every year without respite?

Do we have to kill our miners at this rate to keep the coal plants burning? Yes, apparently we do. Until we have an alternative, and right now we don't, we have to keep drilling, mining, leasing offshore sites to the highest bidder and waiting for the accidents and spills. We have to have the energy. At any cost, human, economic and apparently military. The quiet conspiracy to secure Iraq's oil was an expensive failure. "Clean coal," at least so far, is a myth few of us can buy into. Nukes are scary, and dirty in the long run (dangerous to all life forms for 159,000 years after disposal). Yes, it seems we do have to do all that. And we're all doing it together, all of us consuming energy, and that's all of us, except for a few survivalists.

We have no alternative, so we have no choice. We will continue to put miners at risk, drill and pipe natural gas, float drilling rigs where a spill would be disastrous, humble ourselves at foreign tables, and spill American blood to secure a share of the world's oil reserves. We don't know how long we can keep this up; but we don't have a plan to free us from this dangerous and expensive cycle: the pursuit of more and more energy. God bless the miners, drillers, reactor jockeys and power plant construction workers. We need you more than we let on; and we sacrifice you at a rate that would certainly shame an enlightened society.

Photovoltaic Panels and the Deadly Enemy-- Shade

2010-04-08T07:56:00.003-04:00

A prime parameter in the specs for photovoltaic system installation in the Connecticut Clean Energy guidelines refers to shading of the panels: to wit, no shading allowed during the normal "solar day," reckoned to be between 9 Am and 3 Pm. It's a pretty stiff requirement here in tree-covered New England, and it may seem unfair to disqualify a potential roof site because a tree shades it for part of the day. But here, in brief, is the danger of shading and the logic behind zero tolerance for it.
A solar PV array is configured in "strings," or source circuits, of two to 12 panels, according to system voltage. The string of panels is connected from one to the other via the connected module leads so that the current through the string is constant, and the voltage of each module adds up to the nominal system voltage, anywhere from 24 volts for small battery-connected systems to nearly 5oo volts for high-output grid-tie systems. And in that string, or series circuit, a little patch of shade can limit the current of the entire string to a small fraction of capacity. Diodes are installed to permit current to bypass shaded or malfunctioning modules or cells, but the effect is still significant on performance.
Shading analysis in the planning stages is critical to predictable and maximum performance. If an area selected for panel installation is shaded, the time and extent of the shading must be calculated and deducted from the expected output of the system. Sometimes module choices are affected by shading analysis; "amorphous" crystalline cells are slightly more shade tolerant than other module types.
Non-grid tie systems suffer at least as much, if not more than grid-tied arrays. If batteries are matched to the output of the array, a small shaded area alerts the Maximum Power Point Tracking device in the inverter, which senses the efficiency and total output of the system, simply shuts down and waits for the shading to pass. For the duration of the shading, the system sits idle.
Shade analysis, then, is a vital part of planning when photovoltaic arrays are being sited on rooftops or on the ground. The panel manufacturers and government agencies aren't kidding when they say that zero shading is the proper amount. And we, installing professionals, may be advising you to trim or remove trees, or purchase costly racking systems to relieve shading conflicts; we're not just upselling the job. Shade is your enemy in the solar game, whether it's for hot water or photovoltaics. And for photovoltaics, a little shade can be deadly.

Don't Plunder Our Energy Future in CT

2010-03-23T09:48:00.003-04:00

The photo at left is an early 20th century ad piece courtesy of the CL&P website. It depicts a "Future Kitchen" in which electric appliances and facilities stand ready to do the heavy work and make the kitchen a safe, pleasant place in which to work. The artist could not have dreamed of the extent to which our 21st century kitchens depend upon large supplies of electric power to function. Whether modern, highly energy-hungry kitchens and homes are good or bad, we're unlikely to return willingly even to the simple facility in the picture.
Connecticut's annual power consumption increases by about 2.5% per year, and CL&P is running to keep up with the demand, particularly the increasing peak summer demand as New England embraces air conditioning as a summer necessity. CL&P presently operates two nuclear generating facilities, Millstones 1&2, both located in Waterford. The utility also operates two coal-burning plants and a long list of natural gas-burning plants fed by pipelines from long distances. New gas burning plants are proposed, but construction has been halted on two projects due to financial considerations. A recent explosion at a gas burning facility in the commissioning stage resulted in five fatalities and a public rethinking of the wisdom of locating large central generating plants around the state vs. buying power generated from outside the state and paying a premium for transmission losses.
Today, March 23, the Connecticut State Senate Finance Commission meets to consider a proposal to divert funds allocated for renewable energy projects around the state to the General Fund to meet budget shortfalls. "Securitization" of Clean Energy Funds, allocated not from taxes but from utility surcharges, would effectively halt the progress of renewable energy growth in CT by ending subsidies for residential and commercial wind, hydroelectric and photovoltaic (solar electric panels on roofs) energy installations, leaving only corporate entities like CL&P and others in a position to invest in energy generation. The measure would effectively permanize the monopoly CL&P now holds over the energy future of Connecticut.
This link will connect you to a press release in which CT Governor Jodi Rell commits the state to a goal of 20% renewable energy consumption by 2020. The sleight of hand that would buy from hydroelectric sources out of state begs the question of energy independence as well as energy costs. Connecticut residents pay about 20 cents per kilowatt hour, as high as any state in the lower 48, exceeded only by Hawaii. The future of renewable energy in CT is tied to the future of consumer independence, reasonable power rates and the public's influence over energy policy in this state.
Concern for the environment in American politics is at an ebb. The recession has focused our attention on the issues rubbing us raw: jobs, taxes, the failure of American corporation too big to fail, and the need for little taxpayers to shoulder a heavier burden to keep the whole system from tanking. But the long view is not an expendable luxury. What we do now will start affecting us a little next year, and a lot in ten years, when power rates will be even higher, and Connecticut taxpayers along with all Americans will see energy take a huge bite out of our ever-decreasing real wages.
The artist who drew the Future Kitchen above could not have dreamed of the appetite Americans would develop for the convenience of electrically powered devices in every room of the house. But that artist was a veritable visionary compared to the CT legislators who would consider selling our energy future for the little good the money might do in a bad financial (and political) year.

Solar PV Primer, Simple Concepts

2010-03-13T11:12:00.005-05:00

The house at left is roofed with solar panels. No doubt there's a real roof under there, but someone has cleverly configured photovoltaic panels to cover the roof so neatly that the eye sees only tempered glass and aluminum frames. The roofing material under the panels will not deteriorate, seeing no sunlight, clomping feet or ice and snow, so its life should be at least as long as that of the panels. The panels are attached flat to the roof, with a slight standoff for cooling air, so wind forces should not be a problem in heavy weather.
Note, if your eyes are that good, the shadows of the small trees in the foreground. They indicate that the azimuth, or compass orientation, of the roof is exactly or nearly south-facing, and that no nearby features like trees or other building threaten to shade the panels any time during the solar day (popularly reckoned to be between 9 AM and 3 PM).
No nearby power lines appear in the photo, so it's hard to be sure whether the panels feed directly out into the local utility wiring (or grid), or to a battery bank designed to power the house after sundown, or a combination of the two functions (bi-modal, it's called).
A tiled roof in the background, along with mountains, suggests either a western US or possibly European location, places where solar panels are considered more progressive than kooky, and where local governments subsidize and encourage responsible photovoltaic installations. The local power supplier, or utility, may be purchasing the panels' output at its own retail rate (net metering is the industry term), or it may be paying a "feed-in tariff" of up to twice the retail value of the power, a practice widely used in Europe and Canada to encourage the installation of solar electric arrays.
The residents of this house (subtle signs indicate this may be a barn) may spend some time each day accommodating their routines to the flow of solar power. They might operate their heaviest electrical loads, i.e. water pumps, refrigerators, dishwashers, clothes dryers, water heaters etc. while solar output is highest, using their own power rather than purchased kilowatt-hours. They might adjust their lifestyles subtly to decrease power usage in the evening, using only lights and small loads while only battery current or expensive utility power are available.
Or, if the system has no "backup," they may go about their business with no thought of loads, since the grid power simply flows into the house at night the same way the solar power flowed out through the meter all day. The local availability of sunlight, or "insolation," may be as little as 2 kilowatt hours per day per square meter, or as high as six kilowatt hours per day per square meter, depending upon latitiude, climate, compass orientation and shading. The panels themselves may be as little as 12% efficient in transforming uv radiation into electric power, or they may be as much as 20% efficient, according to the quality and cost of the equipment when purchased. The panels, by their appearance, are not homemade, or if they are, they are meticulously framed and sealed. The wiring that connects them to each other is high-grade silicone with a sunlight-resistant coating, and the "inverter," the device that transforms the panels' DC output into AC power usable by house loads, also synchronizes that AC output to the grid power for resale.
This primer, with links, is meant to bring your thinking into the picture with solar PV and the role it may/will play in your life in the future. Next time you're driving past a house with panels on its roof, picture yourself living in it. Solar power on the roof doesn't mean less fun for people living under those panels; to the contrary, there's something natural and comforting about being linked to this life-giving power source in a positive and profitable way. But you humans, if you go out there, use sunscreen.

Tight is the New Green for Doors and Windows

2010-02-13T19:10:00.004-05:00

The infrared photo at left shows radiant heat loss (yellow and red shading) in a typical residential window and door. It also reveals that the most grievous heat loss (purple, violet, almost black shading) takes place around the trim and edges of the opening. This is air infiltration, and it is your deadly enemy in keeping your house warm and dry and free of mold.
We've posted before on the hazards of air infiltration and moisture , and we've urged you all to arm yourselves with caulk, foam in cans, and sticky weatherstripping to fight the crannies that permit heat to escape and air to come in while you're trying to heat or cool your house. Only in temperate spring and fall weather here in New England do we blithely throw open our windows and share the environment indoors and outdoors. In either high summer or deepest winter the potential for unpleasant temperatures and moisture accumulations indoors and makes climate control increasingly not just a luxury.
Enter the capitalist economy. Don't fuss about with all that caulk and foam, say the strident voices on the radio and television; we can change your house's energy performance in a jiffy with 1. new energy-efficient vinyl replacement windows, 2. new energy-efficient vinyl storm doors front and rear, 3. safe, energy-efficient blown-in insulation in attic and walls, no damage to your interior, 4. new, safe, "permanent" energy-efficient vinyl siding with optional foam insulation backing to save you lots of energy and money. And they take credit cards, and they have financial experts standing by to mortgage your house for the full amount.
No sudden moves, now. Will replacement windows perform startingly better than the wooden sash windows or vinyl double-hung you have now? Not if you reduce or eliminate air leakage ( infiltration) through and around your old windows. Then your old windows will perform nearly as well as any window on the market, give or take 15%. Surprised? Same story with the blown-in insulation and the vinyl siding. The best deal of the lot is the vinyl storm windows and doors. They reduce infiltration almost completely through your entry doors. The rest of the "home improvements" won't pay for themselves any time soon.
The article linked here is from Journal of Light Construction on the subject of replacement windows and their rate of payback based on improved energy performance. The math doesn't work. It takes a LONG time to payback the investment on new windows, doors, siding, and blown-in insulation. What takes a SHORT time to pay back? Anything that tightens your house, closes cracks, tightens doors and windows, and reduces air infiltration in and out. That's the magic of home energy. Air. Stop it going in and out, you stop energy from being stolen from your house and your budget.
The boring conclusion is: nothing makes as big a difference in your house as caulk, foam and weatherstripping. Big ticket stuff like windows and viny siding works, eventually. But caulk and foam and gummy weatherstrip work today. If you hire a remodeler, handyman or do it yourself, it still works if you do it right. And it's not too hard. Don't hock the ranch before you've done the chores, ok?The infrared photo at left shows radiant heat loss (yellow and red shading) in a typical residential window and door. It also reveals that the most grievous heat loss (purple, violet, almost black shading) takes place around the trim and edges of the opening. This is air infiltration, and it is your deadly enemy in keeping your house warm and dry and free of mold.
We've posted before on the hazards of air infiltration and moisture , and we've urged you all to arm yourselves with caulk, foam in cans, and sticky weatherstripping to fight the crannies that permit heat to escape and air to come in while you're trying to heat or cool your house. Only in temperate spring and fall weather here in New England do we blithely throw open our windows and share the environment indoors and outdoors. In either high summer or deepest winter the potential for unpleasant temperatures and moisture accumulations indoors and makes climate control increasingly not just a luxury.
Enter the capitalist economy. Don't fuss about with all that caulk and foam, say the strident voices on the radio and television; we can change your house's energy performance in a jiffy with 1. new energy-efficient vinyl replacement windows, 2. new energy-efficient vinyl storm doors front and rear, 3. safe, energy-efficient blown-in insulation in attic and walls, no damage to your interior, 4. new, safe, "permanent" energy-efficient vinyl siding with optional foam insulation backing to save you lots of energy and money. And they take credit cards, and they have financial experts standing by to mortgage your house for the full amount.
No sudden moves, now. Will replacement windows perform startingly better than the wooden sash windows or vinyl double-hung you have now? Not if you reduce or eliminate air leakage ( infiltration) through and around your old windows. Then your old windows will perform nearly as well as any window on the market, give or take 15%. Surprised? Same story with the blown-in insulation and the vinyl siding. The best deal of the lot is the vinyl storm windows and doors. They reduce infiltration almost completely through your entry doors. The rest of the "home improvements" won't pay for themselves any time soon.
The article linked here is from Journal of Light Construction on the subject of replacement windows and their rate of payback based on improved energy performance. The math doesn't work. It takes a LONG time to payback the investment on new windows, doors, siding, and blown-in insulation. What takes a SHORT time to pay back? Anything that tightens your house, closes cracks, tightens doors and windows, and reduces air infiltration in and out. That's the magic of home energy. Air. Stop it going in and out, you stop energy from being stolen from your house and your budget.
The boring conclusion is: nothing makes as big a difference in your house as caulk, foam and weatherstripping. Big ticket stuff like windows and viny siding works, eventually. But caulk and foam and gummy weatherstrip work today. If you hire a remodeler, handyman or do it yourself, it still works if you do it right. And it's not too hard. Don't hock the ranch before you've done the chores, ok?

Two Tribes, One Product, but.... What's Up?

2010-01-17T16:30:00.003-05:00

In the photo at left, a jet engine is being used to burn natural gas, and the rotational energy is not being used to transport sales managers to St. Louis. The energy is being used to turn generators which will power the Mashantucket Tribal Nation's casino operation in Connecticut. The natural gas, purchased from the local utility at bulk rates, is less expensive as a generating source than power transported via the local grid from the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in nearby Waterford. Natural gas, the price of which was expensive while crude oil prices were spiking a year ago, is cheap now, and if it remains cheap, the project is expected to "pay for itself in three years," says Charlene Jones of the Mashantucket Tribe. Northeast Utilities, the parent company that sells both the electrical power and the natural gas, shrugs and says, " Co-generation's better for the environment and it's better for everything else." Presumably "everything else" refers to Northeast's bottom line. The aging grid here in Southeastern CT is stretched to support large consumers like the tribal casinos, and selling the gas for co-generation is profitable for Northeast while unburdening its electrical distribution network, which is in need of expensive repairs and upgrades.
The carbon footprint of Millstone Nuclear Power Plant is a theoretical zero, or near-zero. Neutrons don't pollute, in the classic sense of emitting carbon dioxide. As long as they don't escape, they do nothing. Someday the spent fuel will become a major economic and political migraine, but for now, Millstone is as green as a witch's bum.
The burning of natural gas, billed as the "cleanest of fossil fuels," emits 117,000 lb. of CO2 per billion BTU generated. Oil in its various forms emits 164,000 lb. of CO2. Coal, the pigpen of fossil energy, emits 208,000 lb. per billion. Photovoltaic panels emit nearly zero, except in their manufacture, which amortizes to almost bupkus over their life span. Millstone emits quite a bit of heat, but almost no carbon dioxide, except for the staff, who won't quit breathing, even just for the one day of the test. So "better for the environment" is a statement that can be argued: better than what?
The Jemez Pueblo Indian tribe of southern New Mexico are in the beginning stages of a 22 million dollar project which will generate 4 megawatts of electricity, most of it for sale to the surrounding communities at favorable rates, netting the tribe much needed cash. The Jemez Pueblo tribe was denied a casino permit by the BIA bureaucrats on the basis that no one will drive to their reservation to gamble. Been to Foxwoods lately? It's isolated; possibly less so than Jemez. But that deal is done, and the Jemez Pueblos are making the best of their options by putting panels on every roof in the tribal community, as well as ground-mounted arrays on open land belonging to the tribe. With an expected 25 year profitability goal, the tribe will show positive cash flow from the start due to favorable financing through the government. Carbon footprint? Near zero. And other tribes, notably the Campo Kumeyaay near San Diego, are enjoying their proximity to eager consumers to install wind and solar co-generation facilities that will unburden the local utility while providing a revenue stream for the tribe--- one that won't be strangled by the next recession and doesn't involve the questionable economics of gambling, a transfer of funds from one pocket to another that manufactures nothing but the occasional big winner.
So, two tribes, one energy crisis, two solutions, and two very different worldviews. The Jemez Pueblos will see modest income and reap big positive community response from their eco-friendly project. The Mashantucket Pequots, in choosing the "cleanest of fossil fuels," have done a smart business deal that benefits their bottom line, and the utility's bottom line, but contributes nothing to the surrounding communities except carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and slot machines. Their roof surfaces, likely much larger than those available to the Jemez Pueblos, remain untroubled by photovoltaic panels. Although Connecticut has generous tax and rebate programs for commercial PV installations, the bang is in huge flames and high-speed turbines. The Mashantucket Pequots are my neighbors. Thanks, guys. I hope you make a smarter choice next time.

The Math of Lower Thermostats

2010-01-10T13:44:00.003-05:00

The trio at left are wearing Vulcan Snuggies, intergalactic precursors of the recent lounging garment fad. Apparently on Vulcan they keep their drafty old cavern dwellings cool to save energy. I take a neutral position on Snuggies, except that they do qualify as comfortable indoor apparel to keep a body warm in a cold room. In dormitories they compensate for stingy thermostat settings regulated by central computers.
But at your house, with four walls and your heating system between you and the howling wind, the math of heat loss makes a compelling argument for warm clothes and lower thermostat settings. If your walls are sealed and insulated to an average of R10 including windows and doors, and if your outside wall exposure totals about 3000 square feet including ceiling, the formula in the wiki link yields a heat loss of 18,000 btu per hour at ten degrees outdoor temperature and 70 degrees inside. Decrease that to 60 degrees inside temperature and the heat loss goes to 15,000 btu per hour. And, at 50 degrees inside, it drops to 12,000, a 33% decrease in energy loss. And Snuggies only cost 20 dollars US or so. And they make them for your dog.
You don't have to work a miracle on your roof with PV panels, or smuggle some neutrons out of the Millstone power plant on your way home, or buy a miracle Shaker heater. You can work the basic math of heat loss with your thermostat settings. But you're going to need some warm, comfortable clothes to stay happy and well. It doesn't have to be a Snuggie, it can be a robe, vest, jacket or sweater. Or just a warm companion. That's the best I know for empowering us little folks against the financial bind of winter in New England.

Mr. Obama Goes to Copenhagen

2009-12-18T21:45:00.003-05:00

The Huffington Post uses the photo at left to illustrate the President's speech at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change. The President's tone is severe, disappointed, almost grim. Hit the link to see the text of his remarks. His disappointment centers around the many wrenches being thrown into the process of dealing with climate change by both undeveloped and developing countries.
China, the world's most egregious polluter by a comfortable margin (with the USA running a clean second), is balking at the proposed cap-and-trade and sin tax measures that would both penalize major polluters, like China, and provide carbon credits for more slowly developing countries (read most of Africa) to use or possibly to sell to polluting nations to earn badly needed cash for their own programs. Even the African nations, and others in similar circumstances, are demanding the right to "grow dirty" for as long as they want, citing the poor record of the US, China and other industrial nations over the last two centuries as polluters.
Unwilling to accept a progressive cap-and-trade system like the one under consideration, the poorest nations at the conference are demanding either huge monetary concessions in return for their cooperation with carbon emissions limitations, or an exemption that will allow them to pursue economic growth at an advantage while the larger countries accept limited carbon emissions standards.
With these mulish denials ringing in his ears, Obama warned us that we can either act now, and decisively, or return to the table to have "these same stale conversations." That must have stung the Chinese and Africans.....
So what can you do at home to persuade the Africans and Chinese to think globally and accept the limitations of "low carbon growth?" Not much directly, sad to say. But if Americans were to show a national will to conserve, take charge of our own carbon footprints (this link is to an earlier post on that topic), and show a preference for lower-impact houses and cars, the message would not be wasted on a world which has looked to us for almost two centuries as trendsetters and innovators. It looks bad for us to be stuck in our denial of climate change and the inevitable scarcity of energy. Enlightened, attentive leadership is what we demanded when we elected Barack Obama. Enlightened leadership is what the world expects of us, and they have shown their willingness to follow suit. They want our blue jeans, they want our sneakers, they want our cell phones, and they'll want our energy policies when we have some worth sharing.

Update at Our House-- Solar Hot Water

2009-12-06T17:24:00.002-05:00

This brief post will keep us close to home. I noted our new solar hot water system a few weeks ago, stressing our modest expectations for winter performance. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised.
Today, December 6, the temperature in our town topped out in the 30s, we got three inches (up on this high hill, we get more) of wet, icy snow last night, and the winds were gusting to 15 miles or so as the day wore on. I checked the panel temp this morning after hearing the snow and ice avalanche off the collectors at 9 AM or so. 100 degrees on the return fluid thermometer.
Cutting to the jelly, I just ran hot water at 105 from my kitchen tap. One day of performance, 80 gallons of shower-ready water. Two 4x7 Stiebel Eltron flat plate panels (evacuated tubes are nice, but not necessary) two 40 gallon stainless holding tanks with heat exchanger coils for the solar fluid. One Caleffi (pricey, but very flexible) solar differential pump control. Very short connecting pipe (under ten feet total) between the panels and the tanks, located on my roof and in my attic, respectively.
As we near the solstice, and as temperatures drop into the teens and oughts, performance will certainly drop. But it won't drop to zero. We'll get pre-warmed water for the boiler to finish off on every sunny day from now until March equinox. I hope, after that, we'll be getting near total solar hot water for some months.
So--- a few thousand dollars (I, a seasoned solar contractor, did the installation myself) in equipment, a prime roof spot oriented within 15 degrees of south, a relatively un-obstructed morning horizon (the afternoon sun is hampered by some tall trees), a solar day extending from 9 AM to about 3 PM, and this is what we're getting for an energy harvest. DEP figures concerning hot water as a proportion of total household energy are being revised upward, to a possible 25%. If that's so, and I believe it in our case, I'll look for a 25% drop in our fuel oil usage this winter. And, at nearly 60, I expect to bequeath this system to a future owner someday, still running, still harvesting that blessed free energy from God's own fusion bomb, the sun.

