Destination Green » energy efficiency

Home Energy Audit – What’s It All About?

Dave Sanders — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:27:10 +0000

Welcome to another installment of our Sustainable Home Remodeling Series where we are documenting our efforts to “green update” our dated 1970 split-level home . In this post, we’ll show you key elements of a home energy audit and talk about the general value of having one performed for your home.

We worked with Energy Logic who sent out one of their Professional Energy Raters, Byron Burns, to evaluate our home’s energy performance.

Byron started his audit by conducting a general inspection of the home’s exterior, interior and mechanicals to look for obvious energy efficiency issues and opportunities to improve home performance.

Next, Byron performed a blower door test to determine where the house leaks hot air in the winter and cool air in the summer.

Then he tested the performance of our furnace and duct work.

The cost of a home energy audit can vary quite a bit depending upon the specific scope of services and size of your home. We paid $325 for Energy Logic’s audit of our home and believe this to be money very well spent. We now have a detailed report that provides clear, prioritized guidance for our efforts to make our home more energy efficient, which we know will decrease our operational costs and increase our comfort while we own the home. We are also confident that having solid documentation of improvements to our home’s energy efficiency will increase its resale value when we put it on the market in a few years.

Watch for future posts on this topic. We’ll be digging deeper into the Energy Logic report and discussing the HERS^®score for our home in its current state, tracking our implementation of energy efficiency improvement projects, and conducting follow-up testing to determine our post-improvements HERS^®score.

Sustainable Home Remodeling Series – Intro

Dave Sanders — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Is it possible to make a 1970 split level house cool by today’s standards? Lara and I are foolish enough to try, with a green twist. After all, doing so puts the walk in two things that we’re doing a lot of talking about – 1) that eco-friendly remodeling of an existing home is a relatively low-impact way to create a green dream home, and 2) that greenlording with a green exit strategy can be a smart approach to real estate investment.

We’ve just moved into the 4 bedroom, 2 bath 1900 square foot home pictured above. We bought it in 2003 from the original owners as an investment property. It is quite dated, and a bit tenant-worn after six years as a rental, but it has as they say “great bones”. And the yard has mature peach, cherry and plum trees, as well as grape vines. To put all of this fruit to good use, we’ll be calling on our friends Jana and Steve and their wine-making talents for payback for the cork floor labor they got out of me earlier this year .

There’s not much about this place that doesn’t need updating – nope, it’s all as dated as this kitchen. So we’ll have lots of eco-friendly home projects to blog about in this series.

Here is a sampling of the projects we have on deck…

new bamboo cabinets in the kitchen and vanities in the bathrooms.
replacing worn carpet with rapidly renewable flooring throughout.
sourcing and installing the most eco-friendly concrete countertops we’ve heard of to date.
re-painting the entire inside of the house with low or no VOC paint.
energy efficiency improvements guided by a professional energy audit.
a sprinkler system audit and corresponding xeriscaping to reduce lawn watering requirements.
installing water-conserving fixtures throughout.

We hope you’ll grab our feed, follow along and maybe even learn a bit from our experiences, if not our mistakes!

Oh, one last thought about the timing of things. We’ll be completing and blogging about these green remodeling projects as quickly as our day jobs permit, but we may take a slower road toward our green exit of this home than originally anticipated. We’re confident it is going to be a pretty cool and comfortable greened-up home to live in.

Larson Renovation 3 – Installing a Solar Water Heater System

Dave Sanders — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 23:11:06 +0000

A theme has emerged around Sandra and Justin Larson’s renovation project, and that theme is “RE“. Part 1 showcased their REsourceful REuse of REclaimed building materials. Then, in Part 2, we documented their use of spray foam insulation containing REnewable soy to create an extremely energy efficient envelope. Now, we’ll take a look at their installation of a solar water heater system which will make use of a very abundant REnewable REsource…Colorado sunshine.

The Larson’s turned to Darren Hein (pictured above) and his team at Heinsight Solutions to source and install a Velux solar hot water system. Heinsight is a Velux 5-Star Solar Specialist installer. Darren brings many years of specialized roofing and skylight installation experience to bear. He’s the kind of expert you’ll want to seek out if you decide on a solar water heater for your home to ensure that upgrading your water heater system doesn’t downgrade your roof.

Heinsight installed a two-panel, indirect circulation, pre-heat system at the Larson’s home. The panels themselves are of the flat-plate collector variety. Indirect circulation means that an antifreeze liquid is pumped through the panels and down to a heat exchanger in a newly installed tank in the home, where the antifreeze then transfers heat to the water in the tank. It is considered a pre-heat system because the new tank is tied into the existing hot water heater, providing back-up hot water should a portion of the system go down. You can see the components and get lots of great information from Darren about system details, costs and rebates by watching the two video segments below.