Today's Science Project, Tomorrow's Energy Source

2009-11-30T12:45:00.002-05:00

There are three listings in the Southeastern Connecticut Yellow Pages under "Solar Contractors." There are 876 approved applications to date for rebates under the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund program, for a total connected capacity of 4 megawatts. That will power 8000 small houses during peak daylight hours, if it all gets used efficiently. For a few hours on the sunniest days. There is one photovoltaic installation within easy driving distance of my home in North Stonington. The Connecticut Clean Energy Rebate program is shut down until July of 2010 for "financial review."
Solar is not setting the world on fire here in Connecticut, is the point. The approved leasing program that allows homeowners to join the energy revolution does not convey the tax credits and rebates available to those buying their equipment. You just get to sell the power back to the grid, defraying your power bill by a fraction, depending upon your usage. Oil is cheap, to those who have any money at all, and the outcry for alternative energy sources is down to a murmur, mostly heard from the same folks who have been calling for change since Jimmy Carter funded the first rebate program for solar in the 70s.
If solar power, both for hot water and electricity, is to catch on in the mind of the public, we need a consciousness-raising experience, preferably several.
So how about small solar that you can give Dad as a Christmas gift, a kit of panels, inverter and batteries that he can assemble in the garage or basement, set out in the back yard, and start calculating the incoming watts from the sun? You can't hook these small kits up to the grid, for many reasons, but you can run a light or two, power a tool, charge the battery on the car, operate landscape lighting, or operate a decorative fountain pump. Use your creative side here.
These links to various vendors who package and ship the equipment, with many disclaimers, right to your door. Target has kits on the shelf. One of the vendors linked above will sell you a kit to power the whole house, even go on the grid if all your permits are lined up. The amounts of power are tiny, ranging from 10 to 75 watts per hour, but the principle is real, and the operation is only a scaled-down version of huge systems sitting on commercial and residential roofs where public conscioiusness has been raised already.
Perhaps we ony need to toy with these concepts for a few years before we're ready to accept the value of photovoltaics as significant contributors to Connecticut's energy picture. Perhaps a science project or two will get us into the game, or at least thinking in the right direction. Read the instructions, be very careful, and let me know how it turns out.....

Entry Level Solar Hot Water- Real People Can Do This Right Now

2009-11-20T16:54:00.001-05:00

I blew this diagram up so you can make out the details; it's from a Williams College site describing a system they put in a graduate dorm. The essentials are this: the panels receive cool water from tank dedicated to solar, warm it up in the passage through the panel, return it to a heat exchanger in the solar tank that warms the domestic water. When hot water is demanded, the solar "pre-heated" water passes into a tank warmed by a boiler which increases its temperature to a setpoint for use in the building.
It's called pre-heating, and that's the little point I want to make in this post. When you aim a low-temperature all-weather solar setup at a low temperature need, it performs beautifully. Asking a solar hot water system to finish your water off to 125 F or more is asking too much. Only during sunny summer weather will the system carry that burden.
In one pass through two panels on a sunny winter's day, you might raise the fluid temperature by only three degrees F. You might run that system all day until sundown and have warmed an 80 gallon tank only to 85 degrees (from 45 to 50 degrees incoming temp, depending upon whether you have city supply or well water). But 40 degrees rise for 80 gallons comes to almost 13 thousand btu that you didn't have to pay for. And it means your finishing, or backup source will run that much less to get the water hot enough to use. On a sunny day you might raise the same tank of water all the way to terminal temperature (app. 130 degrees). That's 26,000 btu from the sun. You might want to run your finishing source a little, but it only has to raise the temp a few degrees. Energy is being saved on a grander scale by allowing the solar panels to operate at a lower temperature, where the sun and the heat exchanger are able to deliver energy more efficiently.
I have clients with solar systems sharing a tank with electric finishing elements. They only get solar benefit when the panels are as hot as the terminal temperature setting of the domestic water. There just aren't that many days in CT when the panels get hot enough to finish off the water in one pass.
And the cost? Fewer panels and smaller tanks do more work at lower temps. A tank only has to be a about as large as your daily water demand to deliver its full potential as a preheater. It needs to be much larger to store heated water against cloudy days and night time losses. So while you're waiting for the cost of photovoltaics to come down, and wondering what you can do to join the green movement, solar hot water in a pre-heating configuration is the most cost effective entry level investment. Most systems can be installed for less than ten thousand dollars US, and they attach to your hot water piping just ahead of whatever your water has been heated by in the past: electric tank, boiler coil, external heat exchanger or woodstove. With photovoltaic systems starting at about 30,000 d0llars, and paying back rather slowly, this solar hot water option is appealing at several levels. You can get free energy from the sun, with not much red tape, and get the federal and state tax credits that reduce the cost of the system by as much as 50% depending upon your location and the system cost. That's a game we normal people can think about jumping into, and nothing feels as good as a nearly free shower.

Compact Fluorescents-- Serve Me a Dish of Crow

2009-11-15T19:30:00.002-05:00

Guess how many of the bulbs in the photo are energy-efficient compact fluorescents? Yes, of course it's a trick... ok, all of them, smartypants. And that's the point of this post: to retract my longstanding opposition to compact fluorescent bulbs, and to get you to take a fresh look at a new generation of energy-efficient lighting that saves money while still doing the job well.
About fifteen years ago compact fluorescent lights appeared on my contractor's radar; clients were asking about them, the public utility was hawking them in discount programs, and I was the stodgy old guy telling everyone to wait, the product wasn't really up to the challenge, and removing the fixtures people insisted on buying in a rosy glow of greenness. The dim, harsh, flickering, watery, slow-to-light fluorescents that were supposed to change the world and lower our power bills have been a terrible disappointment, as this George Will essay sarcastically details.
And I, monsieur energy contractor, installing the latest in efficient heating and cooling equipment, and the best in automated home lighting systems that turn off when not needed to save money, was the naysayer who steered everyone away from the latest trends in alternative lighting.
Until now. it's time to retract, and I'm doing it publicly. This link is to a catalog site showing many styles and brilliances of fluorescent and LED lighting, and while there are still caveats restraining the homeowner from believing every claim that GE and Phillips make for their new bulbs, I'm changing my stance and coming out for compact fluorescent retrofit bulbs, the ones that can be screwed into an old-style socket to replace an incandescent bulb.
The quality of the light is still "variable." If you choose the "daylight" or "soft white" color options at the home store, you'll probably be satisfied with the color and warmth of the light, even if it's a bit whiter than your old incandescent bulbs.
The intensity is appropriate to the fixture. Compact fluorescents are now prominently labeled for their "lumen" output, a more telling measure than the old "watts" per bulb number. Buy a bulb equal to the lumen output of your old bulb, whatever the wattage, and you'll get enough light. Notice, while you're doing that, that your new fluorescent retrofit bulb costs as much as ten times what you've been paying for incandescent light bulbs, and is rated to last as much as twenty times as long; and this time they're probably telling the truth. Older fluorescent retrofits were shorter-lived and grew dimmer as they aged.
Are all compact fluorescent bulbs created equal? No, sorry. Beware of those not costing significantly more than incandescents, and stick to brands like Phillips and GE rather than those packages which clearly indicate their foreign manufacture and sport suspiciously lower prices. The technology you're paying for is not cheap, and you'll be disappointed with the cheapest fluorescent retrofits. Check this Popular Mechanics link to a shootout test. Be told, as Granny used to say.
Environmental concerns? They're real. Compact fluorescents contain a small dose of mercury, which poses no threat unless the bulb is broken. Incandescents are also not safe when broken, so all the same warnings apply. When the dog knocks over the lamp, shoo the kids out of the room and use the vacuum; carefully. Here's an Energy Star data sheet to help you.
And how do the numbers work out? They work. A compact fluorescent using twelve watts of power competes with an incandescent 60 watt bulb for performance, lasts many times as long, and costs five or six dollars rather than 5o cents. That's twenty five percent of the power, with a service life that works out as a bargain even ignoring the energy savings.
We've blogged before about LED bulbs, and expressed our reservations. We still harbor those reservations. Maybe we'll visit that topic soon.. Until then, you can go to the big box store, or a good supermarket, and buy the compact fluorescents with confidence. Use them in lights you leave on a lot, not your basement or your closets. Then they'll do you some real good. And I'm replacing the incandescents at my house, too. We walk what we talk......

Connecticut Energy Lip Service

2009-11-11T10:07:00.004-05:00

If the electric meter in the photo were spinning backward, it would mean that the home it serves is using photovoltaic panels to push power back into the grid. In Connecticut, not the least progressive state in the union concerning renewable energy, the power is resold to the utility at retail, or exactly the cost homeowners are paying for their power. A corollary of the "Net Metering" system is that Connecticut Light and Power makes nothing on those watts contributed by photovoltaic-equipped homeowners: retail in, retail out. If there were enough of those homes hooked to the grid, the utility would become essentially a grid-maintenance corporation and the turbines at Millstone Nucular Power Plant would be idle-- except maybe at night, when demand is low and the solar panels of Connecticut are running on moonlight. Small danger of that scenario, you say? You're probably right. But like Dylan's 115th Dream, it's a nice one to have now and then.
If that meter were located in California, things would be a little different. The power flowing out through it from the residential photovoltaic array would be metered at an increased rate, higher than that charged for incoming power. The owner of the panels would be making a profit over and above the exchange of watts. And the obvious incentive to upsize the system and supply extra watts to the grid at that "Tariff-enhanced" rate is clear to anyone. Photovoltaic installation companies in California will now find it easier to "upsell" larger systems to homeowners, systems that will cost tens of thousands of dollars more than the basic entry level equipment, and those homeowners who commit those extra sums of money to renewable energy will be rewarded by faster payback on their investments, and real profits after their installation costs have been recouped.
This US Dept of Energy link explains the new tariff, applicable both to residential and commercial renewable installations up to 1.5 megawatts (a typical residential installation in CT is about 3 thousand watts) at differing tariff rates, making it attractive to invest sums starting around $40k and rising to staggering sums (for me, anyway) for home solar installations. Solar "thermal", or hot water and heating, installations are already rewarded by California's wonderful sunny climate, enabling folks like us to enjoy nearly free hot water and heating year-round.
The Bad News? Here in Connecticut we do have net metering, as we said. But the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, which administers and disburses the energy rebates that subsidize solar installations in the state, is currently "under financial review," meaning "not disbursing new rebates." I am advised by a CCEF representative that the next disbursements are projected for July of 2010, and that rebates for commercial solar installations have been temporarily suspended. Why? The funds are developed from surcharges and contributions on consumers' power bills, and CL&P has been short of funds lately since Attorney General Richard Blumenthal denied their request for a rate hike. So it appears that CL&P is economizing their way through this tough period by shorting, among other things, the Clean Energy Rebate program. With the rebates working, a photovoltaic system still costs quite a bit ($30,000 and up), but with no rebates the cost of the systems almost doubles.
Decreasing equipment costs are helping contractors to bring the price of system installations down in the last year, but those gains still don't put renewable energy within the reach of folks with modest incomes and modest borrowable equity in their homes. And the tally of renewable solar systems installed under the rebate program since june of 2009 totals just under 4 megawatts. Four megawatts is enough to power my house for about a year.
So--- we progress, but slowly. And we progress with much talk and belated action. Nothing wrong with talk, but it's disappointing when we see the tiny advances we make over time. All in all, we lack what is called the "political will," or the consent of the people, in other words, to move ahead on these issues.

Teaching America to Fish

2009-10-31T17:10:00.002-04:00

On rare occasions we get a little global and a bit political in this home-focused energy blog. The photo at left shows, in minuscule scale at bottom, a house in Mongolia adorned with various solar devices: photovoltaics, solar hot water, passive window orientation, like that. It is part of a new thrust in Chinese policy which swerves sharply away from the "let them eat soot" approach previously taken in China's dizzying progress through the swiftest and most aggressive industrial and technological revolution the planet has yet seen. In one respect only does China fail to eclipse the industrial revolutions of, say, Britain and the US: creative innovation, and that missing ingredient has been willingly supplied by a West eager to trade its technological treasure for the privilege of having our toasters made for us cheaply and in astonishing quantity.
China has become a smokestack economy over the last 40 years, replacing farms with factories while maintaining an adequate agricultural sector and keeping everyone fed. The air, water and land in China have suffered, along with the health of the Chinese people, in predictable ways as the industrial economy has grown by leaps and bounds. Chinese air and water quality have become a global joke, something to point to when defending some environmental foolishness on the part of a nation which should know better. But,,,, but,,,, we're not as bad as the Chinese, they sputter. And one significant argument against an aggressive response to global climate change has been, why do our part, when the Chinese are the biggest polluters and they have no intention of changing?
As it turns out, China, with its now-customary swiftness, is directing its attention to energy policy and global climate change. This link is to a United Nations site which records that China will meet a goal of 20% reduction in energy intensity by the end of 2010. Are the Chinese, not to put too fine a point on it, just blowing smoke at us? It wouldn't be the first time. But independent observers confirm that at least part of this claim is true: that China is moving toward a national energy awareness, if not independence. China is the single largest consumer of energy on the planet, and the largest importer of oil. It has its own reserves of coal and some natural gas, which it supplements with purchased gas from Russia. Small surprise: China exports coal to America, and it imports coal for special industrial use (steel production). And 70% of China's power is generated by coal-burning plants.
To come to the point: China is now the single largest manufacturer of solar panels. The largest solar farms and panel arrays in the world are planned for Chinese locations over the next few years. The solar power production of Europe and Scandinavia, which put the U.S. to shame, are being dwarfed by Chinese installations now in operation. We will soon be unable to point to China as the dragging foot in the war on global climate change and the struggle for renewable energy dominance. By the next Presidential election the U.S. will be embarrassingly behind most of the developed nations in energy independence and renewables production.
Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, writes in a recent column that "China has the most aggressive renewable energy deployment in the world." He writes elsewhere that American reluctance to consider measures like a hefty gas tax, research on clean nuclear energy, and significant subsidies for renewable energy production have already caused us to lag behind Europe and Scandinavia. Soon, he says, we will be lagging behind Asia, and after that? Will Latin America also eclipse us as we move into the "Energy Century?" What will it take?
Leadership in this most miraculous of nations (that's us, by the way--- America the beautiful, in which I have implicit faith) comes from both the top and the bottom rungs of the power ladder. We respond to grassroots leadership (that was the 60s, you unbelievers, the last great grassroots movement in America) as well as to great political leadership (that would be the Clintons, pointing the way to broad-based national health care), and even when that leadership leaves the stage, the ideas remain to sprout and grow. We are now reaping a harvest of change from Hillary's sacrificial efforts in the 90s, and we stop at Whole Foods on the way home thanks to a little fad begun in the 60s by some fanatics who had read too much Rachel Carson. We will be dragged into sanity in the near future by leaders like Al Gore and others who are now being shouted down by an oil-subsidized opposition, and America will become an energy leader again. I await the day. Meantime, I'll keep blogging, installing tight windows, nailing solar panels onto my house, and trying to reduce my energy footprint. Next time we'll get back on task with home topics.

Solar Panels No Problem in Cloudy Weather

2009-10-27T21:20:00.002-04:00

I happened to be cleaning a boiler this morning at the home of one of my solar clients, and i checked the system over. 50 degrees out, cloudy enough so that I couldn't tellwhere the sun was in the sky. The two Heliodyne panels were reading 95 degrees, the pump was cranking away, and the two 60 gallon storage tanks were being warmed. All in weather not normally seen as optimal for solar hot water systems. The oil fired boiler in this system only has to raise the water temperature to 130 degrees to serve the dishwasher, laundry and showers. Lots of energy was being saved by the solar equipment in that house.
I didn't build the panels, or the heat exchanger, but I did design and install the system. It performs beyond expectations. The new optically selective coatings being used on flat plate panels will collect photons and transform them into heat much more efficiently than flat black paint or a bare surface.
This is a short post, an update on some things we've discussed lately. Don't believe the dismissive comments about solar hot water being a three or four month blessing. Solar hot water, thoughtfully installed, will perform for you on sunny days twelve months a year in New England. Connected as a pre-heating treatment with an energy source configured to finish the water off to usable temperatures, solar panels can be working for you all winter long, even on cloudy days.

Phil's 113th Energy Dream

2009-10-24T17:52:00.003-04:00

The diagram at left teaches you more than most folks want to know about boiler internals, specifically horizontal three-pass cast iron. There are many clever variations on the theme of torturing hot fumes before releasing them to the chimney and the heavens, and this one has been used for two generations in big commercial boilers powering factories and hospitals. Only lately do we rise above the heavy, hollow cast units many of you still have in the basement.

Don't think me smug, I service boilers performing at 75% efficiency all over the county, and the Biasi in my attic gets around 87%. There's not a huge harvest of energy to be reaped yet from changing boiler designs until we find a way to deal with the acids and sludge condensed in boilers at lower temperatures. In Europe they've refined the sulfur almost entirely out of their fuel, yielding something almost as clear as kerosene. The link is to a British site listing oil boilers boasting 97& efficiency. Shame on us Yanks. I won't delve into the technology of boilers with condensing exhaust, but just imagine something vented through a light metal tube at less than 200 degrees, with sulfuric acid and dissolved ash dripping from a draincock on the flue.

My Biasi is among the high society of boilers,sold in the US, but it hails from Italy. Its nearest competitors are made in Germany, Germany and Italy, respectively. There are American multipass designs being sold, but they lag behind in the critical qualities of low mass, low volume and low stack temperatures. Makes you think, don't it? At app. 2.10 US dollars per gallon on Labor Day weekend, heating oil is as cheap as it's been in years, and we Americans see no reason to respond, apparently to anything but brute market forces. Price, in other words.

The little B4 model weighs in at 300 lb. dry weight. We hauled it up through the scuttle hatch with a light comealong rigged to a single unbraced rafter. Piece of cake. Why am I in such a lather to get it up there? It doesn't require a conventional chimney (my house doesn't have a conventional chimney), and the vent is through a single length of capped stainless steel chimney pipe extending through the roof on the leeward side of the house. It's also within 6 feet of the blower unit that heats my house. The water heated by the boiler travels no distance at all, losing almost no heat to the surrounding air. It sits in a metal pan piped to a nearby sewer vent pipe.
For domestic hot water, imagine a stainless steel block heat exchanger the size of a shoebox hanging off the back of the boiler. When someone hits a switch either in the kitchen or bath, the control starts the boiler water circulating through the exchanger, heating domestic water in one pass hot enough to do dishes, shower or operate the laundry. But you have to hit the switch, otherwise the little Biasi sits there cold. Time to hot water, from a standing start? Three minutes by the stopwatch. I know, America can't wait for its hot water, and can't be bothered to hit a switch. But this is how it goes at my house. You get up to an hour of glorious hot water from a twist of the timer. Otherwise you wash your hands in cool or tepid water warmed a little by its passage through the house pipes.

Antifreeze protects the boiler, blower coil and heat exchanger from freeze damage, and the attic is insulated against bitter outdoor temperatures. I have to use a little pump, fashioned from an old oil burner, to lift fuel to the attic for the boiler. That adapted unit sits in the basement next to the oil tanks, pushing a dribble of oil up to a heavy steel reservoir which feeds the burner by gravity. My house, insulated through various remodeling projects over thirty years to respectable R values and tightness, will be comfortable this winter without any renewable energy resources other than some carefully planned passive solar (click to see an older post on our sunroom).

Will I put a system like this one in your house? Not until we talk. Talk a lot. Show me your old copies of the Whole Earth Catalog, or the original pulp-format Mother Earth News. Tell me you were at Woodstock, and why I didn't see you there (I missed Woodstock, that's why). Show me your green-friendly stock portfolio, your Energy Star appliances, your first pair of Birkenstocks. And assure me you're willing to wait three minutes for hot water at any tap in the house, think before you hit the switch whether you really want to spend that energy, and let Dirty Phil into your house at least once a year for a boiler cleaning and efficiency check. And then, maybe. How can I be sure you're ready to take this step? Soon I'll be blogging about the solar hot water system that will be incorporated into my attic this fall. Stay tuned.

More Hot Water Options, and My Favorite

2009-10-17T08:23:00.002-04:00

The photo is borrowed from a charming blog post dealing with gender differences in showering styles. But we're here to wrap up, for now, the subject of domestic hot water options for energy conscious homeowners.
We've talked about tankless water heaters, solar water heaters, electric tanks and furnace coils. Here are a few more to round out the picture for you.
If you have a coil in your oil or gas fired boiler, you might consider upgrading to an indirect hot water tank. There are two styles, one in which boiler water fills the tank, and one in which boiler water fills only a coil in the tank. My favorite is the former, for efficiency. This link is for an excellent design by Dunkirk. The boiler is relieved of its duty to stay hot as heck all the time, running only when a tank thermostat calls for it to warm up the tank, or when hot water is being used. You save considerable on "standby losses" and seldom experience a delay of hot water due to the tank's capacity. The insulation of the tank makes it a better reservoir for heat, and you can over-wrap it yourself and do even better.
There is also the option of putting the oil burner right under the tank and heating it up directly. A "direct fired hot water heater" is a tank sitting over a firebox with a burner and a flue. Standby losses are a bit greater with the direct design, but the recovery rate of the tank temperature is amazing, and it's hard to run out of hot water even with teenagers in the house.
I recommend you use the link and look at what Energy Kinetics has done with the concept of hot water production and standby losses. Their systems are pricey and require considerable expertise to install correctly, but the savings give you an accelerated payback over the classic cast iron boiler with internal hot water coil. A smart controller starts the low mass (low mass, low volume, quick heatup, small amount of energy trapped in boiler upon shutdown) stainless boiler up cold, turns on a circulator to respond to heating needs, and circulates boiler water through a flat plate heat exchanger piped outside of the boiler. domestic hot water is heated in one pass, or a separate circulator warms a well insulated storage tank to provide water that doesn't fluctuate much in temperature (this temperature fluctuation is the most common complaint from boiler coil people, other than high energy costs). At the end of a heating/hot water cycle, the boiler circulator stays on until the heat has been "dumped" into a waiting zone or the hot water tank. Not much gets wasted. I seldom directly plug a company in this blog, but no one else is doing exactly what Energy Kinetics is doing, and I think they're ahead of their time in a notoriously sluggish industry in a notoriously energy-spoiled culture. Good for them.
Next post I'll talk about the system I just installed in my own house, a real pound puppy of assembled energy efficient components crafted to my own design. Stay with us...... meanwhile, if you'd like to discuss your own options for upgrading your hot water system, hit the contact link and i'll be happy to respond.