There are quite a few different types of solar water heating systems. The U.S. Department of Energy website on energy efficiency and renewable energy provides excellent information about them, including this page on types and how they work.

These systems are extremely eco-friendly because they substitute energy from the sun for energy from natural gas or power plant generated electricity, using the latter only infrequently as back-up. According to Solar Energy International, more than 50 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from your local utility can be avoided over a 20 year period when a solar water heater replaces an electric one.

The economics of solar hot water are also quite compelling, and may even offer immediate payback if you are building a new home or refinancing for home renovation. The Department of Energy indicates that your monthly water heating bill will drop by 50% to 80% if you install a solar water heater. And, depending upon where and how you live, and which source you believe, heating water accounts for 9% to 30% of your monthly energy bill. Up-front costs and payback time for a solar water heating system are reduced by a 30% federal tax credit and additional regional credits. Follow this DOE link to get further guidance on determining solar water heater system costs, energy savings and payback time for your situation.

Well, that’s it from the Larson project for now, but we’ll be REvisiting them soon for more eco-friendly home project education.

Larson Renovation – Part 2 – Soy Based Spray Foam Insulation

Dave Sanders — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:35:20 +0000

In the first part of our series covering Sandra and Justin Larson’s major home renovation project, we gave you a sense for the unusual extent to which they are using salvaged and reclaimed building materials. This week, we stopped by to observe the unique approach they are taking to insulating their renovated home.

The Larsons decided to go with soy based spray foam insulation and are working with Chris Lehmann, owner of SoySolution Sustainable Spray Foam Insulation, to get the job done. In fact, Chris got into this line of business after discussing the cutting-edge green insulation technology with Justin.

Spray foam insulation has been around for years. It is particularly attractive because of its excellent thermal and acoustical properties. Properly applied, it expands to completely fill every space, creating a comfortable, quiet and very energy efficient barrier between the home interior and outside world. For more information about spray foam insulation, check out SprayFoam.com.

Chris sprays insulation manufactured by Green Insulation Technologies, which takes spray foam insulation to a healthier, more sustainable level. It is water-blown, and uses polyols derived from renewable soybeans to replace a portion of petroleum based polyols. As a result, soy based spray foam insulation is an inert VOC-free substance that improves indoor air quality, has no food value for rodents and insects and will not promote growth of mold and mildew. For more on product content and benefits, visit Green Insulation Technologies’ website. If you’ve never seen spray foam insulation being applied, take a look at this quick video of Chris working at the Larson’s place.

Got your own insulation project coming up soon? Here are a few links that will help you get more informed about options and costs:

Well, there are obviously lots of eco-friendly home projects embedded in the Larson’s home renovation. Look for upcoming posts on installing a solar hot water heater, beetle kill pine flooring and more.

Not So Big Living = Green Living

Lara Williams — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:38:31 +0000

One of the simplest strategies for living a greener life in a more eco-friendly home is to subscribe to the teachings of architect Sarah Susanka. Susanka is the author of the bestselling “The Not So Big House” series, in which she makes the compelling case for choosing quality and efficiency of space over square footage. Her upshot – a smaller, carefully planned home will always feel more comfortable and cozy than the vacuous expanses of your typical McMansion or Starter Castle. From an environmental perspective, the benefits of not so big are obvious…a smaller home requires fewer resources and less embodied energy to build, and generally consumes less energy to heat, cool and illuminate.

Dave and I live in a 1,200 square foot house built in 1952. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, it is quite energy-inefficient (we’ll be working on that, one project at a time) and we do have a long-range plan to expand our livable square footage to approximately 1,900. We have lots of family and friends visiting us in Colorado, and putting visitors up in my office with an inflatable mattress on the floor and sharing a single bathroom with all of them is a true test of family and friendship bonds. Of course, we’ll be blogging about our energy efficiency improvements and sustainable remodeling project efforts along the way.

So if you are thinking about a new home, think about how not so big principles could help you buy or build less house than you might otherwise have done. Better still, think about how you might implement not so big to stay in your current home and make it work for you. In particular, Susanka’s books “Not So Big Remodeling…” and “Not So Big Solutions for Your Home” can help you be happy staying put. Your soul and your wallet will thank you.

What? You say need room for all of your stuff? Re-think that too. We’ve all fallen into the trap of filling up space with stuff we rarely (if ever) use. A move to a new home can be a great time to sort and shed stuff (be sure to google “donate used your city” to locate organizations who can put everything from eyeglasses to clothes to sports gear to vehicles to productive re-use). It is also an excellent opportunity to start a new habit of buying and accumulating less. Look to George Carlin for humorous inspiration . On the serious side, consider Annie Leonard’s “The Story of Stuff”.

So, get inspired to live larger by living not so big – dig into Sarah Susanka’s great work, and check out the quick video below which shows an example of not so big put into practice in our home.