Sunbathing Once Removed - Solar Hot Water and You

2009-10-05T20:18:00.003-04:00

The device at left is a self-contained solar hot water heater, featuring panels, mounting frame, and tank at the top. it requires no power for pumps or controls. Water from the tank circulates through the collector plates by convection as the sun heats it, filling the tank with water at whatever temperature the sun can warm it. The tank remains at house pressure, waiting for a demand. At night the tank cools slowly, delivering hot water until the tank is cooled completely.
You can't take a shower at midnight with this rig, unless no one else has used water that evening. You can't store more water than can be held in the tank. You can't rely upon the supply first thing in the morning, or later in the morning, unless the outside temp is so high that the tank doesn't cool much. You can't install this system in a climate where winter temps drop to freezing or below; or, you can't use the system more than five months a year in New England where I live, and it must be drained for the winter when hot water is supplied by another system. You can't supply the hot water needs of an American family of four unless they're all atuned to the daily cycles of water heating and time their use of hot water in zen-like harmonious balance with the (i'm singing now, in a sloppy baritone) "Cirrrrrcle of Liiiiiiffffe." No audio available on that one....
You get the picture? The system shown is not acceptable for Americans. No system I know of is acceptable to Americans, with the exception of aging hippies with dearly held beliefs on the subject. I installed a system several years ago for clients with those dearly held beliefs about energy and independence, but the system nevertheless had to be carefully integrated with a seamless backup, sized to provide hot water for every possible demand including house guests, and separated from the house water supply by a closed-loop heat exchanger filled with antifreeze to prevent freezing. Sporting those features, it cost a small bundle, which federal and state incentives defrayed by over half (here in CT, at the time, state rebates were generous; since then, with a huge budget deficit, those rebates have withered). But it supplies "tempered" (pre-heated) water to their oil-fired backup system on any sunny day in any month of the year, and supplies all of their hot water needs for about six months out of twelve.
That's what Americans require: seamless integration of alternative energy systems into an American lifestyle which forfeits no convenience to the idea of sustainable energy technology. I could sell a lot of the systems shown in the picture; they would supply the hot water needs of a couple for at least the three warmest months of the NewEngland year, saving 25% of the energy costs in a category (domestic hot water) that accounts for at least 30% of an American family's energy bill. Yes; that's 8% of the household's energy costs, defrayed by a system that must be lived with a state of awareness and harmony. No, I won't sing again. The payback period of the system would be about eight years, and it has a life cycle of perhaps 30 years. But all the caveats listed above still apply. You have to live with what the system can do, and what it can't do. How many of my clients are willing to make those lifestyle adjustments? Hands up? I don't see any hands. Guess what? My hand's not up, and I'm an energy-conscious aging hippie and heating/cooling contractor committed to renewables. I'm an American, and I want my hot water without compromise.
There are other solar hot water systems, other designs that contribute to a home's hot water needs in a more American way. This USDE site gives an overview. Costs range from 8 to 25 thousand dollars US to install, and they pay back your investment over periods ranging from ten to 25 years. Do you know how fast they're selling in Connecticut? Not fast at all, especially as the rebates recede and the federal tax incentives age toward 2015, when they will either be renewed or not.
I always plump for low technology, low cost, modest gain energy strategies in this blog and in my business, but I haven't found a way to put solar hot water within the reach of average homeowners yet. The renewables train is coming slowly around the bend, and there's a lot of hemming and hawing among homeowners who'd rather replace windows and siding than invest in solar technology, because that's what's being hawked on the telly. I'm a very modest salesman, with a conscience I wear upon my sleeve, and I can't promise more than the numbers tell me when I talk up renewables. The number are still tough, but they work in the long haul. We need a national, cultural sea change, a tipping point. If it's not on the infomercials, it's not hot. Al Gore can't sell this one: I can't sell this one. The renewables movement is waiting for someone to sell it to America; perhaps only Tom Hanks is up to the job.

It's a Tankless Job

2009-09-12T19:27:00.001-04:00

If I could give up the cruddy puns, I'd have more readers. As it is, the two of you are most welcome, and I salute your tolerant natures. The contraption shown at left is called a "tankless water heater." This one is fired by propane, although we could show you electric or oil-fired models, and even a few that use wood. The idea is simple, but simple ideas are always hell for engineers. Water enters cold, leaves hot enough for American bath and kitchen use, and not much energy goes up the flue, if you believe the labels.
Compared to the electric tank that sits in my basement, the tankless heater is a marvel of efficiency. A crafty heat exchanger exposes the water to the gas flames/electric elements such that heat transfers at efficiency ratios up to 95%. My electric tank operates at closer to 85% due to various factors, mostly standby (idle) heat loss from the tank.
The tankless heater sits cold, or barely warm, until you turn on the shower/faucet/dishwasher/laundry/jacuzzi. A flow switch alerts the unit that water is demanded, and the btus begin to flow immediately. A delay attends the operation of the heater, during which you run water, wasting a bit, and wait for the hot stuff. Usually fifteen to thirty seconds is enough. Then, as long as you continue to demand hot water continuously, the heater can produce as much as you can use, within limits.
Properly sized, the tankless heater will serve one point of use or several in your house. You calculate the capacity by the number of occupants and their habits. Teenagers count as a small village each. Old men like me are no big problem. Can I run the dishwasher while showering? Shall I operate the clothes washer and the dishwasher at the same time? There are easy formulas to help you get this right in one go.
The capacity for heating water in one pass is a thing that separates the tigers from the kittens. Electric tankless units are generally of smaller capacity, and two or more are installed in series to raise water to the desired temperature as it traverses the multiple heat exchangers. Propane or natural gas heaters are more aggressive, and usually one correctly sized heater will serve an average house. Only Republicans, to date, have been willing to accept the risks of the nuclear option, but they say the water is always hot. And wood burners can easily adjust the intensity of their heating plants by adding more logs/pellets/kindling to keep the heat exchanger cooking. The Waltons' method, of course, was technically tankless, involving multiple pots hung over the fireplace and carried to the big washtub where a dirty Walton waited to be scalded clean.
We spent the last week at a "resort" (weathered 80 year old shacks perched on the dunes) on Cape Cod. The single modern convenience, besides a rather sluggish flush toilet (more on that topic only by request) is copious hot water supplied by propane-fired tankless heaters. Crank the shower control, wait a good half-minute, temper a bit with cold, and step in for the best shower you can get at any price. Yes, the shower's indoors; and it's also outdoors--- your choice. The blunt simplicity of the amenities is only meant to enhance your appreciation of the stunning views of sea, sand, birds, seals, whales (!), and well-fed tourists only capturable through wide-angle lenses. No, I won't tell you where it is: they don't advertise, and the waiting list stretches years in front of hopeful vacationers. Elitism has many faces.
At your house, the water heater can cost from $1 US to $3 US, depending upon the energy source and the equipment. If you've got a solar hot water system, you might be getting off VERY cheaply during these sunny warm days of summer. Pennies per day, just enough to run your pumps and sensors. Good for you. Next time we'll revisit hot water and talk a bit about the more conventional optons.

One More Reason to Hate Skinny People- They Stay Cooler

2009-08-28T19:09:00.002-04:00

There are no Models any more; only "supermodels" and "weight loss contestants." The woman in the silhouette photo at left may be an expensive sweetheart in many ways, but the physics says she's at least easier to keep cool.
It's almost a "duh" moment to reveal that skinny people stay cool at higher temperatures, I suppose. But since I stopped being skinny, I've been indulging in denial about my need for greater cooling comfort. At two hundred pounds of aging manhood, I suffer a bit more in the heat and humidity than I did a few years ago. And you?
A Hawaiian blogger from Hilo cites a study exploring the relationship between body mass and the need for more cooling. Apparently larger, heavier people expend fewer calories through normal indoor activity, but they require lower AC temps even so. Ok, I get that. And there's a twist. The study poses the question whether the popularity of largeness has itself causes our increasing dependence upon mechanical cooling, or whether THE AIR CONDITIONING ITSELF HAS CAUSED US TO GET FATTER!
As Dave Barry often says, I am sooooooo not making this up. If reducing our heat stress in summer causes us to eat more, ok, maybe. If reducing our heat stress simply permits larger people to survive summer, ok, maybe. Or if heat stress is a weight loss technique we should all be considering, well, I don't like it, but maybe.
In the case of my embarrassing spread, I don't think my air conditioner is the real perp. I think I did it to myself. But a guilty air conditioner may cost less to run. I can be stingier with the thermostat. I can do yoga in front of the TV. I can eat salad with almost no dresssing while i do yoga in front of the TV, occasionally glaring at the thermostat. I can work in the heat all day and come home to a cool house, drink ice water and bask in the relief from heat stress. I don't think I should swelter until I reach my ideal weight. I think I may live longer if I don't have to court heat exhaustion, dehydration, depression, grouchiness, malaise and unpleasant body odors when it gets hot outside.
I want my AC. Forget the study linking obesity with air conditioning. I can adjust. I'll drink so much water I won't even be hungry. And if the supermodel gets chilly, she can go outside and pose........

Smell That Fresh Air! Where Do YOU LIve?

2009-08-23T20:16:00.004-04:00

I put good filters into the HVAC equipment I install. Sometimes, on request, I install special electronic or ultraviolet purifiers that remove living thingies from the air inside your house. But that's only inside. We can battle the pet dander, dust mites, pollen and even germs floating in your indoor air. But we can't fight what 's going on outside.
The air quality where you live depends upon many things: surrounding plant life, animals living nearby, cities and manufacturing plants upwind of you, and nuclear testing in China, believe it or not. If you live just outside, say, Gary, Indiana, or on the east side of the Bronx, or in LA during smog season, you have to live with what man does to the environment in the course of American living: automobile exhaust, industrial emissions and the smoke from too many chimneys affect us when we breathe.
But I live in the country! Miles and miles of luxurious forest, hayfields, amber waves of grain, native casinos (non-emitters, they swear, very harmonious wit' nature), placid cattle grazing in fields fenced by rubble-stone walls. I love New England. But the air quality where I live is not free of challenge. Ragweed, milkweed, conifer pollen, asters, wild grasses, oak and the cows' behinds all emit stuff that I'm allergic to. On sultry August days I have to come inside sometimes to catch a breath of clean air. My house is not a clean-room, but it has a filtered air conditioning system that stands between me and the bad stuff outdoors sometimes when things build up and the Air Quality Index shows a high level of pollutants in the air.
If you're not susceptible to these changes in air quality, good for you. But most people are, to varying degrees. Even stalwart smokers notice when the air gets heavy with dust, pollen and smoke particles, and breathing can be actually risky for more sensitive types like asthma sufferers.
What to do? I'm afraid the solution, like so much of life, involves work. To start with, clean your house. Really clean. Use a good vacuum, preferably a hypo-allergenic model, or even a HEPA quality vac, move the piles in the corners, move the couch, move the dog, and vacuum everywhere. Do the walls, too. I'll wait while you finish.
And vacuum your bare mattress to reduce the number of dust mites living there. What are they living on, you ask? Read the Wiki thing in the link. Or don't. Dust mites are icky. Just vacuum your mattress, under your bed, run your bedding through the dryer at high temp once in a while, or, better yet, hang it out on a hot sunny day. Dust mites are like vampires. Sort of.
And once y0ur house is clean, keep it clean. Fry your favorite greasy foods out on the grille rather than indoors. Use a non-ozone air purifier to filter one safe space in your house for you to lurk in on bad air days. Watch the weather thingie for air reports; they're there, but barely. Don't look for them in the shots of the weather lady's legs.
And consider, charming as they may be, that your pets may be part of the problem. Especially if they share your furniture or your beds when you're not looking. And they do, don't they? Don't lie. Of course you love your pets; but they might be as big a factor in your allergies as the ragweed pollen that's out and bothering everyone now.
Respiratory health is not something you can take in pill form. What goes into your lungs can cause you trouble. Sometimes it comes from upwind, from the factory or the city. Sometimes it comes from the scenic fields and woods around your house. Sometimes it comes from the mattress under your sheets. Or from your dog. And if it's coming from inside your house, there's something you can do about it. Those fields may be best viewed through your windows until pollen season is over. Health is an energy issue, as we will see in future posts.

What's That Smell? Quick! To the Shower!

2009-08-15T14:47:00.004-04:00

One of the seasonal energy features of summer is: more showers. Not so, say you? Take as many showers in cold weather as you do in summer? Well, let me tell you about my daughters. In their salad days as teenagers they took several a day between them. I, as a hard-w0rking contractor, often find myself in the rain-room more than once a day.
And the electric tank in the basement that supplies my hot water is working overtime to supply all that hot water for extra showers. So add to my energy bill for modest air conditioning comfort the expense of extra hot water for more laundry and showers. And the alternative? EEEEEEEeeeeewwww! What's that smell? See the guy in the photo? Don't get any closer, or you'll receive way too much information. Wait until he's all done and dried off.

What's Mr. Natural's astute, energy-conscious remedy? Well. First things first. Short, tepid showers. You're thinking, you don't know my kids. No, I don't know your kids. But I know how to turn down the settings on my water heater. And you can learn, too. Right here. And be extra careful if your tank is electric; use an insulated screwdriver and don't remove the wireshield. Just follow the directions, do the upper as well as the lower thermostat, and you can become as unloved as a beginning tuba player in minutes. And keep your teenagers away from screwdrivers. Come to think of it, I'll bet they don't know or care where your water heater is located.
Stronger deodorant? Doesn't instill confidence or convey that fresh clean feeling. but you can try. Hippie housefold hint no. 206: apply rubbing alcohol to your pits as you emerge from the shower, then use deodorant if you wish. Don't try this, ladies, after you shave under there. Be warned.
And there's what Kinky Friedman calls the "Waylon Jennings Bus Shower," in which you splash and swab your armpits while standing at the sink. Saves water, job gets done. No fresh, clean feeling, though. Now wipe up the floor.
Between the laundry, hot water and the air conditioning, it's hard to save an energy buck in hot weather. But you can try. Adjust your hot water heater, adjust your air conditioning thermostat, do full loads of laundry in cold water and hang the clothes in the sun to dry. Don't waste energy pleading with your teenagers. Tell them they smell just fine.

Ductless Spllit Air Conditioning - Practically Perfect

2009-08-11T18:54:00.003-04:00

If your home has a large open space built around, perhaps, the kitchen, dining room and den, or the newfangled Great Room concept, you can render that space comfortable without sacrificing your windows or paying big sums for some guy like me to install a full duct network for a central system. You can have a "ductless split" system installed, operate it from a handy remote, and cool the large living area of your house in respectable silence.
Window units are noisy and take up window openings. Central systems are the best, but can you afford one right now? Like the incumbent Democratic administration, I favor a considered compromise when all factors can be weighed. I don't favor any single brand, but i do insist that you shop for these essentals: high efficiency, ample capacity, multiple fan speeds, and a good warrantee. Here are some links, offered without partiality for your consideration. Here's a multi-brand site, another one, and a brand or two of the better ones.
To find an installer, you may have to call around, use the Yellow Pages, and ask at the wholesaler's, because not all techs are familiar with the subtle ways of the ductless split. Expect the job to take less than a day, and expect to be cool by dinnertime. The hardest part is tying the electric power into your panel, a process that may require a licensed electrician. Be sure to ask if your installer does the wiring himself.
The thermostat's in the remote, the filter is the washable kind, and the condenser is as energy-efficient as the outdoor unit of a central system, and a bit more efficient than any window unit you can buy. Ductless split is less noisy than window units, slightly more noisy than central, typically.
Here in New England, we have the possible need for home air conditioning, I tell my clients, of about 100 days per year. Most folks use their air conditioning between 40 and 60 days, unless a bust of ralph nader adorns your mantel and you're reading this while completely naked. How much will it cost to get you through the summer? Can you hide in your bedroom next to the window unit? Do you need the whole house cooled and dried to accommodate your teenagers and your expansive tush sticking to your naugahyde recliner? Or somewhere in between? If you'd like to get comfortable in the dining room and huddle around the table like millennial Waltons being cool, and if you're tempted to break out the sleeping bags and have a camping adventure on the family room carpet, you could be enjoying your ductless split system by, say, tomorrow night.

Air Conditioning: It's All About the Water

2009-08-05T09:23:00.003-04:00

In summer, no matter where you live, you sometimes wish for a cooler house. "Sultry" is the word they taught us in school for those days of heat and humidity that sap your energy and make you feel clammy and damp. The woman in the photo is using an ancient strategy, moving air across her skin to promote the evaporation of moisture, which removes heat from her body and dries her skin to a more comfortable level. Fans are always good.
But what happens on those days when fans don't work? When the humidity is so near "dew point" that no evaporation is possible? When the air contains so much moisture at its current temperature that it can't receive any more? You can drive to the beach or lake or pool and immerse yourself in water to cool down, or.....
Enter air conditioning, a technology older than you might think, which cools the air in a space and, at its best, lowers the moisture content of the air so that evaporation can remove heat from people and animals therein. Simply blowing air across quantities of ice is an ancient application. Willis Carrier devised a refrigerating device that cooled air using ammonia as a compressible refrigerant in 1902. We now use non-toxic gases in home and auto air conditioners, but the environmental impact of those gases has us looking for the next generation of refrigerants that don't pollute nearly as much. More on that another time.
Here, as I say often, is the secret: any air conditioner that can cool room air to a temperature below its dew point in one pass across its coils will eventually render a space comfortable for people and animals. Moisture drops out of the cooled air, drains off somewhere in a responsible way, and the air now feels more comfortable, breathable, drier, and the moisture evaporating from your skin is removing just over 1000 btu per pound of sweat. Don't think too graphically about the idea of a pound of sweat, but athletes in extremis can shed ten pounds or more from perspiration and evaporation during a game or training session, and marathon runners dread humid days for races because they will sweat just as much but not be able to control their bodies' temperature as well in those conditions. Just like you, in a milder way, on a hot day, entering a room full of cool, dry air. Wonderful. Or unable to find a cool space and wiping away pints (pounds) of perspiration and still feeling hot and miserable.
Today in my zip code it's only 77 degrees Fahrenheit, but it's 95% relative humidity. That means the air is burdened with 95% of the water it can contain at that temperature, and it's unlikely to accept that last 5% without more wind than we have. It's uncomfortable, sticky, still and not going to improve until thunderstorms come later in the day to reduce the humidity. Good day to use air conditioning to dry out the air inside, even though the temperature is not oppressive.
Even if you air condition only one special room in your house (bedroom, tv room, basement den) as a refuge on miserable days, you can give yourself a place to get comfy and avoid the toll of heat stress (the link is a bit lurid, beware). Or you can take a shower to cool down, hug the fan like the young woman in the photo, drink lots of iced stuff, and gripe about the weather to anyone who will listen. It seems to help, somehow.

The S.E.E.R. Predicts Your Energy Future

2009-08-01T12:00:00.001-04:00

Do you mind the bad puns in the post titles? The label at left was attached to a new room air conditioner. SEER, or Seasonal Energy Effiiciency Rating, is an industry standard meant to help you compare appliances, specifically air conditioners, as to energy efficiency. A low number means lower efficiency, a higher number means greater efficiency and better performance for less energy.
This Wiki link explains the higher math, but you can get it this way. SEER, in reference to AC units, is the raw number of btu you get from investing one watt for one hour. If you, like me, pay almost 20 cents per thousand (kilo-) watt hours, a SEER 0f 10.5 means you get back 10,500 btu for every kilowatt hour you invest in running the unit. That capacity matches a small room air conditioner, so you can figure you spend between 20 and 30 cents per hour to run your window air conditioner at that SEER. Run it day and night for a week, you've spent perhaps $40 US on average to air condition that room or space. Boring? Only until the power bill shows up.
So the numbers matter as much as the price when you go to the big box store to shop for AC units. You might pay $50 less for a cheaper unit, but how long will that $50 last when a window unit of 9.8 (minimum) EER (category for room/window units) costs 30% more to run than a better one with an EER of 13? The payback on the difference can be measured in weeks, or perhaps a New York minute.
If you install a central (ducted, noisy parts outside, air comes out of holes in floor or ceiling) system, the minimum SEER permitted in CT is 13. And you can spend some more money and get SEER ratings of up to 23. Yes. Almost twice as efficient. And almost twice as expensive. Equipment rated SEER 16 is more reasonable in price, and the energy savings will pay you back rather quickly for your initial investment in better equipment.
If you have large, open spaces in your house (no, I don't mean missing walls and doors, silly), you might opt for a Ductless Split System, in which a single blower unit hangs on a wall and the noisy condenser sits outside. There is no hidden ductwork in the basement and you can control the unit with a handy remote. SEER can range from 13 to 16, and total system cost can be half the amount you pay for a central system. The ductwork I and my colleagues install is efficient and equity-enhancing, but expensive.
Numbers can be so boring unless dollar (or Euro) signs are attached. When you invest in air conditioners, don't wait until it's hot and you're miserable and don't have much money in your pocket. If you can help it. Get a grip, take along a calculator, crunch some simple numbers, tax the salesperson with hard questions about efficiency and capacity, and get more for your money---- not just today, but for as long as you own the equipment. We'll talk more about the different systems in the next post.

Taking It To the Street-- Grid Tie Solar Pros and Cons

2009-07-21T19:31:00.001-04:00

The image is courtesy of ABCsolar.com, a commercial vendor, and it explains at a glance the appeal of solar electricity as it is practiced in many states with tax credits and rebate programs. Panels on the roof feed the grid, slowing the spin of that electrical cash register and sometimes even spinning it backward, selling power back to the grid at regionally mandated rates, sometimes identical to retail.
We've weighed in on the topic before, but the discussion, globally and blogospherically (is that a word?), is heating up (intentional pun, not funny but vitally important). Why are the systems set up this way? Here are five points, in descending order of priority, to explain the issues.
One. The grid needs help. Our electrical infrastructure is aging and stretched, and panels on America's rooftops spell R-E-L-I-E-F for the power stations and the distribution network during peak usage hours, which happen to coincide with peak solar production hours.
Two. The math is simple this way. Since home-generated solar electricity can be used by the grid, the simplest calculation is to use the meter in two directions, in and out, and let lower power bills be the immediate reward for an investment in renewable energy for homeowners. Different utilities reward solar power sold to the grid at different rates, and some are capped as to yearly total power contributed from a single system. My local utility, Connecticut Light and Power, uses the Net Metering System, in which the meter simply registers resold power at retail rates. Even I can do that math.
Three. Grid tied systems are less costly. At quoted rates a nominal 5000 watt grid tie system costs the homeowner about $18,000 with all rebates calculated, and some quoted prices are higher. Similar systems involving storage batteries and charging and regulating equipment would cost considerably more, and payback formulas would be even longer than they are now (12-20 years, depending on who's doing the math). The benefit of being able to use stored power at night and in bad weather is dearly bought on those terms. And remember, when the grid goes down, the panels are cut off, even in sunny weather, for safety reasons.
Four. The good news is the bad news. Most of us have very reliable local utilities who keep us well supplied with power, reducing our need for backup systems except in unusual circumstances (storms, blackouts, local line failure). Other countries have much less reliable utilities, and rolling blackouts are a part of life even in other developed countries. The incentive for grid independence, except among those in remote locations and cantankerous old hippies with long memories, is not compelling .
Five. Living with backup systems is a pain. Most Americans worship at the Church of Convenience, so to speak, and planning power usage to coincide with daylight hours while reserving battery power for small loads at night is too much thinking. Battery systems capable of running central air and electric ranges would be huge and expensive, and Americans who spend their days out of the house aren't able to easily plan activities like clothes drying, cooking and water heating.
So---- for now, this is what's possible. Solar power with storage backup is too expensive for modest budgets, too slow on payback to be an attractive short-term investment, and too short on equipment life cycle to be an attractive long-term investment. But the numbers do work: solar power pays, eventually, modestly, reliably, efficiently, philosophically, politically. For those able, in these straitened economic times, to take advantage of it, it affords a chance to be in on the ground floor of something that all of us will eventually join. For now, you might need that home equity as a safety net for your family. First things first. And there are so many other energy measures that are very much within our reach. Let's do those first things first.

It's Not Rocket Science. Photovoltaic Cells Unmasked

2009-07-16T19:00:00.002-04:00

A faithful reader has commented on the DIY (do-it-yourself) potential of solar panel construction, and cited a source promising solar panel construction for extremely affordable sums. Here we are, not to debunk the claims of the "You Can Do It With My Special Video" entrepreneurs, but to give a framework of data to help you in your research.
A single solar cell consists of two wafers of highly engineered silicon, joined carefully by a conductive bond, fastened to a supporting backer, with electrical leads. That cell can typically generate .7 volts of direct current power. Connected in a cluster behind a clear glazing, the assembly, or "panel," can be configured to deliver a maximum of 12, 24 or 48 volts direct current while sitting in the sun on your roof.
The catch, and there are a few, begins with efficiency. Silicon responds only to narrow frequencies of light, operates poorly at high temperatures, and seldom delivers, in many lower cost panels, more than 5% to 15% of the potential power of the sunlight falling on it. Here's a NASA link that explains some of the challenges and how they're met. Optical reflectors, wafer stacking, and various cooling techniques can improve panel efficiency up to 20%. In my previous post, titled "3 kwh per square meter per day..." we did some math about the potential of any rooftop to deliver solar electricity, and this efficiency factor has to be part of that math. Even a well-constructed solar panel will only absorb and convert one watt in five in full sunlight.
Once the solar panel is on the roof and receiving sunlight, it needs to talk to a device that converts direct current to alternating current, which is the form of power distributed by utilities and used in your house. The Inverter, as it is called, massages that direct current of some lower voltage into alternating sine wave current at 120 or 240 volts for American homes to use. Voltage may vary by global region. The inverter operates at about 90% efficiency, depending upon a lot of factors, so use that in your calculations.
If your system will be tied to the grid, your panels and inverter will be specified and dictated by the utility. No home-brew systems that I'm aware of can be grid-tied with CL&P's approval. The engineering of the specified inverters carefully matches grid voltage, among other things, and instantly shuts down the system if the grid loses power. This prevents the deaths of linepersons working during outages. It also prevents you from using your system, even if you manually disconnect it from the grid, during an outage.
As of this writing, photovoltaic panels can't be bought at WalMart, except for specialty applications like charging lawnmower and car batteries, and powering tiny landscape lights. Solar panels are available through Home Depot in modest wattages, and they also subcontract installations in some regions. You cannot yet just fill up two shopping carts and be on the grid by sundown, at least not in Connecticut. In some ways the equipment is less complicated than the permits and inspections required by most utilities.
But we're getting there. So, hats off to you DIY enthusiasts, I hope your time comes soon for affordability and regulatory friendliness. Meantime, you can do smaller projects at home, limited only by your purse and daring. Our time is coming, and your questions are always welcome.

Solar Power in CT-- Can I Keep Some?

2009-07-13T19:28:00.002-04:00

We mentioned last time that storage is a key issue in the advance of solar electric power as an energy source. In Connecticut the approved grid-tie system features no storage at all.
There are advantages: the installation is simpler and less expensive. The peak output of the panels coincides with Connecticut Light and Power's peak usage during the business day, lightening the burden on the utility to meet peak demand. The relatively straightforward formula of retail power in, retail power out means that photovoltaic output defrays the cost of incoming power at the same price per unit, so the calculation is made right in your meter and on your bill.
Sadly, there's nothing here for those interested in energy independence. You're still tied to the grid, still paying your bill, still subject to rate hikes and only a tiny junior partner with CL&P in the business of powering the state, or your home. Storage is the problem. Batteries are expensive, heavy, not at all maintenance-free, and not perfectly safe. If accidentally pierced, they stink and the contents are corrosive. Batteries are also not quite in the Star Trek category for capacity. For a bank of four batteries (in series, delivering 48 volts, an efficient output for power inverters) capable of powering your house for 14-16 hours at night, you would pay up to $2000; and forget about operating your electric range or air conditioning. Lights, television, refrigerator, computers is about the limit.
Other storage schemes are worth mentioning: hot water, both domestic and for heating, can be heated by solar electric power and stored. Hydronic panels can also be used for the purpose of charging a hydronic storage bank. Thermal mass built into your house can be used to store heat during the colder seasons, and to store "cold" during summer. More exotic applications like storing energy as compressed air or latent heat in a phase change compound are too expensive and complicated to be interesting to non-engineers.
Battery technology is being advanced rapidly by intrepid science jocks and inventors who want to revoltutionize home storage, hybrid cars and electronic gadgetry, and I wish them well. Beyond lead-acid batteries, Glass matt batteries, Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium lie technologies that might put overnight storage within our modest collective reach. And utility companies might soften their stance on hybrid storage-grid systems to allow more off-grid independence.
The cruel catch, that rooftop panels cannot be used when the grid goes down, for safety reasons, is a bitter quibble. Imagine yourself sitting powerless under a roof full of potential, with no way to use the power. That's the current state of the industry. Some accomodation between grid safety and home storage will arrive soon, I hope, and the whole enterprise will begin to make more sense for average people. Simply to partner with the utiliity in producing power and spinning your meter backwards is an idea of some appeal. To achieve emergency backup and the possibility of partial grid independence is a much better reason to hock the ranch and load up your roof with panels. I'm holding out for that.

3 KWH Per Square Meter Per Day -- Absolutely Free

2009-07-07T21:07:00.003-04:00

My roof, the southerly facing side, measures roughly 800 square feet. That's about 75 square meters. According to the formula in the title, it calculates to 225 kilowatt hours per day. And that's a modest view of the potential of solar power on my rooftop, and yours, and everyone's. Just in New England. In Florida and New Mexico it's almost twice as much.
My house, one in which power is used moderately by American standards, consumes an average of 20 kilowatt hours per day. No electric heat, average range of appliances, lights used one or two rooms at a time, cooking done mostly with microwaves, air conditioning used very sparingly. Twenty kilowatt hours needed, 225 kilowatt hours potential from roof insolation. Twenty needed, 225 available. Twenty, two hundred twenty five. And your roof? And your neighbor's? And a three-family apartment house? And a row of condominiums? Same figures, depending upon roof orientation. And more, usually, as you move south and west, outside New England and our famously changeable weather.
How, then, to collect it? And store it? And share it with other users in the vicinity who have changing needs? It costs about sixty thousand pre-rebate dollars to put panels on the roof, install an inverter and tie it to the grid. Your share would be app. 38,000 dollars, financeable via home equity, low interest loan, or cash if you deal drugs. Or have equity left in your house. Or if you qualify for a low-interest government-backed loan. And then only if you own your home. And the capacity of that expensive photovoltaic system will be only a fraction of the potential of your roof's solar energy load, Less than half. And your daily contribution to the grid will be most of your home's power usage. Only most.
It's a dim picture, but not dark. The tax credits and rebates do not yet put photovoltaic power in the reach of average Americans of average means. And the contractors are charging princely sums for their systems, and the paperwork for the Clean Energy Fund's credits is burdensome, and the systems tend to pay back at a rate that I, for one, won't live to see, and the panels last thirty years in sunlight by a meximum estimate, twenty is a more conservative figure, and the grid doesn't store the energy, it just distributes it among all connected customers.
So many things are not yet quite right about our approach to solar power. But we've begun. and demand does eventually affect supply, and the storage problem will be addressed, and there will be panels on most/every/many/your roof. Soon enough to save the planet? Sooner would be better, don't you think? More next time.

2009 Clean Energy Bill -- Cap and Trade and You

2009-07-02T22:53:00.002-04:00

We seldom stray from the home front and the small picture. Today I'm a little excited by the likely passage tomorrow of the Clean Energy Bill. Warts and all, it is a small first step in a long political climb out of denial and into a clear-eyed accountability that will be difficult to reverse once it takes hold. For too long (well before Bush, so calm down GOP readers) we've denied that we might just possibly be fouling the nest. Now a strong Democratic majority is being joined by moderate and progressive Republicans to issue an IOU to the nation and the world on cleaner air and slower climate change.
Is the Waxman-Markey Bill a home run? No. Not even a sliding double. It's a bunt toward first base that we can run out and hope that future administrations/generations will swing away and bring us around to home. The measures (17% reduction in targeted greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, 80% reduction by 2050) agreed upon after much compromise will not by themselves reverse the ominous predictions of scientists convinced that recent and future climate change on this planet is largely man-made. Glacial melt will continue, carbon dioxide levels will still increase, and coal power plant emissions will continue to blot out the heavens, as in the header photo. But the way America looks at industrial emissions will change forever.
So much is missing from the bill. There is no scrutiny of the actual energy and climate cost of the ethanol and bio-fuel industries on which so many people have pinned their hopes. There are no real jaws to close upon persistent offenders: indeed, "cap and trade" means that dirtier industries will be purchasing "carbon credits" from cleaner industries not needing them, and the sale of these "pollution indulgences" will be mostly unregulated. Trouble brewing there, I'll wager.
But, we and Al Gore are exhilarated by this first step, out of proportion to the actual impact of the bill. Due credit to Bush One for signing the U.S. into the Kyoto Protocols in the early 90s, but no piece of legislation since that one has had the same impact, for this one reason: the cat is out of the bag, and, having admitted to ourselves that the job is before us, we are unlikely to retreat again into the darkness under the pillows.
Legislation is boring to read, and I'm only linking to a "talking points" discussion by the bill's authors here. In order to give the bill a chance at passing, Waxman and Markey pulled back from the bold early drafts in order to court bipartisan support. In the event, only eight Republicans in the House voted for the bill, and all were promptly savaged by staunch conservatives, who favor increased investment in oil and gas for America's energy future.
The Clean Energy Bill is touted by its supporters to be economically positive, creating jobs and provoking the kind of technological stampede for which Americans are famous when they get hold of an idea. I'm imagining home-brew CO2 sequestering devices being whipped up in garages, and complex climatic models coming out of college dorm rooms. Heaven knows, that's how Hewlett and Packard and Gates and Allen, respectively, started out to change the world. The currency for which America has long been most famous is entrepreneurial innovation. The Waxman-Markey Bill is a big kick in the butt for inventors, venture capitalists and investors looking for reasons to come out of their economic bunkers and start generating life-changing ideas again.

My Sister's Escalade, An Energy Dream

2009-06-28T21:53:00.001-04:00

No, that's not my sister's Escalade in the photo. That's a Mercedes Smart car done up American style. The modification is called a Monster truck conversion, in which the vehicle is rendered capable of driving right over the roofs of other cars. So handy in gridlock when the kids are late for soccer practice. :)
My sister's Escalade is a lovely SUV from Cadillac, provided by her car-dealer husband at an attractive price well below retail. She gets a combined 12 miles per gallon, commutes app. 15 minutes in traffic to work, does amazing things in the field of communication marketing, gets out early and does the soccer mom thing with her kids, ferrying them to dance, swimming, karate and counter-terrorism classes like a good mother should. The Escalade travels app. 10,000 miles a year, consuming about 830 gallons of fuel.
My wife's Volkswagen Passat wagon, bought by her through Ebay three years ago, gets a combined 22 miles per gallon. She drives all around the county in the course of her work as a realty broker, only leaving the car briefly to sleep and change clothes . She drives app. 35,000 miles a year, consuming about 1600 gallons of fuel. The four wheel drive affects her mileage, but she considers it indispensable for safety and reliability in her every-day-without-fail business routine.
My 2009 Sprinter van is the primary vehicle used in my contracting business. I drive it every workday, averaging 18 miles per gallon, travelling app. 20,000 miles per year, consuming about 1100 gallons of fuel per year.
So how come the most fuel-efficient vehicle in our sample cost the most to run? And how could we alter this picture in cost-effective ways to save some fuel? Will Detroit (or Toyota, or Mercedes, or Nissan, or Hyundai) provide the solution to the problem?
My van hauls a payload of nearly 1000 lb. every day. hard to get by on less, when you're using pipe, fittings, duct, copper wire, tools and ladders. The Chevy Silverado hybrid pickup operates at a combined (city and highway miles) 22 miles per gallon. After I've loaded it down with my inventory and equipment, what do you think the numbers would be? Not much improvement there, I'm afraid.
My wife's Passat hauls signs, clients, office supplies, lockboxes and fast food wrappers, requiring interior space commensurate with a full-size wagon or SUV. The Volkswagen Touareg SUV might be an alternative for her; it's roomy enough and has all-wheel drive, but it gets a combined 20 miles per gallon. The Chevy Tahoe SUV hybrid gets 21 miles per gallon.
My sister hauls two kids and their friends, two dogs (but probably not their friends), her husband when he's home, furniture, grass seed, stuff for the church picnic and her own tiny self. She wouldn't be eager to move into a smaller vehicle. And if you improved her gas mileage by 25%, at a fuel savings amounting to $500 per year, she would say, "forget it-- i'd pay that much again in extra trips, or have to borrow my husband's pickup."
We're not getting anywhere here, are we? The needs of American drivers, especially businesspersons, don't lend themselves to reform easily. My wife can't get by on less than 35,000 miles per year, nor can she easily manage her business without a spacious vehicle. My 20,000 miles per year are pretty predictable, and I'm driving one of the most fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly diesel vehicles in the world. There's no other van that gives me a big improvement in economy. My sister doesn't want to be shamed out of her busy, happy suburban lifestyle into a hybrid sedan that won't let her pile the whole neighborhood in and take them down to the pool.
What's going to give here? For our three typical American drivers, no sweeping changes are likely. As my operating expenses rise with the cost of diesel fuel, my profits decrease. I grin and bear it. As my wife's fuel costs rise and fall at the whims of global oil speculators, she also grins and bears it. We have to run our businesses. My sister loves her lifestyle, if not her Escalade, and she would pay more than she's paying now to keep it. The Smart Car in the photo is not an option for any of us. A Prius with a big trailer wouldn't really serve for a contractor, and it would bog the fuel mileage down by quite a bit. You can't sell real estate from a scooter, and you can't haul kids, dog and fertilizer in a Smart Car. Our fuel costs and our carbon emissions, for now, appear to be just the necessary cost of doing business in America.

Five Carbon Footprint Things You Can Change Yourself

2009-06-24T20:38:00.001-04:00

That last post was a serious paper cut. Sorry. The global picture for energy and the environment is not grim, but it is gloomy. As individuals we can only add our voices to the big conversation, and wait for change. Our votes, our opinions, our blog posts all count, and we must keep them coming. But for today, tomorrow and next week, you can do many things for yourself and your family. Here are some suggestions.
One. Drive less. Don't worry about buying the Prius, or the scooter, just cut your mileage by smart thinking and planning. CARPOOL! Pick stuff up on the way home instead of going out again. Shop weekly, not daily. No cruising for the teenagers. Cut your weekly mileage by 25%, it's like buying into the next smaller class of vehicle. An SUV turns into a subcompact if you drive it less.
Two. COOK! AAAAAEEAHHHHH!! Your kitchen is the greenest place to eat, depending upon the menu. No styrofoam takeout packaging, no exhaust fumes while in the drive-thru, no wasteful high-energy fat fryers and radiant warmers. You come home with real food, cook with less energy, present with less marketing and fuss, and you're an energy superhero. Really. And even packaged frozen stir-fry veggies count. Toss 'em in the skillet with some chicken bits, and you're Emeril.
Three. Hang your clothes out. Simple. If your zoning doesn't permit exposed lines, get a rack at the big box store and hang some things under a ceiling fan, or next to an open window. Use the basement if you have one. Don't forget the fan. Won't work as well when it's already terribly humid outside. Pick your days. The only gas drying clothes emit is water vapor. Ralph Nader is smiling somewhere.
Four. Use curtains and drapes. On the sunny side in the summer, on the shady side in the winter. Turn windows into walls with coverings of all kinds. Welcome that sun when you want it, shut it out when you don't. Put off using the air conditioning until you've tried the window thing. Use the fans after the clothes are dry. Wear fewer clothes. Keep a robe by the door for the UPS guy.
Five. Balance your budget. No kidding. Live within your means. It may be the most global, local, cosmic thing you can do for your impact. The real villain of the current unpleasantness is not your SUV. It's debt. Not spending more than you have to spend is a worldview, not a newfangled secret. You raise your own consciousness about the cost of your entire lifestyle when you ponder what you need and what you just want. A hundred small choices a week can add up to revolutionary change at your house----- while you wait for evolutionary change all over the planet. And when you're being careful, you can splurge sometimes. It's built into the program. Bring home a pizza, watch a late movie, take a bubble bath. You're doing fine. Footprints in the sand, growing smaller, smaller.....

Five Things That Change Slowly About Your Carbon Footprint

2009-06-20T19:42:00.001-04:00

Last time we discussed carbon footprint in very broad terms: energy that goes into your house, energy that escapes your house, and the energy cost of procuring and disposing of the things you use (food, packaging, water, garbage, etc. ). There are larger, "macro" issues that complicate the concept, and you should be aware of them. But beware-- the big issues change slowly, and they require many people acting in concert to work real change, even in a clear state of crisis.
If you acknowledge that Al Gore, the Prophet of Warm, is right about rising CO2 levels and the effect of the phenomenon on global climate, then you're the choir: you already believe the planet is in crisis. If you're one of the signatories of Global Warming Petition Project, an effort to debunk global warming as a looming crisis (reportedly signed by 31,000 scientists), you might still agree that using less energy and emitting less airborne pollution is a good idea worth pursuing. At least for the 180,000 people on this planet who die of asthma every year, mostly in industrialized and developing countries, too many of them children, you might support cleaner air.
Five things about your portion of this nation's carbon footprint that you can't fix overnight, that will change slowly if at all over time and require the efforts of a politically committed electorate?
ONE. Half of the electricity generated in the US comes from coal fired plants. We've got lots of coal, still, and it's the only thing that saves us from complete dependence on foreign oil. A change in coal burning technology, or a shift to nuke plants, or a massive conversion to solar or wind, will be frighteningly expensive and will increase the price of electric power over the short and the long haul for consumers. And you thought your bills were too high already.
TWO. Power generation, industrial operations, "transportation" (your SUV, big trucks, trains, shipping, your SUV, your other SUV) together account for just under 75% of greenhouse gas emissions and general pollution. You and I don't have easy access to power to influence the national infrastructure, and we have trouble agreeing about anything as an electorate, anyway. To top it off, none of us has ready solutions to the problem of national energy consumption. Let's sing together, from the Dire Straits song, "I want my, I want my, I want my SUV..."
THREE. Nearly all profound changes in economic behavior in this society are forced upon us by economic necessity. The balance of energy wastefulness (Styrofoam Happy Meals, Coal-generated power, electric clothes dryers) and energy awareness (your neighbor's Prius, lower thermostat settings, your car pool team) we've achieved in the last thirty years since the Great Artificial and Temporary Gas Crunch of the Mid-Seventies has been the result of painful price increases in the various forms of energy we consume. We howl, we whimper, we weep, we rail like Lear against the heavens, then we change.
FOUR. Blunt fact: this society does not admire or reward frugality. Wanna hear it again? Al Gore is a prophet, but he will become a pariah as the meaning of his warnings sinks in: we're going to be poorer, colder, more careful, less carefree, and un-entitled in our attitudes to energy consumption. When the message hits home, we will be howling for the immolation of the messenger. We'll roast Al Gore over a bonfire of GM share certificates for telling us the party's over. And we'll watch from a distance, safe in our SUVs, with the engines running. Americans want to be wealthier; we don't want to be more thrifty.
FIVE. The politics of energy will always be a shell game. Don't pretend it didn't cross your mind that a friendly Iraqi parliamentary government would naturally owe us cheap oil for liberating the country from tyranny. It crossed mine. Our foreign policy does not always take us to the cutting edge of freedom and human rights. Sorry. The hunger of the world's great nations for energy will continue to exaggerate the importance of societies living over energy deposits (oil and natural gas, coal). France (of recent Freedom Fry infamy) changed its foreign energy dependency from 75% to 8% in three decades. And, they were notoriously unaroused by our cry for the liberation of oil-rich Iraq. It's politics, and the big waves will be made by large numbers of people who agree with each other about at least one thing: we can't go on this way.
Next time we'll lighten up, pull the focus back, and talk about five things you can easily change about your carbon footprint. And then we'll look at your neighbor's Prius and my sister's Escalade. Until then, don't drive to Blockbuster's just for a movie. Download from Amazon.

Carbon Footprint for Carbon-Based Dummies

2009-06-16T14:54:00.002-04:00

I hesitate to wade into these waters, being at heart a homebody and small-picture guy, but you can't hold a drink at a party without hearing something about our "carbon footprint," whether too large, shrinking, uncritically consumptive or just right. Because some of you trust me to put you in touch with global issues that may come to your front door soon in the form of new laws, new products or new expenses, I'll do a slight intro and invite your questions in forum style if you wish, or more discreetly.
The buzzword "carbon footprint" refers in general terms to your personal accountability for a portion of the climate-changing gases released daily into the air. The idea relates first to raw consumption of resources (electric power, fuels used for heating and transportation, and goods and services purchased, including their packaging and the environmental cost of making and delivering them). If you consume one hundred dollars worth of electric power in a month, and that power comes from a coal-burning (half of the U.S. market) or wood-burning (a bit in the American Northwest, but more in Scandinavia and northern Europe) power plant, you are responsible for a fraction of the environmental impact of that plant's smoke, chemical emissions, water usage and CARBON DIOXIDE RELEASE. If your local grid receives its power mostly from a nuke station, you are tagged for a fraction of the much smaller environmental impact of that plant. The issue of nuke waste and incidental (oops, no fishing here for a bit) release of pollution does not yet enter into the calculation. Nuke plants come up generally roses on carbon footprint issues.
If your house consumes fuel for heat and hot water, those factors go into the hopper on your carbon footprint. Fuel oil? Emits considerable CARBON DIOXIDE, dissolved sulfur, soot and ash particles and a truly manky odor if you have ground-level exhaust. Natural gas or Liquefied Petroleum (LP) gas? Much less sulfur, soot and ash, and 40% less carbon dioxide. Almost odorless, but beware the traces of deadly CO. Cost differential? Measurable, but that's not today's topic.
What goes out of your house monthly in the way of garbage, and how is it disposed of? Lots of styrofoam and dense plastic containers? That runs your score up: foam and plastics are difficult to dispose of without environmental consequences, even if they're recycled. Think in terms of a red mark on your score for every take-out meal, except for those wonderful, leaky cardboard containers from the takee-outee. They're not so bad at all. And a pizza box, apart from the grease that burns like biodiesel because it actually is like biodiesel, is only a peccadillo. Newspapers? You should be reading them, certainly, but online. Magazines? The coated paper is environmentally expensive, and again, you can usually subscribe online and still get the hot models and cool graphics. Junk mail? It's hard to win at that game, but you can request to receive sale bulletins online, and then unsubscribe if you're tired of them. There has to be a link at the bottom for you to opt out: it's a law, and most decent companies obey it.
Raw garbage is a delicate subject. Where does it go? Who would even ask? It just can't go away fast enough, most folks think. In my area it goes to an incinerator. More CARBON DIOXIDE, chemical emissions and waste heat going up to the sky. It's a "green" incinerator, whatever that means, but burning is burning. And the emissions go on my tab, is the point. I'm responsible, in this brave new world, for the disposal of my stuff. If you see that truck take your junk away, you have to admit to yourself that it goes somewhere. Check it out. Call town hall. If you are told that your refuse goes to an "energy recovery" recycling plant where waste is converted to methane and burned cleanly to generate power, give yourself a small Poopy. That's a statue declaring your high state of awareness and upright behaviors in the environmental area. I haven't actually started giving them out yet. Robert Downey, Jr. will host the awards show.
Enough for one dose. I'm on vacation, and this may have to do until I return to harness next Sunday. We'll do cars, especially my sister's Escalade, another time. For now, think a little, while the tv warms up, about what comes into your house, and what goes out. What comes in, what goes out. In, and out. In, out. OH-- Dancing With the Stars-- you can think about the environment later. Bless you all, it's beautiful on Cape Cod this week. Wish you were all here.

Earth Sheltered Living for Trolls

2009-06-09T20:50:00.002-04:00

In the last post we examined the elegances of Bilbo's earth sheltered dwelling as described in The Hobbit. Careful construction and design can yield a home requiring little energy for comfort, snug and dry and spacious inside. Twelve dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo could gather in the dining room to feast on Bilbo's pantry without feeling cramped. Then they had a jam session and stayed up all night plotting Smaug's demise and the division of an uncountable treasure. All carried out underground.
Living underground is not always so nice. Later in the story the travellers are waylaid by three trolls, and in due course the trolls' cave is described. Not a nice place. Smelly, with stuff scattered about. Later, the group visit a goblin cave. Likewise, not a nice place. Wet, dark, confusing, windowless. That's the dark side of earth sheltered living. So take care: while you're being wooed by the fabulous energy profile of earth sheltered living, be warned about the several things that can go wrong.
Be aware that the concept of earth sheltered building does not rest on the insulating properties of dirt. The guiding principle, instead, is the thermal mass of the concrete membrane and the earth resting on it, enhanced often these days with layers of rigid foam board. The goal is to create a well-insulated envelope much like that of a conventional frame structure, but with a huge thermal mass on the inside of the insulation as well as on the outside.
Another unwritten but understood factor in American earth sheltered living is the electric heat added to the space by lighting and appliances. Without this incidental, or "internal" gain, the temperature of an earth sheltered dwelling would come to rest somewhere in the 50s. Call me a wuss, but I like to hunker down at home in less than a parka. And, notwithstanding the somewhat cheeky boast of earth sheltered builders that no hvac system is needed in their homes, most earth sheltered buildings feature a heat pump, furnace or stove to provide comfort as it's needed.
Moisture, the bane of many an otherwise well built house, will kill an earth sheltered home. A perfect membrane is important for sealing the concrete against moisture, protecting the insulation and keeping the earth mass dry, . The low air change rate in a concrete, foam and earth envelope can result in a humid, moldy cave, the kind only trolls would want to live in. Forced ventilation through heat-recovery vent systems is an excellent idea. Meticulous construction featuring approved and inspected membranes and a drainage network is also fundamental to success in below-ground living.
One advantage modern earth sheltered builders have over Bilbo's hobbit craftsmen is the technology that makes warmth, light, and air movement so much easier to design into a home. Skill with stone and wood will get you so far toward elegant American living, but without skylights, light wells, modern HVAC, kitchen equipment and tons of hot water, the idea of living in a well-designed cave would not appeal to most people. As it is, earth sheltered living is growing on us as a society, slowly. But that's the pace of change in the American building industry. Slow. And cautious. I think I like it that way.

Bilbo's Earth Sheltered House

2009-06-06T12:05:00.001-04:00

The opening passage of Tolkien's The Hobbit reads, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort."
I first read those words in the heady 60s, and at the time the building industry and the American worldview was far from ideas like passive solar, earth sheltering, or zero energy architecture. Bilbo's hole was odd and faerie-like, and I had no inkling of how current, even futuristic Tolkien's homey burrow would become.
To function as a cozy house, Bag End required an effective roof, partly of dry thatch(the porch roof), partly of green thatch, or sod. Rainfall was absorbed by the living sod roof and drained gently downhill toward the garden plants over a membrane of stone or cement, probably limed plaster (concrete featured nowhere in Tolkien's Middle Earth, not even in Saruman's dystopic industrial nightmare). Inside temperatures tended to settle at around 55 degrees, making active fireplaces a comfortable feature even in summer, at least in the kitchen where they were needed for cooking. Energy requirements were calculated, even in winter, against a tremendously reduced heat loss compared to a four-square above ground house of wood and stone.
The floor plan of Bilbo's place took into account that three sides of earth sheltering left only one for windows and doors. The foyer, den, parlor and dining rooms were situated up front so that visitors, sitting next to the windows, could feel comfortable and not cooped up. Bedrooms, baths, storage and private spaces were off a hall extending "fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill." The refinement of light wells and skylights is not required for the hobbit lifestyle. Chimneys shot straight up through the thatch, capped to discourage rainfall, cleared of thatch in fall and winter to prevent fires caused by sparks.
Generous eaves over "deep set" windows kept out rain and snow, and provided shade for the summer sun directly overhead. In winter, the sun's low, slanting rays entered the windows to light those front rooms, the hole doubtless being oriented to face south. The windows featured shutters which could be drawn against the weather and those pesky Black Riders if need be.
Light for late evenings was provided by candles and oil lamps, creating the need for ventilation without chilling drafts. The several chimneys, whether in use or not, provided a constant flow of fresh air pulled from the surrounding space, removing combustion by-products and biological smells of various types, including cooking odors. No use suffocating Mr. Baggins in his own house when we've already decided to send him off in pursuit of a dragon's hoard and the lethal hazards of trolls, spiders, xenophobic elves and the searing breath of Smaug.
No well is mentioned in Tolkien's tour of Bag End, but there were servants like Samwise Gamgee to draw water for cooking and baths, and it's pretty certain that Bilbo got by on much less than the 90 or so gallons of water per day that a modern American needs to live comfortably. Vegetables and flowers shared the nurture of the green thatch roof and the surrounding plantings. No livestock appeared at all, though I suspect that Heidi's goats could have grazed up there on the roof for most of the year without causing any trouble. Green thatch requires some tending, but not much, to stay vital.
Tolkien was only invoking the long history of European rustic architecture, nearly a thousand years in the making by the time he was crafting Bilbo's burrow in the early 20th century. The basics of earth sheltered living are not at all new. The technology of earth sheltered living is a rapidly progressing project designed to furnish a below-ground house with the much desired features of the American lifestyle. More on that next time. Fancy a pipe on the porch? Smoking in Middle Earth is, I read, not bad for you at all.

Only God Can Make a Tree-- But You Can Plant One

2009-06-02T18:48:00.002-04:00

The image is a repro of Cezanne's House with Trees, and in this post we move outside the box a little to have a look around outdoors for energy tactics and some long range resource management tips. The oldest passive solar building tip is leafy trees close to the house. The technical term for leafy trees is "deciduous." Loaded with leaves all summer, they cast shade as the sun rolls over the house, and then stay up all night manufacturing oxygen and scouring your premises of carbon dioxide and other unwanted gases. Can't beat those trees. If you think the trees worked this out on their own, I salute your limitless faith. Looks like an obvious case of Design to me.
The shade from trees near your house shields you from intense solar heat and ultraviolet radiation, keeping the interior cooler. The rustle of breezes through the leaves is an acquired taste. So are the animal noises: birdsong, squirrel parties, cricket concerts, all that stuff that comes with nature and might or might not be music to your ears.
Thoughtfully placed, leafy trees can reduce sun loading of at least the exterior wall surfaces, including windows, by as much as 90%. And in winter, the leaves fall off. The sun's arc also flattens nearer the horizon, and the bare branches block very little of the sunlight that you now want streaming through your windows and warming up even the exterior surfaces of your house. The link says you can disregard the shading effect of leafless trees, making them a nearly perfect element of your energy strategy outdoors.
And the bad news, you already realized: you can't have trees of the proper size and placement without thinking years ahead. Sorry. But the long view is my favorite perspective. We've lived in our little Civil War-era farmhouse since 1975. In those 34 years we've planted a privacy hedge out by the street and seen it grow higher than our roof ridge. We've nurtured a stunted, damaged pine sapling and seen it grow huge and wide until the neighbors on that side can only be sensed when they throw a party. We've lost mature trees in vicious hurricanes, replanted and seen the replacement trees now begin to shade the sunroom as well as the old ones did. We've planted trees this spring that will shade our south side in perhaps ten years, and I hope God lets us stay here to see them that tall.
If you rent, you probably won't be staying for life where you are. Sorry. But you can employ potted trees inside and out(this link is actually to a local Craig's list ad for inexpensive potted trees, just so you realize it's possible) to gain the benefits of shade and fresher air as much as space allows; and I doubt your lease prohibits potted pets, though my ficus sheds like a retriever, I must admit. Small trees are still a bargain, and can be had by mail or at the big box home store. I'm surprised at how healthy and well-tended the plants at Big Orange can be, depending upon the branch store and its management. And when it's time to move my giant ficus out for the summer, I just starve it for water for a few days to make it lighter, slide it to the front door on a towel, and out it goes. I have a friend who landscapes her rather large deck entirely with potted plants, and the effect is..... vernal, to say the least. You just have to water them, and check the pot to make sure it's big enough as the plant grows.
Any deciduous plant that grows along the sunnier sides of your house is going to help you both in summer and in winter. And it's fun to plant things, easy to tend them with water and mulch, and so much more cost-effective than residing or replacing all the windows. So if you can't tear your house apart and do the energy thing with hammer and nails, consider using God-given equipment in an Intelligent way to control heat gain and loss in all seasons. And time is just that stuff that passes while you do one smart thing after another to improve your lifestyle and your energy profile. The plants you install this spring will reward you for many years. They're like kids, only much less demanding.

Helios at Home - Mission Statement

2009-05-30T17:59:00.002-04:00

We return, from time to time, to the reason we do this at all, and the reasons we do it this way. Our bias is not hard to spot: in improving the energy behaviors of your family and your home, small moves will be good enough almost every time.
The young woman in the photo is Norma Vally, host of the show Toolbelt Diva. Her approach is to empower women (and men as well) as home maintenance experts and remodelers. We agree wholeheartedly. You can do much more than most folks think, and you can steer clear of trouble by trusting someone like Norma Vally.

It's not necessary to strap yourself to a second or third mortgage, call in the solar panel mavens, gut your old kitchen or any other room to strike a blow for energy conservation in your existing home. Some authorities advocate borrowing to your limit, tearing your old house down, and building a new one on the same site. Some experts say old house retrofits are only worth doing as privately funded projects, that retrofits aren't worthy of tax credits and incentives since they won't add significantly to the global picture. Thanks a lot. Try that one in Europe, where the buildings are often hundreds of years old and structurally tied to neighboring buildings. Only in America could we entertain tearing structurally sound buildings down to make room for new buildings costing much more and, incidentally, using less energy.

We always come down on small steps. We always come down on working with what you have. We always come down right next to fiscal caution, reluctance to incur debt, the addition of sweat and toil to your home's difficulties, and the value of DIY derring-do, within limits of safety and sanity. Don't try to replace your breaker panel or air conditioning system. I don't want you on my conscience at 3 AM. Old men sleep light as it is.

Energy conservation is cumulative in the sense that dozens of small improvements always add up and sometimes multipy your energy efficiency (adding insulation to your attic and sealing air leaks in your ceiling yield BIG dividends when done together). Twenty five cans of foam and a dozen tubes of caulk will cost you about $200 at the home store. The payback on that application, when the materials are shrewdly installed, is less than one year. The payback on a water-stingy showerhead is mere months, unless your teenagers are seen entering the bathroom with pliers in hand. Weatherstripping can cost hundreds of dollars, if you get excited and treat every window and door in the house, but once again, the payback is perhaps two years, or less.

We approve entirely of photovoltaics, solar hot water (which we install professionally and advocate with enthusiasm), efficient hvac systems, super-insulated attics, tankless water heaters, geothermal heat pumps and technologically advanced windows. Thank God and the engineers for all that nifty equipment. But don't tell me I have to buy it to be in the energy game. If it doesn't make sense financially, and all of those energy improvements return a payback of over ten years, then let's wait until the piggy bank and the economy have lowered the risks of big energy investments. Meanwhile, please pass the caulk and weatherstripping. I can get by very well on basics until the numbers make sense for me.

So as these posts pile up, you know exactly what we're selling. We advocate big moves when they're well planned, shrewdly financed and based on real numbers not smelling of fudge. We advocate replacement of systems and equipment that is worn out or unsafe, or replaceable with equipment that will deliver immediate improvements in comfort and energy savings. We don't get too excited about payback calculations exceeding about ten years. If the rate of energy return is that gradual, you need another reason to invest your hard-earned cash. And there are other reasons, but don't kid yourself. Photovoltaics won't necessarily make your retirement come sooner or float you a free energy tab. Ask hard questions of anyone anxious to sell you on a life-changing investment that costs more than a new car.

It's not exciting to look at life this way. It doesn't make for a buzzy, colorful blog compared to many I read that cover global issues, expensive retrofits and futuristic technology. It does put regular people, I hope, in touch with resources and encouragement that will help them improve their energy efficiency in small moves. And at 3 AM I might be awake over something, but you dear folks won't be on my conscience. Bless you all, see you next time.

Waste Not, Want Not? Sorry, Forget It

2009-05-29T10:10:00.002-04:00

In the last post I implicitly accused you all of using too much water: you seemed to take it well. Now that you're grumpy with me, I'm ready to take it all back. Yes, we Americans consume more water (the USGS calls it "withdrawal") than most other countries, developed or developing (yes, China takes the biscuit, but they've got lots, for now). Yes, we squander lots of fresh water in our homes by flushing toilets, bathing, and washing our clothes. All true. But if the American people all stopped using water in their homes entirely tomorrow, water would still be an endangered resource for us.
Who's getting it all? Industry and agriculture, I'm afraid. Nor are those industries actively pursuing less water-intensive technologies, except where it suits them financially. About one sixth of all U.S. water usage is residential supply for personal use. One third of our "withdrawals" of fresh water goes toward agricultural irrigation. Good cause, actually, and it gets put on the crop and soaks into the ground, but it's still lost water in many ways. Evaporation claims much of the water used for irrigation, and you can't control where it comes back down. Certainly not Phoenix, where the water comes from far away in pipelines from reservoirs and evaporates to the air never to be seen again. At least not in Phoenix.
Fully half of America's total water usage is for industrial cooling, much of it consumed by evaporating devices called "cooling towers." Wherever heat needs to be removed from a process or material, evaporation, the most efficient means of heat transfer on the planet, is called into service. One pound of water, in evaporating, removes 970 BTU of heat from its surroundings. Nothing else compares, not even a cold Bud. And again, the evaporated water is lost to the immediate environment, since rain isn't fair. Most industrial processes require the services of cooling towers, but the single most demanding industry is electric power generation, including nuclear power. Some plants use salt water, but not all.
Don't give up. We all need to become more aware of our consumption of fragile resources, and your water-saving strategies at home are important culturally and politically, as well as financially in your water bill. But, as in so many issues, the picture is much larger than our individual water habits, and we will have to participate in a much larger discussion to bring sanity to our national energy and resource policies. Meanwhile, be glad when your water bill shows that you've been conserving. It's up to us regular folks to lead the charge, and in the greatest democracy in world history, government and industry must surely follow, hopefully in time to protect our fresh water supply from depletion.

Water, Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop to Waste

2009-05-25T16:23:00.003-04:00

The device in the photo, a water meter, measures the supply of fresh potable water that enters your house from the city/community/neighborhood water utility. Typically a radio transmitter is attached and the field techs read your consumption from out on the street as they pass by. Gone are the old days when Mom was home all day to let Mr. Waterworks into the basement to read the meter. You are charged by most utilities for the number of cubic feet of water you consume (app. 8.3 gallons per). In some cities you are also charged for your sewer contribution on the assumption that what comes in must go out. Tough to argue with, innit?
The typical American household consumes 107,000 gallons of water per year. The rule of thumb in our society is 90 gallons per person per day. In Europe, the average is 53 gallons per person per day. In sub-Saharan Africa, 3 to 5 gallons a day per person. They obviously have done away with all their teenagers somehow. Of our lavish allotment, per person, 14 gallons goes right down the drain in leaks and spills. Fix that toilet, fix that faucet, turn off that hose while you soap the car. App. 20 gallons is used for watering and irrigating. Think of all the apartment dwellers spraying their potted pets, and you'll get an idea of the thirst of America's corporate and residential lawns. Twelve gallons for bathing, 15 for laundry, 20 for flushing the toilet, 15 more for cooking and doing the dishes, and as Mr. Bojangles says of the rest, we drinks a bit.
I hear you protesting. You don't, you say, use your entire average quota. You only flush once in a while, shower briskly and in Navy-inspired bursts of water, you fill the dishwasher every time before running it, run full loads in the laundry, spit on your plants as you walk by and don't water your lawn hardly ever. Well done. That's still your quota- 90 gallons per day. Somewhere someone is using all our hard-earned conserved water, and we must hunt that person down and stop him/her. Problem solved.
My house is served by one of the last dug wells in our town. 14 feet deep soaking wet, it supplies all our needs, maintains drinkable quality and needs treating only for acidity. We pump it up into the house, use what we need, send it all out into the septic tank and leach field, it filters through 100 feet of sand and gravel back into the well, and we use it again tomorrow. Sort of like that scene in WaterWorld where Kevin Costner does that thing with the cup and the plunger and then...... drinks it. Yumm....
If you are supplied with city or community water, your story is different. Every gallon you don't flush, shower, leak, rinse or otherwise send down the drain is a gallon for which you don't pay. So a 1.6 gallon-per-flush toilet, a 2.5 gallon-per-minute kitchen faucet, and a front-loaded low-water clothes washer will save you real cash and pay you back for your extra investment in quality appliances and plumbing fixtures. And sending your teenager to an Outward Bound experience in which he/she will not be able to bathe for two weeks could be a true epiphany and result in shorter showers and a precocious awareness of the fragility of our global water supply. Or it could just send her running to the shower every time she remembers that icky dirty feeling. For years. Costing you bunches of extra money for water. On top of the fee for the Outward Bound trip. Forget it. Just install a stingy shower head and a mixing valve. We'll talk about those things next time. And the title is a quote from Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Pimp My Kitchen-- Appliances as Bling

2009-05-23T13:40:00.005-04:00

If you can afford the kitchen design shown in the photo, good for you. Every item shown has either an Energy Star rating or other "green" label, all are at the top of their peer group for energy performance, and the whole ensemble looks terribly impressive. If this is the prettiest, priciest kitchen in the free world, give it a blue ribbon. The basic ergonomic triangle is present (fridge, stove, sink all accessible without traveling far), the storage space makes the supplies for each operation available where the work is to be done, the counters are small but well-placed for staging a meal-in-progress, and there appears to be room for a wheeled workstation that will serve as portable prep space, ingredient setup and serving dish transport. Woof. What a kitchen!

Now look at this kitchen. It's plain, sports simple appliances, is short on storage space (presumably the hidden section at right contains the cabinets and cooking gear), and appears to have been squeezed into the corner of an existing room (the window would have been set higher in a room designed as a kitchen). This kitchen has no unifying theme, no flow of concept, no comforting proportions, no evoked period memory, no sense of who it is, and no self-declaring identity. I made all that crap up. Sorry. It's a simple little kitchen, low in cost, ad hoc in design, crude in aesthetics, and it just about works. And oh- the appliances are still green-rated, such as they are.

Choose your kitchen. They're both labeled green, both functionally adequate, both capable of facilitating good food preparation. I estimate one cost about $20,000 to install, appliances included. The other cost at least $100,000 dollars excluding structural remodeling. They both contain the same basic equipment: range, vent hood, toaster, microwave, refrigerator. One has an automatic dishwasher, the other not. They both, surprisingly, use about the same amount of energy to prepare similar dishes. They both accommodate informal eat-in furniture, they both work for either a single cook or a cook with a helper or two. They both work.

The kitchen in this photo is rated as LEED compliant (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design), which means it is built to rigid standards for energy conservation and sustainability. There are heat exchangers under the floor to capture the heat from drain water. The appliances are manufactured from materials not harmful to the environment, and the finishes on the natural wood cabinets contain no harmful chemicals. The refrigerator runs on a gas deemed no threat to the atmosphere. Don't ask what this kitchen cost. Some of you might be able to afford it, but you would choose this kitchen not because it makes the others look wasteful, or pays for itself in energy savings, but because you desire the LEED rating and the prestige that comes with it.

Kitchens perform, I'm trying to say, much more according to use than to design. The most energy efficient kitchen is the one never used. The most energy extravagant kitchen is one that is used to prepare foods at high temperatures, that consumes large amounts of water and energy for cooking and washing, and that keeps the fridge door flapping constantly while things are taken out and returned to cold storage. The best kitchen, to sum up, can be either one, two or three from our discussion, according to how it's used. The best kitchen, actually, is the one used by the smartest cook.

Low VOC Paints Are Not a Food Group

2009-05-21T18:31:00.001-04:00

Let's just get this over with, and I can write this post without violence. Yes, some paints are "greener" than others. "Green" paint is sometimes friendly to people and the environment. But I want no comments involving puns on green paint vs. "green" paint. Are we agreed? Ok.

Volatile Organic Compounds weren't so scary until we began to read the acronym, VOC, attached to numbers predicting cancers, birth defects, asthma, auto-immune diseases and environmental disaster resulting from the widespread use of paints manufactured using VOCs. The worst case picture (we don't say "scenario" any more since everybody wore it out) is you waiting until winter to paint a room or rooms with oil based paint, letting it dry without ventilation, and breathing the fumes until spring. Or using latex (water-based paint) and breathing the vapors as the paint dries. Paint can continue to release (outgas is the word, but doesn't that sound naughty?) VOCs for over a year after it is applied. The link article is very sobering. Not for the kiddies, really.

On the outside of your house the issue of personal health and safety while painting is changed a bit. Are you paying a pro painter to risk his/her lungs for you? Well done. Are you going up a ladder with a can of oil based primer (best stuff for durability) and daubing the house, fighting the headaches and that foul taste in your mouth that tells you something horrible is invading your svelte and harmonious body? Did you think latex exterior and interior paints were entirely safe and vegetable derived? Sorry. I used to work for Dow Chemical. I know where latex comes from, and the stork does not bring it. Your exposure to potentially harmful chemical substances is significantly increased when you open a can of any conventional paint, whether oil or water based.

Low VOC paints have the reputation of being a compromise on quality and durability. That's partly true. Low cost paints labeled "low VOC" are missing some things that would make them better, and they include some things that should have been taken out to make the paint not just low VOC, but actually safer to breathe and drip onto your skin. You have to spend money, at least 50% more of it per gallon, to get a good quality low VOC paint that has been formulated to be low in toxic substances. You can spend more, even. And when you're painting the whole house outside or inside, that cost increase is noticeable.

The truth is, you can ventilate a space, or pick a breezy day to work on the outside of the house, and reduce your immediate exposure to VOCs by quite a bit. But the months of outgassing (what's that smell?) will still expose you to the bad stuff in the paint. If you want to paint indoors, try to seal the room off and ventilate it for some days after painting. Wait until warm weather to make it easier to do the right thing. Use oil based primer if you can on the outside of the house, because even Ralph Nader will laugh at you if it peels, but be careful, don't bathe in it, and select a high quality latex for a topcoat.

Spend your hard earned cash on premium low VOC interior paint that will protect your lungs and liver without sacrificing color or durability. And still seal off the room and ventilate if you can. Paint can have literally hundreds of ingredients, not all of them listed on the can, and you can't be sure at all that they took out the right stuff. And if your friend Jeff comes over and asks if you used green paint, and you're looking at a white room, chase him with a wet roller.

Up on the Roof

2009-05-19T20:01:00.005-04:00

I wish you a lifetime pass on replacing the roof shingles on your house, but I"m a poor faerie godfather. Sooner or later it comes to all of us who own our homes. I did mine two years ago, and it wasn't too bad.

When selecting a roofer, ask sharp pointy questions: what written warranty will accompany the shingles to be installed, what repairs to roof sheathing do you expect to do, what is the roofer's personal guarantee if he/she wants to overlay new shingles over old, what is the wind rating of the new roof, and what color will complement the house and keep my attic cool all summer?

It is of this last question we will treat here. You know how hard it is to get a roofer to install light color shingles? You know how many major shingle manufacturers offer white or light colors? It's part of the conservative ballast that holds the building industry down in trendy times when aluminum wire, plastic doors and paperboard siding threaten to run away with us all. It's good to be slow about questionable trends, but it can be maddening when building science is ignored in favor of "the way we've done it all these years and what's wrong with it anyway?"
Light colored asphalt shingles save energy. They aren't perfect, but they make a difference. The temperature of your attic on a sunny day can reach 150 degrees F. or more. Wood starts to outgas and dessicate at high temperatures, and plywood is also susceptible to damage from repeated overheating. Still, perception and preference keep light colors out of fashion for roofing materials.

The discussion about roof materials as energy reflectors/absorbers is getting lively, but the shingle industry is responding to market forces that still prefer darker roofs, even in hotter southern climates. Coatings are available, but they're not cheap and, like paint, they need to be renewed often. The truth is that shingle manufacturers haven't really tried yet to give us highly reflective coatings on our roofing materials, mostly because we haven't insisted. They listen, we consistently prefer darker shingle colors, they shrug and say to the nutty green guys, " See? We give 'em what they want!"

But, as Seal in the link will sing to you, a change is gonna come. Some analysts estimate that a highly reflective roof coating saves more energy than a similar square footage of solar panels. That sounds extreme, but I can testify that the section of white (painted steel) roofing on my addition keeps the attic under that roof much cooler than the medium brown shingles over the main house. Yes, I lost that battle. The roof can be seen from the street,and the point was made rather forcefully to me by someone with overwhelming influence in my affairs that the house needs to look "right" from the street. Sigh...... ok. But perceptions do change, and we'll be using highly reflective coatings on our roofs someday, as soon as they become fashionable. Until then, sad to say, white roofs just aren't cool.

We're Movin' On

2009-05-17T18:58:00.002-04:00

I don't usually get too personal in these posts, but this is the first of a handful of notices that our web presence is changing, and we don't want to lose our faithful readers (do you know each other? is there a little bar somewhere in which Phil's readers gather to buzz over the latest post? why didn't anyone tell me?).
We opened a new WordPress blog in our own domain, http://heliospowerandcontrol.com/heliosathome/. We will be posting identical offerings for a couple of weeks, then moving to the new blog outright sometime in June. Will you please come along with us?
We also rolled out a new web page, http://www.heliospowerandcontrol.com/ (many thanks to Bill Pratt, the only web developer I know who can set a pedal steel guitar ablaze, and who talks simple web language that old men can understand). The idea of the site is to provide linked resources, fresh ideas and encouragement for people who are anywhere in the housing market, whether building, renovating, staying put or even renting (no landlord will object to you saving some energy for yourself or for him/her).
Contact and profile data remain the same. If you have thoughts or comments, or if you just want to talk dirty home energy, you can find us easily at philrobarts@heliospowerandcontrol.com , or at heliospower@comcast.net , the address in the profile.
We hope to do some interesting things in the new blog, and we hope your thoughts and questions are being addressed. We also hope to attract new readers who weren't finding us within the Google framework. We'll see you around, then, here or there. Bless you one and all.

Microwaves are Sooo Cool

2009-05-17T13:27:00.002-04:00

In winter, I like the heat my kitchen range adds to the house. It isn't free, but it's welcome, and I feel like it's a twofer, getting lovely food and lovely warmth at once. In our scuffling days, my lovely and I heated and cooked with an ancient Glenwood cast iron kitchen stove. We were young, and it didn't seem too tedious to build a fire and feed it.

In warm weather, I don't want that added warmth, not even at dinner time. We try not to use the kitchen range as much, but cold dishes like chef salad and gazpacho are not ok every day. So we microwave a lot in summer, and the range (no pun) of the device has surprised me as my scientist/realtor wife explores what you can and can't do with that thing most folks only warm their coffee in.

The kitchen range generates app. 2kw per burner on high. That's 6800 btu added to your house for each burner while you're cooking, and the oven is about 4kw, or app. 1400 btu per hour. That's about the amount of heat a small window air conditioner can remove from your house in an hour. If you're running air conditioning, you're paying twice for the energy that's cooking your food.

Enter the microwave. At an average of 1.2 kw, the microwave heats only the mass of the food, leaving the machine itself and your containers relatively cool. And besides using less energy per hour, the microwave pays off in much shorter cooking times. The same steamed veggies take about half the time in the microwave as on the cooktop, and popcorn goes up in five minutes or so. And in America, fast is good. In most areas of life.

So are we stuck with steamed veggies? Not by a long shot. Chicken breast? 8 minutes depending upon size and mass. Pork chop (yes, pork chop)? 10 minutes, and doing two takes only an extra minute. On a larger scale, a whole roast chicken? 20-25 minutes according to size. Thanksgiving turkey (not kidding, we do this every year)? 9 minutes per pound, so a ten pound turkey is 90 minutes or so, more with stuffing. Pork roast? Ham? 11-12 minutes per pound, and the apples get really good and juicy in there. Fish? 7 minutes per pound, extra for stuffing, varies by species. And my favorite, bacon. Six slices, four minutes, done to perfection; a guilty pleasure for me when the wife is out of town. Squash, butternut and acorn, split in half with sugar or honey on top, 15-18 minutes. Here are some links to microwave recipe sites.

What can't you do? Cake is tough, though some fanatics ( not us, in any way whatsoever, thank you) insist they do it. Hamburger not really, although meat loaf works very well with some bread crumbs and a reasonable remnant of the meat's native fat (fat conducts heat and responds well to microwaves). Eggs in the shell? Don't even think about it. Eggs out of the shell? Always makes a mess when I try it. Boiled dishes? No, not very well, but I have a separate pitch for the crock pot that complements the microwave nicely, and also saves a lot of energy.

I could go on, but you can hit the links and get more ideas yourself. Beware plastic and metal containers unless they're marked for microwave use. Crockery is usually safe, even the stuff you bought at the craft fair. A little bit of trial and a tiny shred of error, and you'll be a nouveau expert at cooking in a cooler ktichen and house. And your power bills will show the difference. All this has made me hungry; a single hot dog, right from the freezer? Should be about, oh, four minutes on medium. And I, a kitchen klutz, can do it all by myself. See you next time. Hit this video link, just for fun. microwave a twinkie?

No Hanging Out? Whatsamattawit'you?

2009-05-15T17:54:00.003-04:00

It costs me (and you, too, dear reader) about a dollar to dry a load of clothes. If you're one of our Western Canadian readers whose power comes from hydro-plants, it could be 70 cents. But for the rest of us, powered by the modern miracle of nearly-free nucular energy, call it a dollar.

My loveliest and I dry about a large load a day. What, you say, self-employed old folks, kids long since gone, running a big load a day? Yeah, sorry, I'm a contractor, and I foul at least one, often two sets of clothing a day. So it's me, ok?

What could I do with an extra thirty dollars a month? I don't know, I might just throw it away at Blockbusters. But I could hang my clothes outside, in this fine spring weather, and save that thirty dollars a month. And families with children who are doing two or three loads a day could hang their clothes outside and save much, much more.

The downside? Oh, Lawdy Lawd, it's work! Yes, it's not convenient in the modern, labor saving sense of the word. It's old fashioned, it's po-face, it reeks of Waltons' re-runs, it...... just isn't cool, is it?

But it's economical, and pardon my Chechnyan, green as hell. It's the way my family dried clothes, even in the humid Florida heat, and Florida was hot and humid before Al Gore made it trendy. It was the way my daughters got out and tottered, in their many layers, to the line with my wife to make snow angels while mom hung out the wash. Yes, the hippy Robartses hung out their wash, even in winter.

If I needed to cut my power bills in half, to win a bet or accommodate my straitened Social Security stipend (I'll never see those checks, I fear, but I do dream), I'd begin by hanging out my wash. And in winter, I'd hang my wash inside under a ceiling fan.

And second, I'd wash my dishes in the sink. The on-line bric-a-brac about Energy Star dishwashers using less water than the sink is highly suspect and not supported by my experience. Two gallons of hot soapy water in the sink, another one mixed into the rinse water, and the dishes go back on the shelf courtesy of Elbow Grease. Nooooo!! More Work!

And third, I'd swear off air conditioning. If I had to. It costs me from 45 to 90 dollars a month to run my central air. I could save that with fans, cool drinks and old fashioned suffering. If I had to. I don't have to. But if I had to be the Green Gandhi, the Sultan of Sustainability, and my cred depended upon having all the right sacrifices going up in smoke, that's what I'd do.

My undies are entirely prosaic, not like the torrid thong in the photo, so the neighbors won't be talking, unless a high wind carries my stained levis into their yard, sending the goats into a feeding frenzy leading to expensive vet bills for surgical removal of my now useless jeans from the goats' nether passages. Hanging clothes outside comes with some risk, after all. Oh-- and check the local zoning-- in some trendy bottled-watering holes it's not permitted to show a clothesline. You could get into trouble, and Al Gore won't be galloping in to rescue you.

Dew Point? Not at Me, You Don't

2009-05-12T17:29:00.004-04:00

We promised to grapple this time with the issue that lives at the center of new, tighter construction standards: trapped moisture, which leads to rot.

In a previous post we touched on the subject of dew point, which is briefly defined as the temperature at which moisture begins to condense from the surrounding air. When air holds lots of moisture (we call it humidity) that moisture begins to condense at higher temperatures, sometimes as high as 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Air holding less moisture (lower humidity, think Arizona) condenses at a lower temperature, sometimes as low as 15 degrees F. Don't worry about the math, unless you spend your evenings that way, but just get it that air can be wet and ready to give up its moisture at a wide range of temperatures, and when it does, the quantity of water condensed can be enough to wet down any available surface.

When air from your house gets into your walls, and almost all houses exhale air through their walls, it cools or warms to imitate outside temperature as it travels outward. In winter, especially a cold winter like this last one, and in Connecticut, where I live, the outdoor temperature can be 15 degrees on most winter nights.

So here's the picture: fairly warm, moist air (you probably maintain a fairly low humidity, but there's still a lot of moisture in your air, or your lungs would complain) from your living space is traveling out into your walls, cooling as it goes, and it reaches its dew point and drops its load of moisture. Don't think thunderstorm here, think more like the bathroom after a teenager's shower. The moisture can be deposited on your actual inner walls (I've seen it, it's awful), in your insulation (if you have any), on your structural framing (2x4s, outer sheathing) or, in extremely embarrassing cases, on the outside of the house near the site of a terrible air leak. Your attic is the most likely source of terrible air leaks and condensation, since it's probably vented to the outside. Warm air escapes through lighting boxes and structural cracks, cools to dew point in the attic, and the moisture settles on rafters or forms icicles under your eaves. Note the difference: icicles that form at the gutter or drip edge are probably due to daily warming of roofs and refreezing of drippy drops. Icicles forming under eaves or around air vents are probably due to moist air escaping into the attic and outside. That leads to trouble.

In this photo, note that some of the icicles are on the eaves and others are attched to the attic vents under the eaves. Those inner icicles spell trouble due to condensation in the attic.

Why am i nagging you about icicles in this glorious weather? Does the name Eeyore ring a bell? It was supposed to be about dew point, remember, but I always get carried away. And when it's 90 degrees this summer, with 90% relative humidity, and you've got your head in the refrigerator for some relief, and your shirt is stuck to you but the shower is still steaming up the bathroom but it won't go away, you're still dealing with dew point. It's an everyday thing.

So Mr. Natural says, tighten up your house to prevent excessive air leakage to the outside. You don't have to do the math; just do the caulking, foaming and light carpentry that helps you save energy and keep your walls dry and safe from rot.

House Too Tight? Not Likely

2009-05-09T16:32:00.003-04:00

In this season of airing linens, opening windows and putting up screens, the subject of a tight house isn't really pressing. But if you start now, you can get yourself ready for a tighter, less energy-hungry house next winter, ant-and-grasshopper style, while your neighbors are all atwitter about poisoning their crabgrass.

The basics of tightness are not too tough, even for non-techies who don't do carpentry. In New England, barring new, super-sexy LEED or Energy Star homes, it's difficult to achieve "too-tight" status in an existing, conventionally constructed house. I've seen too-tight skirts and too-tight sweaters causing problems for passing traffic, but houses can get very tight without causing much trouble if you know the secret.

And here's the secret: start from inside the house. There you go. The house in the photo, which by the way is actually in Bulgaria, is open to the air in every way possible, and, as a questionable result, will probably never rot and fall down. Accumulated moisture is the root cause of most "sick" buildings, and of most structural and health-threatening rot in residential construction.
Start inside the house, reducing the escape of moist air into walls and ceilings in winter, and you will also, happily, be reducing the source of trapped moisture that produces dry rot, mold, insect damage and peeling paint.

Caulk. Learn to caulk. If you can't learn to caulk, learn to wipe up caulk. That will do for a start.
Find the gaps in your walls, floors and ceilings and fill them (within reason-- up to 1/4 inch gaps, rule of thumb) with an appropriate type and color of caulk. Use paintable caulk on your house's interior; true silicone is a wonderful product, but it looks like poo when you can't match the color, and it REALLY won't take paint.

Foam. Learn to foam. But don't try to wipe up foam. It's not like caulk. Use foam for gaps too large for caulk, and if you havc some large gaps visible from inside your house, don't hang your head in shame. It's no disgrace to have large gaps, it's only a disgrace not to fill them.

Weatherstrip. Learn to weatherstrip. Make old doors and windows tighter, not with paint (unless you're desperate and you're REALLY SURE you'll never have to open that window/door/access panel again) but with those nifty engineered strips and flaps that allow things to move without being drafty.

Well done. And equally helpful, by the way, during cooling season if you use air conditioning. Next time we'll delve a little into the wall/moisture/tightness question so you can see what all the fuss is about.

Air Conditioning? Last Resort

2009-05-06T18:03:00.004-04:00

As the spring gets warmer, some of you are already starting to tune up your air conditioners. But before you start paying those monster power bills, there are some things you can do to delay the nuclear option and the expenses.

Last post we talked about bushes against the south side of the house, shade trees as a long-range strategy, and window coverings to keep the sun out. There are some other things you can do, depending upon your climate and your house.

Fans are great, if you can live with the noise. I grew up in a house in Florida cooled only by a huge fan in the attic. Whole-house fan technology has improved, noise going down and airflow going up. As long as you have an attic, you can simply slide the fan assembly over the hatch for the summer, and move it aside and close up for the winter.

Ceiling fans only mix up the air in a room or space, but that can often be the difference between comfort and perspiration. You need ceilings that are high enough (eight feet is acceptable), and a ceiling light fixture to replace, protected by a wall switch. Or you can hire a licensed electrician and install one just about anywhere. The better ceiling fans are controlled by remotes, so you don't need fancy multi-conductor wiring between fan and switch. And even at high speed, they can be very quiet. Here's a chart of the quietest.

Table-top and box fans are noisier and take up space in your home, but they can still work that magic that fans do by moving air over your skin and evaporating moisture, cooling you out of all proportion to actual room temperature. Set one up to blow right at you, or in a circular motion around the room if that's more comfortable.

Any unnecessary source of heat or humidity in your home should be identified and remedied if possible: dryer vents should be routed outside, baking should be done at night, bath vent fans should be run during and after showers until the air is clear and dry, and microwaves are a lower energy alternative to conventional cooking if you choose your menu carefully. Avoid using halogen lights like torchieres and track-mounted spots. Less heat released in the house, more comfort for you.

The difference between running some fans, not using hot light, drying clothes at night, and running a central or window air conditioner is partly money, but it's mostly paying attention, making small moves that add up, and deciding to tough it out a little before giving in to that "High Cool" button.

The Blessed Season

2009-05-02T18:22:00.005-04:00

Unless you heat your hot water with oil or gas, spring brings a rest from energy bills and encourages open windows, walks outdoors, more exercise, and fewer allergic symptoms. Days get longer, lights are on less, heavy clothing goes into storage, and pets get washed and groomed more, after which they go roll in the mud. Thanks, Rex.

Many Americans cook outdoors on grilles fueled by gas, or even charcoal. Those of us devoted to home maintenance wash our windows, clean our carpets and declutter our gutters. Careful on that ladder, please.

The fable of the ant and grasshopper is a bit overstated, but now is a good time to think about the first heat wave, and how you can get a grip on energy bills as well as making your house more comfortable during summer weather. Even if you were never a Scout, you begin by finding north and south. the sunnyest sides of your house are the ones that bring solar heat into your living space all winter, and they do the same thing all summer. But you don't want all that solar gain in the summer, unless you live in Manitoba. God bless you Manitobans.

Consider planting shrubs along the sunny sides of the house, shrubs tall enough to mask windows, deciduous (shedding leaves in fall), lush enough to effectively block sunlight, and maybe even nice to look at. Flowering, even. Trees are nice, if you have the room in your yard, but shrubs cost lots less and grow to an effective height much faster. Here's a list of shrubs that fit the bill in New England.

I do bang on a bit about window coverings, but I do it for a reason (see previous post). In summer as well as winter, solar gain and heat loss through windows can be controlled effectively with any form of window treatment. While you're waiting for the shrubs to grow, consider reflective drapes or panels, or get funky and drape your southerly windows with light-colored fabric. Anything you do will help, and some light can still get in through the covering. Blinds have been useful for this purpose for many years. Just make sure they're white or reflective on the outer surface.

Trellises are not in fashion lately, but they also work to shade windows at exactly the right time of year. Wisteria, roses, clematis, ivy and honeysuckle make beautiful window treatments on the outside. Follow the links to some lovely photos of the plants in their native glory, It may inspire you. We'll be back soon to talk about more summer energy techniques.

Ventless? Don't Even Think About It

2009-04-23T19:38:00.003-04:00

What we've been saying the last few weeks is: energy and indoor air quality are equally important to your fiscal and physical health. If your house is not "net zero" for energy, if your energy budget is a large chunk of your income, if you'd like to join in the fun and enjoy some alternative energy, you're looking for low-cost ways to play.

Enter the ventless gas or gel-fuel fireplace. Costing hundreds not thousands of dollars, able to be attached to a wall or set up in the middle of a room, and capable of burning liquid petroleum gas as well as natural (city) gas, the ventless fireplace sells itself as a near-advent level blessing for us regular folks who want to go green.

Hold on, though. The fuel, whether natural gas, LP or fuel gel, is the same petroleum-based fuel you're burning in your basement boiler or furnace. Costs the same, burns at the same efficiency with the same gross environmental impact (carbon footprint, CO2 emissions, Sulfur derivatives, stuff like that). The good news is that the entire combustion process takes place in your living space, so no heat is lost up the chimney. Very efficient. The bad news is that the entire combustion process takes place in your living space and you breathe everything the fireplace emits. CO2, CO, sulfur derivatives, carbon particles, all that stuff.

And is that bad? Some experts say no. The best manufacturers include, as a safety device, an "oxygen depletion sensor" which shuts down the fireplace if the oxygen in the room drops to dangerous levels. Dangerous levels? DANGEROUS LEVELS? Advertised combustion efficiency varies from 92% to 99%. The rest of the unburned or partially burned fuel goes into your lungs (carbon, sulfur, carbon monoxide, etc.). Or on the floor, or on the leaves of your houseplants, or on your furniture.

Do you cook with natural gas or LP? Well, one argument maintains that many people use gas ranges and ovens and come to no harm. Fair enough. But even cooking with gas releases the same combustion gases into your home. And, building codes require that vent hoods be installed over cooking devices. For a reason. Cooking vapors and combustion by-products are harmful to indoor air quality and should be vented outdoors.

Vented gas fireplaces don't always require a conventional chimney. They cost 25% or so more than unvented fireplaces, require expert installation, and require a penetration through an outside wall for the vent. They operate at efficiencies of 75% or so, and generate both convective and radiant heat for the comfort of the living space. That's about the same efficiency as the central heating unit in the basement. So, no impressive savings, just a lovely flame effect and a snug feeling from the radiant warmth.

If you're impervious to combustion fumes, you're a better man(woman) than I. If you want to install a low cost alternative heating source in your home, the unvented gas fireplace will do. But please, don't neglect to purchase the oxygen-depletion safety feature. And crack a window, and don't go to bed and leave the fireplace burning. Take care of yourself. I can't afford to lose loyal readers.

My Plants Are Like Pets, Sort Of

2009-04-20T16:33:00.004-04:00

The woman in the bushes may be looking for her kids, or dusting the furniture. She represents an extreme version of the doctrine that house plants make indoors living healthier. Do they really? Let's have a look.

Indoor plants process air in a complementary way to humans and animals. People inhale air and exhale carbon dioxide (the Osama bin Laden of gases these days) while keeping most of the oxygen for ourselves. Plants inhale (respire, actually) air and exhale oxygen, while keeping most of the carbon dioxide for themselves. That God, He's just too smart. I could have stayed up all night and not thought of mammal-plant symbiosis. In those early days of life, when oxygen was plentiful, who knew? And if you're into the Jurassic Park thing, let's just say someone's nose was really twitching to figure all that out.

Indoor plants also release moisture into the air, as well as fragrance, organic volatiles, pollen, mold and bugs. A little tiny bit of anything is ok, but the woman in our photo is swimming in plant by-products. Are they harmful to her?

NASA has done some fascinating work on plants as possible space travelers. Most of the astronauts and a few of the astronettes preferred to go into space with human companions, never mind all the leafy potted co-pilots. But the plants made a good showing, releasing helpful oxygen, scouring the air for carbon dioxide, and removing some key contaminants while suffering no harm themselves. Thanks, Woody. The presence of potted plants in workspaces has proven their ability to improve air quality and morale with practically no factor of diminishing returns. The more plants, the better the air.

It may be possible, as in the photo, to overdo indoor plants. If you're acutely sensitive to mold and fragrances, plants might irritate your nasal passages and even your lungs. If you're devoutly asthmatic, you might have to pass on the benefits of houseplants. But you can try, starting from a clean house and few or no allergic symptoms, and see what effect houseplants have on your home. You might not notice the extra oxygen. You might appreciate the extra moisture in the air. You probably won't find a lovely young woman among your plants, unless you supply her yourself. And the nearly naked guy swinging through your ficus? That's your imagination.

Clean Air is a Choice

2009-04-18T10:13:00.004-04:00

If you called me in, showed me your house, and said (I do not recommend this) "Money is no object, I want clean, fresh air with my heat and cooling, I would do several things. I would insist that you read some of the earlier posts to ensure that you understand the importance of cleanliness and basic house tightness. I would ask what measures you've already taken in the battle for clean air and minimal allergies in your home. I would ask you if the three corgies and the angora cat are negotiable factors in your homelife, or do we have to deal with a constant flow of contaminants released from each pet. I would recommend that you get at least one more bid from a respected contractor to compare with mine, advising you to omit the phrase "money is no object." Then I would ask if your present heating/cooling system will be the basis for our campaign, or if a complete replacement is your preferred strategy. At that point, I'm ready to design your clean air solution.

Your existing system would get a thorough cleaning inside and out. I would inspect the ducts and possibly clean them. I would strip old duct insulation off, reseal joints and seams with a non-volatile sealer, and re-insulate with mirror-finish bubble-wrap insulation (no moisture, mouse or mold issues, as with fiberglass ductwrap). I would seal the seams of the blower unit with tape or sealer, and remove and clean your grilles and return registers. Already you're feeling better, I hope.

If you opt for a new system, I would install a boiler, preferrably direct vent gas, and air handlers with both heating and cooling coils. This system is meant to be in use nearly every day of the year, which is the only way to maintain clean, filtered air in your living space. Your ductwork would be mostly round steel, with short sections of vinyl flex duct for noise reduction near outlets. If your house requires a careful retrofit, I would install high-velocity ducting, like Unico or SpacePak, which would do minimum damage to the existing finishes and architecture.

I would omit the much-touted fresh air heat exchanger, since you've established that most of your remaining allergens are coming from outside (smog, pollen, pig farm upwind, the usual). You've done everything you can to clean and de-nasty your house, short of giving away your pets. Now it's time to finish the job with filtering.

I would install filters in your return grilles, pleated ones labeled "medium efficiency." Don't sniff at the word "medium." Does Mr. Maintenance want to change Hepas every two weeks? Or risk diminishing airflow, reducing the effectiveness of the whole system? Then I would place a four-inch Air Bear-style filter in your return plenum. Depending upon your sensitivity to mold, and your stubborn refusal to give up your beloved pets, I would install either a high-voltage electronic filter or a simple ultraviolet bulb to neutralize most of the tiny (viruses, organic vapors {dog flatulence, since you asked}, baby dust mites, spores) pollutants that get by the other filters. And I would advise you to be very careful about choosing the days on which you open up the house and air it out. Check the weather, wind, humidity and air quality with a good website or local weather station.

And there you go. I know you're wondering: how much to retrofit an existing system as described? Between five and eight thousand dollars. How much for a new system complete? Between twenty and fifty thousand dollars depending upon zones and equipment. Don't even think of putting this project on a credit card, even if you're desperate. State and federal incentives will help you defray the cost in tax credits, and lending institutions will consider you a worthy cause, especially if there's any equity at all in your house to secure the loan. Get a medical certification letter from your doctor and the tax incentives improve a bit more. Contact your local utility for programs that reward positive energy retrofits. Do your homework. The political climate has never been better for projects aimed at more efficient heating/cooling and improved home air quality. Don't tell them about the dogs. Or your stupid cigars.

Last note? My favorite song. Do first things first. Clean, declutter ( I made this word up), stop using fragrances, if you think that's a factor. Vacuum your cat. Fence a little spot outside for your dogs. Stop frying your favorite foods, at least in a smoky fashion. Vaccum your mattress, buy new pillows, throw out your old couch. Remedy as many as you can of the habits and conditions that got you here. And if you want some help mopping up the last twenty percent of the problem, call me. And promise me the dogs will stay outside while I work.

My Ionic Breeze And I

2009-04-15T07:58:00.002-04:00

My generation has heard many promises from science and industry and, to be fair, a few of them have come true. TV dinners do save time in the kitchen, 100 channels do increase the fun of watching, and aluminum chlorhydrate rubbed on armpits does suppress natural body odors. Thanks. Really.

My favorite 20th century slogan, Better Living Through Chemistry, can't be fully explored here (certainly not without legal consequences), but on the topic of indoor air quality, here at the beginning of the pollen season, we have a few thoughts.

Indoor air purifiers, the devices that hum or whirr a bit and sometimes even filter out a little airborne stuff, have fallen on hard times lately. It appears that they don't always work very well, and when they work, harmful ozone levels can result, leaving air worse off than before treatment. Not all retail purifiers are harmful, and some are true to their promises, but there's a huge stink of Caveat Emptor hanging over the marketplace viz. room air purifiers.

We've spoken on the topic of cleaning (see previous post) and filtration (also see previous) and those things help lots. What if the outdoor air quality is poor, driving you to seek safety indoors? During summer months, air pollution (airborne industrial waste, airborne dust and sand, nucular fallout, etc.) reaches dangerous levels, and those of us with established allergies are not the only ones to suffer. Everyone feels it when the smog, pollen and humidity become oppressively concentrated. What to do?

If you've done all you can to make your home clean, dry, unlikely to host mold and dust allergens, you can address the outdoor pollutants that invade your home in several ways to create a safe haven of clean air. This post and those following will reveal a list of things we think are appropriate and cost-effective.

So, first on the list, choose a room of your house, one that can be separated from the other rooms, clean it remorselessly, using non-fragrant cleaning agents, dry it out using either a dehumidifier or an air conditioner, and install a non-ozone air purifier that features Hepa-level filtration and possibly an "ionic" function. Keep the pets out, maintain cleanliness regularly, and spend a few hours in this room each day. Television does not technically qualify as a polluting agent, since the moral and intellectual research hasn't been done yet. And, after a week of this experiment, how do you feel? If your symptoms improve generally, or if you feel better after spending the evening in your special space, you're on the right track. We'll be back next time with more from the list of "good air" strategies.

HEPA Me Out, Please! I'm Allergic!

2009-04-11T14:24:00.003-04:00

At left is a Hepa furnace filter, plugged with... stuff. First, we thank God it's in the filter and not in our lungs and noses. Second, we can't help being curious about where this.... stuff came from. It came from our home. We made that stuff.

It's dust, laundry lint, pet dander and hair (see previous post), people hair and dander ( I myself rival a pack of Labradors as a dander producer), food particles, tracked-in shoe dirt, pollen from outside, pollen from house plants, stuffing from the old couch, peeled paint, mildew and mold, soot from the furnace and stove, smoke particles from Himself's beloved cigars, bacteria (viruses are often small enough to pass through filters), and the aroma of that Hawaiian pizza your son saved to finish off later. The stuff in the filter is, in a word, your lifestyle--- come back to haunt you.

I do not favor the sterile, antiseptic life valued by some. But I see everyone's filters, and I see what gets by the filter and plugs up the AC coil or the outlet grilles, and I know we're relying on filtration to do what my mother's generation accomplished by cleaning. Oh, dear, I hear the angry mob. Must go hide in the root cellar.

The presence of medium to high efficiency filtration in our air systems and vacuum cleaners is a big improvement over earlier standards that returned most airborne particles to the living space because the coarser filters didn't catch them. It's wonderful that we have Miele and Dyson
supervacs that filter down to viral-size particles and let nothing by. But those impressive filters do not make our homes clean by themselves. They don't eliminate sources of allergic irritation and infection that overpower furnace filters, room air purifiers and occasionally-used vacuum cleaners. The causes of poor indoor air quality, apart from poor outdoor air quality, are mostly the things we bring home ourselves.

You can't have pets without having a certain level of dander and dirt. You can't have garbage in the house for long without having odors, mold and bacteria. You can't use the clothes dryer indoors without having some escaped lint flying around. And you can't trust filtration devices to remove all of the pollutants in your home without carrying the battle to every corner of every teenager's bedroom with the traditional weapons of cleanliness (broom, dustpan, vacuum, etc.). As our homes get tighter, exchanging less air with the outdoors, we trap our allergens and pollutants indoors with us, along with the normal dirt of American living. Removing those negative air factors is mostly down to the tough chore of cleaning, aided by good filters.

My Dog's Fleas Make Me Wheeze and Sneeze

2009-04-08T16:24:00.003-04:00

The photo shows a dust mite crawling through its own paradise of pet dander. "Dander" does not refer here to fits of temper or pique; it means skin particles, hair, saliva, sweat, pee, poo, flea carcasses and outdoor dirt. No, Dr. Evil, your hairless dog Mr. Bigglesworth is not exempt from dander. No pet except your python is truly blameless, and we're not counting old skins. Here's a Youtube link to a sketch on pet allergies.

The American Humane Society estimates that 15% of people are measurably allergic to dogs or cats. Of those allergic people, fully one third live with pets, refuse to give them up as allergies become more acute, and procure replacement pets when old friends pass away. Pet owners like their pets, even when pets make them wheezy, sniffly or even ill.

The Envirionmental Protection Agency says that pet dander is an acute trigger for asthma attacks. The American Lung Association lists pet dander among its major negative factors in indoor air quality and human health, adding that "there is no such thing as a hypo-allergenic pet."

Can you clean your way out of a pet allergy? The consensus is no. Pets release dander, hair, sweat, poo, pee, etc. at a rate that would overpower Mr. Clean in minutes. But, curiously, pet owners suffer all these things without (much) complaint in return for the companionship and comfort of their pets.

So as you tighten up your house, seal air leaks, root out moisture, mold and mildew, and clean up dust and dirt, you may be fighting only the easiest part of the battle for a healthy indoor environment. It's sadly possible that in strict terms of human health, a house with pets is better off with a few drafts and air leaks. Changes of air in your home are your best compromise with the health hazards that pet lovers can't, and usually won't, confront directly. We close with a (serious) Youtube clip telling you how to "lint-roll" your cat. Be sure to get it drunk first.

Control Your Humidity, Madam

2009-04-04T13:11:00.003-04:00

So many factors complicate the entity called Indoor Air Quality, and I can't cover them all here, but we've been discussing moisture and humidity in your home. Let's start there.

The woman in the picture would look lots cuter if she weren't snorkling and snuffling into her handkerchief. What's bugging her?

Among other things, the air in her house may be either too dry or too moist. Either direction, outside the recommended healthy window of 30%-50%, leads to trouble. Air with less moisture dries out nasal passages and sinuses, making us more vulnerable to infections, and air with higher humidity is likely to be carrying mold spores, bacteria and dust mites, all of which can cause an allergic reaction and lead to infections.

Begin by buying an inexpensive indoor hygrometer, or humidity meter (the link is to a tobacco specialty merchant. Cigar smokers are keen on proper humidity {!!!???} ). Once you have a reading, you can begin to exert control. If humidity is much below 30%, you can easily use a table-top humidifier to increase the reading. If humidity is much above 50%, and with warmer weather it will get there, you can use air conditioners or dehumidifiers to control moisture in your home. Look for moisture sources that can be re-directed, such as shower steam, laundry vapors and leaky plumbing.

Rule of thumb: if water is condensing on your windows on cold days, your humidity is probably high. If you constantly feel dry and itchy about the nose (don't drive me to more detail here, please), your humidity is likely too low.

But first, foremost and without fail, cleanliness is your primary weapon. Mold spores, dust mites, any airborne contaminant can be vacuumed away, dusted, swiffed; choose your weapon, but cleaning always helps. Unless you have generously hairy pets or obvious mold colonies already in your home, in which case we have to talk. But later.

So clean, monitor your humidity, do the cheap things first, and only spring for expensive air quality gadgets (like central air conditioning and Hepa filters) once you've covered the basics. Maybe next time we'll have to deal with your golden retriever and your lovely cats.

Moisture, Mold, Mucus

2009-04-01T16:39:00.002-04:00

The mold spores pictured may look no more harmless than a pizza made by a toddler, but they will make you ill. They like to grow in an environment that provides moisture and porous surfaces for supporting colonies. Wet sheet rock, sadly, is paradise for mold spores. So is damp carpet, insulation in which water is condensing because of infiltrated air, your pet's slightly soggy basket, and pretty much anything in your damp basement. Oh---- almost forgot----- YOUR LUNGS! Most important thing, of course.

Some merchants tout the benefits of ozone, chlorine, air fresheners, ammonia cleaners and herbal sachet, but the inconvenient truth is that almost nothing controls mold as long as it finds its basic needs in your home: moisture and absorbent surfaces. Reduce relative humidity below 55%, and mold can be washed, swept, scrubbed, vacuumed and soaped away. Lower can be better still, but other factors argue against ultra-dry environments.

If mildew spotting, musty smells and allergic symptoms make it obvious you have a mold problem, you can best restore a healthy environment to your home by rounding up the usual suspects: seal infiltration leaks where moisture condenses, run a (Energy Star, of course) dehumidifier in your living space while you root out and remedy the sources of moisture. Look for leaky drain traps, check under your washing machine and dishwasher, make sure the dampness in your basement is actually ground water seeping through concrete as opposed to leaky pipes or air infiltration causing condensation.

Mold is only the most obvious threat to indoor air quality in our homes, but it is the most vicious; you can put up with a lot of dust, pet dander and laundry lint without getting sick, but a bit of mold will make you miserable and puzzled as to why you feel so much better when you're not at home. Fight the big battles first. Deal shrewdly with mold, and you'll have given your family a nice present of better air. Even your pets will thank you, until we get to dander and you begin eyeing those little critters critically. Until then, pet the cat and deal with the moisture.

Relative Humidity, Lungs, Windows and You

2009-03-29T10:57:00.004-04:00

Water gets everywhere, sometimes. And it gets into the air, but never exactly the way we want it to. Managing moisture in your home is an important part of being energy-smart, comfortable and healthy.

The glass at left is a window, in a home, in cold weather, condensing water on the inner surface. The glass, to get just a teeny bit technical, has reached a temperature below the "Dew Point" of the air inside, resulting in "dew," or condensation, accumulating on the cold glass.

So? Natural phenomenon, you say. Well known fact, water beads up on mirrors in hot bathrooms, on windows in cold weather, on your spectacles when you come inside on a cold day. Way of the world, Circle of Life, all that. Fair enough. But how much condensation can the windows handle before they rot? How much condensation can take place in your walls (and on them) before mold begins to grow and your air becomes unhealthy? How much moisture should be in the air for your lungs to remain healthy and comfortable all winter?

We'll come back to the specifics in future posts. For now, in this introduction, just realize that your lungs, your walls, your house plants, your pets, your old piano and your light-sleeping partner who hates your snoring all have an interest in how much moisture lives in the air in your house. Don't neglect to use the link above to hear the Lion King theme. I do this stuff for you, you know.

Insolation: Life's Not Fair

2009-03-26T16:45:00.003-04:00

Insolation is a word that looks wrong, but look again. Not "insulation," but something entirely different. Insolation is the measure of how much solar radiation falls on a horizontal surface in a location per hour during daylight.

What heats up my sunroom is solar energy filtering through atmosphere, clouds, rain, trees and leaves, bug poop, dirt and glass before entering my house and being absorbed as heat by floor and furniture. In New England we get a certain amount, on the average, quantified in kilowatt hours (like the power through your electric meter) per square meter ( I like feet, but engineers can be so, so... metric) per hour. Insolation varies from sunrise to sunset, changes as clouds and fog drift over the land, and varies seasonally as the sun rises higher and sometimes not as high in the sky.

What frosts my root beer is that we get around 3 of these units of insolation, on average. And Taos, New Mexico gets...... 7. See the map, or use the link to get a larger image. Yes, there's a slight difference of latitude, yes the climate is drier, but it's not fair. If New England got all the solar energy that New Mexico gets, we could...... be New Mexico, I suppose.

The reason our solar panels are only a fraction as productive as those installed in the Sun Belt, the reason our sunrooms don't heat our houses completely, the reason our porches and decks are only fun to use for four months a year or so, is a blend of factors including temperature, cloud density, latitude, rainfall and forestation (frequency, height and shade potential of trees).

And I don't like it. But I'm not moving. So beware when solar panel salespersons, greenhouse companies, window and door manufacturers promise you amazing results from solar heating. We get some, yes, but not as much as Taos, or Miami, or Atlanta. And in March, when I'm tired of being cold, I think we don't get our share.

The Magic of Glass- Now Double It

2009-03-21T16:20:00.006-04:00

In my last post we described the progress of a sunny day in my addition. But what makes it work? Why is window glass so nifty as a solar collector? And what technology drives the improvement of windows as selective conductors of light, heat and air?

Simple clear glass is selectively transparent to light and heat. The diagram is not terribly technical, just illustrative. The sun's rays are mostly (except for ultraviolet) passed directly through into the room, and at least some of the infrared (radiant) energy is trapped, making clear glass a pretty good collector of solar heat.

When you double the window with two panes of glass, and add an inert gas in the space between panes, you've decreased light transmission very little (app. 10%) and decreased conductive and radiant heat loss by almost 50%. Well done, Andersen! We're getting warmer as we go.

Add selective coatings (called "low E", mostly) to filter radiant energy going in either one or both directions, and you've affected solar heat gain a little (another 10% or so) and reduced radiant losses by another 30% or so. This link may help.

It's hard to refine the glass window as a filter much beyond that, although the engineers, God bless them, will never stop trying (as long as we pay them, and even then, they have garages). As you increase the filtering of radiant energy through the glass, direct light transmission also suffers, and you get eventually to a window that puts one in mind of Paul's phrase "seeing through a glass, darkly." See our previous post on "super windows."

The strategy of using window coverings as nighttime filters for radiant and conductive energy through windows is difficult to escape. I've seen automatic pully arrangements with insulating covers, and the Somfy company gets very geeky with light sensors on motor-driven shades, but if you're an energy player, so to speak, you won't mind operating your shades/drapes/panels at sundown and sunup, turning windows into walls when they aren't working for you as solar collectors. We'll try to get back in the next few days, as work permits, to continue this discussion of windows and sunlight.

Passive Solar- Not Sexy, Just Smart

2009-03-15T18:42:00.007-04:00

South facing windows don't always give you the view of this photo, but any view that includes the sun for most of the day is an energy-rewarding one. There is much to know about the unfairly labeled "passive solar" approach to architecture, and I'd like to spend a few posts exploring the basics together.

Let's start with a bright morning in my addition (the photo is not mine, nor is that scrumptious view). The sun rises, depending upon the season, somewhat southeast at my latitude, 41.4 degrees north. As the sun clears the tree line, app. 500 yards from the house, four ordinary thermopane windows in the south wall start to pick up the sun. Roman shades are raised early in the morning, exposing the glass. By mid-morning, two skylights in the 45 degree sloped roof begin to cast bright, hot rectangles on the wall and floor. By now the room, underserved by my warm air heating system, is already the warmest in the house.

At noon the sun is at its highest point, and is passing the corner of the addition, which is aimed 15 degrees northeast. The house dates from about the Civil War. I didn't choose the site orientation. A four foot square casement window starts to pick up the sun and spread light across the dark harwood floor. Around two p.m. a six foot sliding glass door is filling the room with near-blinding light and more heat. It's ok, really. No one's home at that time, and I refuse to draw the curtains and lose the heat. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox, and all that Biblical wisdom.

By five p.m. it's all over. The sun reaches an artificial horizon to the southwest, a tree-lined hill that crests a quarter-mile away. And then it gets dark, we come home gratefully to a warm room, the ceiling fan has wafted lots of heat through a huge pass-through door to the rest of the house, and we drop the insulating shades and use the thermostat, if necessary, to finish heating the house for the evening. We'll be back next time to go over this scene in more detail.

Just Stand There While I Plug This In

2009-03-13T18:00:00.004-04:00

There is a persistent urban myth about the invention of the GFCI involving skeptical investors and industry officials, a bathtub, a toaster, the inventor's beloved only daughter and a Ground Fault prototype, but it never happened. There is some truth to the idea that the early "Residual Current Protective Device" encountered some resistance from a conservative building industry following its invention in 1961 by Charles Dalziel, an engineering professor at UC Berkeley. Similarly persistent rumors about his use of graduate students to test human shock tolerance, sadly, are confirmed.

Gradually since the early 70's the GFCI has conquered the building trades until by now its use is required in new houses and remodeling projects to protect bathrooms, kitchens, garages, basements, swimming pools, outdoor receptacles and hot tubs. If you don't see these rather official-looking plugs with buttons on around your house, it probably means you haven't had your wiring updated by a professional for many years.

I get shocked about half a dozen times a year; usually I deserve it. I'm a professional electrician, among other things, and the risks I take are deliberate and, hopefully, warranted. Once in a while I simply stumble upon a live wire left by some amateur or careless professional. Then I get all high and mighty and throw things and shout, "Somebody oughta do something about these nitwits!" I've acquired the habit of wearing basic gloves when in "terror incognita" wiring situations full of unknowns and hidden dangers.

If you have at least one GFCI or a prime suspect in the house, and a group of other receptacles suddenly and mysteriously goes silent, you must suspect that they are connected downstream of the device, a cost-cutting measure sanctioned by the Code but avoided by curmudgeons like me who hate charging to show up and push a button. Reset your GFCI, and the dining room plugs will probably wake up and smile.

Last tip: go to the home center and buy a plug tester, pictured at the head of the post. Following the simple instructions you can test any three prong outlet for a number of conditions, and test GFCIs for proper function, without taking any risk at all. Then you can say to me, on the phone, "The tester says 'open neutral,' and I heard a humming from inside the box. I found the breaker and turned it off. Can you get here tomorrow?" That never fails to impress.

It's a Short! It's a Surge! No, It's a Ground Fault

2009-03-07T18:16:00.002-05:00

If you've never dropped a power tool into a puddle or cut (yes, I'm thinking of you, dear daughter) a live wire with pliers, you don't know how hard your fuses or breakers are working for you down there in the panel. Your house has not burned down, like too many others, because the practical and safe limits of your wiring are being enforced by protective devices.

Unless your house is a true antique, you probably have GFCI plugs in it somewhere. Funny rectangular duplex receptacles with buttons on the front that protect you from different threats than those dealt with by breakers. GFCI receptacles are wonderful devices that trip in the presence of "ground faults."

Don't worry about ground faults that take place inside boxes or in your panel. they usually don't hurt people, they just make work for guys like me. The ground faults you need to be protected from are the ones you create. You splash water on the counter while filling the coffee maker. You wash out the bread machine and don't let it dry enough. You reach for that old radio just after getting out of the shower. You wash the car, then set the vacuum on wet pavement to clean the inside. Here's a Youtube link to the classic James Bond scene with the radio in the bathtub. Shocking.

The Electrical code now requires new houses to feature GFCI receptacles in kitchen, baths, basement, garage and on porches. Here's a link to show how you test and reset them. We'll do another post on GFCIs and tell a bit of their history and workings.

More Watts To You

2009-03-01T09:36:00.003-05:00

In the last post we gave you Rule One, label your circuits, and Rule Two, read the labels on your appliances and calculate your loads, limiting them to 1500 watts for safety and to avoid tripped breakers. In fact, kitchen circuits can handle a bit more (1800 watts, if they're wired correctly for 20 amps), but it's best to stay in the safe zone.

Rule Three is: be familiar with your "occasional" loads, and be wise about using them. Occasional loads are things you use only when you decide to: blow dryers, vacuum cleaners, bathroom space heaters, fax/copy machines and power tools all qualify. And before you plug in that saw or heater, think---- what circuit is this, and what else is on right now? If you've never heard a breaker moan when it picks up a big load (I am NOT making this up), believe me, they feel it when they operate near max capacity.

Rule Four is: Throw blown fuses away. Throw them away! I go into too many basements and find a row of dead ones lining a shelf or sill, "waiting to be healed," as Garrison Keillor says. If you want a reminder to get more, put one into your pocket or purse. You won't be down there again until you blow another fuse. You need to take note of three things about a fuse: amperage (15, 20, 25, 30), base thread size (the part that screws into the panel; there are two sizes, large and small), and response time (time delay, simple fast-blow; the home store staff can help you with this).

Rule Five, and last, is: Learn to reset a breaker. The little handle falls back either to the opposite position when it trips (most breakers point to the centerline of the panel when they're on, a few [Federal Pacific, Westinghouse] point outward), or sits in the middle. Learn this before you're in trouble. Push the handle all the way into the "off" position, wait a second in case it's still hot from tripping, then push back toward the "on" position. Gently. Don't use a tool of any kind. Better to break a ten dollar nail than to snap a breaker handle or get a tool involved in the live parts inside. Easy does it, as the AA saying goes. If the breaker won't move to firm finger pressure, come back in a minute. If it's still stuck, it's been damaged and you'll need a licensed person to replace it. Here's a link to a good how-to site.

If anything about this process scares you, don't touch the panel. If anything looks broken, if the cover falls off, if you smell anything funny, if you feel any heat coming off it, back out and pick up the phone. Don't get hurt proving you're tough and self-reliant. There are panels I won't touch, and I'm the pro. Until next time, keep a good flashlight handy, and send along your questions before wading in.

What's a Watt, Anyway?

2009-02-25T17:25:00.004-05:00

I'm seldom speechless, but when I have to charge to reset a breaker or replace a fuse, it's hard to know what to say to the blithe overloading homeowner. So all you fuse-blowers, breaker-trippers, lampcord staplers, plugstrip abusers, listen up!

You don't have to be a guy like me, compulsively adding up loads and anticipating what gets plugged into which outlet, to understand electrical loading.

Rule 1. trace your circuits. Plug in a vacuum cleaner, boom box or ask your beloved to shout when the lamp goes out. Go to the basement and try breakers or fuses until you hear the device/delovely signal you. Write that down. It's best to number your outlets with a pen or tape label. Write: breaker 1, outlets 1,2,5,9 and lights in family room. Like that. Mark the panel clearly with the circuits that feed the furnace, refrigerator, water pump, and other important loads you may need to find in a big fat hurry.

Rule 2. Count the devices plugged into your now tiresomely neat and labeled circuits, and count the watts. Don't even worry what they are. Just count. Light bulb? 50 to 100 watts, read the top of the bulb. Vacuum cleaner? Turn it over and read the label. The watts thing is there. Refrigerator? If it's not on its own circuit, enter 1200 watts. Blow Dryer? 1200-1500 watts. Read the label. And, armed with this data, limit the load on each circuit to 1500 watts or less. Especially in the kitchen where you (don't even try to shizzle me, I know better) plug in the toaster, coffee maker, bean grinder and small microwave into the same countertop circuit. It can't go over 1500 watts without putting you in danger of an overload or tripped breaker.

Ok. Enough for now. Here's a link, and we'll be back to talk more about loads.

Heat Leaks Two: We All Leak About the Same

2009-02-20T14:45:00.006-05:00

Last post we looked at several infrared scans of houses and parts of houses, showing a bit of where all the heat goes, typically. In the photo above, borrowed from a home inspection site, you see all the colors of the rainbow. Remember, violet is good, and orange, red or even white are bad. From the top down, note the really bad hot spot around the plumbing stack. That could be sealed with caulk and/or foam, although the pipe, to be fair, does constantly convey warm stinky air up and out, and you'd better be glad it does.

Next note the line of heat escaping along the roof ridge. The ridge vent is a necessary architectural feature designed to keep air moving in the attic, but it shouldn't be that warm; the attic is getting too much warm air from the rooms beneath the ceiling, whether through lighting fixture penetrations, recessed lights that warm up the attic anyway, and probably the access hole to the attic, which never gets sealed the way it should.

The hot spots under the eaves and under the gable overhang are likely a combination of air leaks in a very vulnerable place of structural movement and a much nastier symptom: insulation settling over time. It's very dificult to avoid, and very difficult to correct. No one wants to damage siding or interior walls to get at the voids, so what's a homeowner to do? There are retrofits that work, as Bob Vila explains in the link. Fibers or foam can be inserted in the cavities; the work leaves small holes easily repaired and painted out.

The only other remarkable features of the house in question are the hot spots all around windows, due to framing leaks and radiant losses, and around the door, where the lack of weatherstripping is all too obvious.

This house has most of the typical flaws; it's a typical house. Without getting deeply into having a full-on energy audit of your own house, unless your utility does them for free, you can safely pursue the usual suspects. Shoot foam into foundation and sill cracks, caulk gaps under baseboards, apply sticky-on weatherstripping to entry doors and frequently used windows, seal up attic access with plastic or foam board, and do something smart with those windows, as we discussed in earlier posts. About the same things go wrong, energy-wise, to most houses. I don't like being typical, either, but following the same checklist as typical homeowners all over this land will help you to quickly and inexpensively pounce on your major heat leaks and get some energy savings going right away.

Infrared Photos: I Can See Your Heat Leaks From Here

2009-02-18T11:42:00.006-05:00

The technology of infrared scanning is not new any more; i have a small infrared device i carry to scan ductwork and rooms. It helps me to test and balance my installed heating/cooling systems. Having a scan of your own house is a little pricey (neighborhood of $400), but you can learn a lot from studying scans of typical houses.

The links attached to this post are infrared scans of homes, some probably like yours, and the colors tell the tale about where heat is escaping most rapidly from the building envelope. For novices, the temperatures run opposite to the rainbow: violet is coolest, followed by indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Red is very hot in relative terms. Window glass, in most homes, is the greatest concentration of red.

Check out the links, then, and see where the most obvious heat leaks are. Then have a look at your own house, and we'll be back next time to chew over the results a bit.

LED Magic: Coming to Your House

2009-02-16T13:23:00.008-05:00

Technology always starts out expensive, but demand can work its voodoo on an industry, driving prices down within the reach of normal people. Like us. Since Edison and others gave us the tungsten-vacuum light bulb over a hundred years ago, electric lighting hasn't changed much. Current flows through a filament, heating it to "incandescent" temperatures, and the lights go up. Vacuum inside the bulb keeps the filament from bursting into flame, and the whole affair lasts around 1000 hours of use, either continuous or intermittent.

Fluorescents, arriving some years later, improved on the light bulb in many ways with a conductive chemical coating, again inside a gas-filled chamber, which gives off light as current flows through it. The bulb doesn't get dangerously hot, and it lasts longer than a regular incandescent bulb. Downside? Doesn't like to function in cold temperatures, flickers noticeably as it ages, and typically yields light in a narrow and harsh color spectrum, making you look your worst all day, not just in the morning.

These days we pin great hopes on the LED, a work of genius that emits light at low temperatures when current passes through a semi-conductor, or "Light-Emitting-Diode." With a wide choice of lighting shades and colors, service life approaching 50,000 hours, and power consumption less than half that of regular bulbs, the LED shows every sign of being the future of lighting.

The catch? Right now they're expensive, and lighting manufacturers have been slow to build residential fixtures that feature them. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter and other marvelous things, has become a champion for the LED as light source, installing LED fixtures throughout his getaway home on Little Dumpling Island, off the coast of Connecticut. Question back there? Can he afford it? Oh, yes, in ways the rest of us can't, but ostentation is not Kamen's prime motive. He hopes to see LEDs become a big weapon in the energy wars, and his all-LED home is meant to be part of a very large conversation. So good for him. No, you can't have a tour, but you can check out the lovely photos in the link.

Already LEDs have made inroads into industrial settings, becoming the lamp of choice in traffic signals, heavy truck tail and signal lights, and in your house. Tonight, before you go up to bed, turn off all the regular lights and walk around. Don't get hurt, just prowl carefully and check out the lights that stay on. Your coffee machine, your microwave, your computer, printer, fax machine, phone charger, toothbrush charging station, nightlight, phone cradle, answering machine, security panel, television, tivo, stereo and alarm clock all have LEDs in them, some that never go off. I like to take a second before mounting the stairs to survey all my unsleeping LED indicators. They don't cost me much to run. All my flashlights are now LED-equipped, especially the one I wear on my head at work, and my wife's sneaky midnight reading lamp, that rarely wakes me up unless we both had the garlic bread, is an LED.

There are LED fixtures available to you, but the application doesn't yet support a single fixture that replaces the 75 watt bulb. You can install under-cabinet fixtures in the kitchen, mini-recessed fixtures for accents, and reading lamps that sit on a desk or table. But better times are coming, and that, readers, will be a way for all of us to cut our lighting costs in half. I'm excited, I admit. Now can someone figure out how to dry my clothes with semi-conductors? I'm still waiting.

Super Windows: Can We Wait?

2009-02-15T15:36:00.004-05:00

Hi, this is a short post to follow up on our discussion of windows and various strategies including interior treatments, restoration of existing windows and sash replacement by professionals. The aesthetic character of older windows is a strong factor for some folks who live in older houses, especially those with the finer qualities of historic architecture. If you've got natural wood siding, lovely old brick chimneys, and historic Federal or Victorian trim details, you might feel the loss of beauty if a window company blows through your house (the pun is fully intended) installing white vinyl monsters. Especially if, as we cautioned in the last post, you wind up not addressing the draft-susceptible framing and trim that remain in place around your new replacement sashes.

Window technology is on the march. Eco Home Magazine catalogues a series of futuristic window models that will be available or already are being sold. Each is a significant departure from traditional window construction, and each has a significantly higher performance profile than you can get from a run-of-the-mill replacement window or a contractor-grade complete window package. Follow the links on the page and tell me what you think. Super-insulative glass composites, new metallic coatings, and wood composite sashes and frames all improve the performance of windows by small steps until the numbers (R5-R15 !!) dwarf the performance of even new off-the-shelf conventional windows. I admit it makes me drool a bit. All the same, I've been choosing conservative Andersen mid-price windows in my own remodeling project. When we add the performance of the contractor-grade window to that of the window treatments we use, the energy numbers satisfy us, and the price (under $500 average per window) works well with our project budget.

Should we hold up on our window projects to let this technology catch up? No, I don't think I can wait. I want my house done before I leave the planet, and my wife would like it done a little sooner than that. But if you're thinking a few years down the road, and you expect to be able to pay up the scale a bit when you do your project, the pace of progress may be in your favor.

Note well, you who see yourselves as potential replacement window candidates, that new window technologies do find their way into the replacement industry, but always after they've been tried and approved in new construction and remodeling. So your crack at super windows will come last, as it were. Also note that if you pursue restoration options, you may have the opportunity to seal up the surrounding frame and trim that I've been banging on about, and your degree of improvement in energy performance will go significantly higher.

And here's another wry twist to the logic of restoration. Once you've removed the exterior trim from an old window, you're often only a few nails away from being able to install a new complete window, sometimes without disturbing your interior walls and trim. It doesn't always work, but I've enjoyed breaks like that in working on my own house; old window out, new window in, some jamb fillers to mate up to interior trim, and you're on to stain or paint, with minimum fuss and no blood on the floor, so to speak. Have a discussion with your remodeling contractor, and see if he/she agrees.

These are small points, I admit, but I want you to feel empowered, not trapped, if you're considering doing something about your old windows. I've done replacements, I've done restorations, I've done surgical and full-on new window installations, and they're all effective in their special niches of usefulness. Your hard-earned cash should buy you three things, as we said before: beauty, comfort and energy savings. And the more of all three, of course, the better. Do your homework; make a smart choice for yourself; we wish you the joy of looking at your windows and feeling warm, safe and smug for years to come.

Replacement Windows: Do I Have To?

2009-02-14T12:33:00.001-05:00

We've been talking windows for a while here, and this post deals with a big item in the window market: window replacement. For a fee ranging from $300 to as much as $1000 per window, replacement companies will measure your openings, order windows, send techs to your house to remove trim and install the windows, and in many cases offer in-house loans for less-than-solvent homeowners in these troubled times. The pitch for replacement windows is built on two promises: looks and energy savings. Many companies promise lower energy costs and offer rebates or other compensation if their products don't save energy as promised.

We're not here to defame the replacement companies, or to question their claims in detail. Just hear me out. The performance of your windows is based on several factors, and you must calculate whether replacement windows offer you a desirable improvement in appearance, comfort and energy costs. You can't rely on people with something to sell when making those decisions.

Appearance first. The finish options on replacement windows usually cover several colors of vinyl and a few types/colors of wood, including an "unfinished" option you can stain or paint yourself. You will discover that the best performance and lowest prices center around vinyl/interior-vinyl/exterior models, especially if you'd rather not wait weeks for special ordering and shipping. All-vinyl windows are always in stock, depending upon size.

Now on to comfort. You will find that the most basic model windows feature thermo-pane dual glass and weatherstripping to seal the sashes to the replacement frame. You will be able to order performance options like Low Emissivity glass and sealed vacuum pane units with inert gas filler for lower conductive losses. The performance of thermo-pane glass with coatings over traditional single pane glass can be significant, on the order of twice as good. The pitch for better glass and vinyl sashes in your windows can be very compelling when considered in the small picture. Hang on for the summary, when we put all factors on the table.

Third item is energy savings. Here the conversation generates a bit of friction. Window companies speak of energy savings exceeding 45% as a result of window replacement, but warn that "results may vary." Of course. Other, more independent analysts figure the payback problem differently, suggesting payback periods of twenty or even forty years are a reasonable expectation. Be smart. Balance the claims of the window company against the data you get from contractors and independent energy zealots.

Let's sum up. Here's a kicker of sorts: the energy performance of a window is a combination of energy losses including conductive losses through glass, radiant losses through glass, and drafts and infiltration through sashes and around frames. Replacement windows, depending upon the installers and how much carpentry you're paying them to do, may address only conductive and radiant losses, leaving you with most of your drafts and air infiltration untreated, since the problem lies in your sash channels, framing and trim, where replacement window installers often fear to tread. The energy performance of a traditional single pane window covered by a glass storm window sealed to the outer trim can compete with that of a new replacement window.

Repairing/restoring windows is an intermediate strategy, somewhere in cost between low-cost window treatments (the link is to my earlier posts on window treatments) and full-on window replacement. And restoration/repair can yield energy performance and payback/savings that really work, rather than "results may vary." Friends don't encourage friends to spend borrowed money on an investment with uncertain results. If you have the cash, and you REALLY hate those old windows, you can shop hard and negotiate a good deal on replacement. Ask about the details of the carpentry. Use words like "infiltration losses," now that you know what they are. Replacement windows can dress a house up very nicely, and save energy in the bargain. But restoring your old windows, installing good storms, or interior treatments of the sort we discussed in earlier posts, can all save you money at lower risk, and these strategies should be considered before you apply for a loan and take a big step like replacement. As you noticed, in this blog we're all about the small steps. They get you there in the end, and I hate it when my friends fall down.

I Made Them Myself, Can You Tell?

2009-02-11T19:38:00.002-05:00

If i set out to do my own window treatments, they'd probably be done in plywood and black paint. Can't help it, I'm that kind of man. Thank God, my sainted wife sews, and she sews well. She won't allow me to post a photo of our Roman shades in the "sunny addition" mentioned in earlier posts, but there are lots of places you can go to get ideas and even instructional help. If the sewing thing is never going to be you, don't despair. Other strategies will get you into higher R factors and movable coverings for those windows that feel good all day but not at night.
Rigid panels, made of foam (not plywood, i was kidding) or some other insulating board, can give you a great R factor while controlling radiant and conductive heat losses through windows.
Pre-fab panels can be purchased to your measurements, or you can make panels yourself from insulating board material from the home store. The look can be as basic as the specular silver or black coating on the raw board, or as sexy as the white muslin my wife used to cover ours. Fastening can be as simple as sticky pads from duct tape, or as sleek as store-bought velcro patches. This is good, clean fun and you can't fail, unless you slip with that sharp knife; so watch yourself, go slow, and measure three times.
The least cost option, for people on strict budgets or short on time and craft moxy, is 3M shrink film window coverings, available at the home store and as easy to install as Saran wrap in a static electricity vortex. I made a mess of mine, but my wife calmed me down, and with her help we covered several old, drafty windows and got a wonderful result. The film product goes into place over two-sided sticky tape, and a hair dryer (watch the heat, you can melt the film) shrinks it to wrinkle-free tension, sealing an old window against drafts very nicely. It's not sophisticated, and you can't open the window until you remove the film, but in terms of return-on-investment, it's top of the list. They even make a kit sized for sliding glass doors, if you can do without the entry option all winter.
It doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be Martha, although i'm sure hers are lovely. It just has to stifle drafts, cut down on conductive losses, and permit the sun to come in and bless you with its warmth during the day. That's why God made windows.

Shades, Curtains, and Drapes

2009-02-08T16:06:00.004-05:00

Hi, we're back in that sunny room, but the sun is going down. It's time to trap some warmth, lest it all be lost through the windows that have gathered the sun's rays all day. The windows have a low Emissivity coating, but that doesn't completely stop radiant energy escaping once evening sets in, and the room will get uncomfortably cool if we don't do something.

Forward the Roman shade. Credited to the old pre-Italian inhabitants of that sunny Mediterranean country, the Roman shade varies from other shades in its ability to be raised and lowered by means of cords and pulleys. Before there was glass, Roman shades were used in concert with shutters to keep out cold winds, barbarians and rain. Later, when windows became more elegant, with glass panes and movable sashes, shades were used to exclude light and drafts, and to ensure privacy in city homes. Today Roman shades are hot again because they enhance the energy performance of even the most expensive coated windows, and make sunny rooms more comfortable to be in at night.

Shades, as a class of window treatment, raise and lower from the top. Curtains, by contrast, slide left and right, often parting in the middle. Drapes, often synonymous with curtains, tend to be drawn apart with ties or loops rather than sliding on overhead rods. All window treatments help to make windows more comfortable and less revealing, but not all treatments perform equally in keeping a room warm.

Unless the window treatment is sealed against the window frame, or made to hang within an inch or so of the glass, the resulting space powers a convective current which circulates warm air continuously in the manner of a convective radiator. Energy is passed through the glass to the outside by conduction and some radiation. Curtains and drapes are difficult to install sufficiently close to the glass to defeat this convective effect. Roman shades are more adaptable to close-fitting installations. Roller shades also lend themselves to the kind of mounting that seals better and keeps more warmth in the room. We'll be back soon with some remarks on how to cover your windows with homemade shades and curtains, on a budget, without having to hire a fairy godmother and pay those rates.