Clean Edison Blog

Save energy with the bonus of controlling excess humidity and improving home air quality!

Like it or not, your crawl space and living space are joined at the hip. Holes for wiring and pipes, plumbing chases, leaky heating ducts, gaps in subflooring, ensure that your living space and your crawl space communicate freely! It is no surprise that the U.S. Department of Energy recommends you insulate your crawl space. Insulation in the floor joists is typically inadequate to offer much of a barrier. To make matters worse, the laws of physics actually cause the air in your crawl space to be pulled up into your living areas. As warm air rises in the upper levels of your home, it creates a draw on the lower areas. As much as 40 percent of the air in your crawl space eventually mixes with the air inside your home.

This creates a whole series of problems, ranging from energy loss to breathing unhealthy air. In summer, cool air is lost to the crawl space. In addition, excess humidity from the crawl space causes your air conditioner to work harder and use more electricity than it should. In winter, cold air entering through the crawl space makes your floors cold and first level rooms drafty. Heating bills climb. Winter and summer, you’re apt to be breathing unhealthy air laden with allergens and soil gases.

There are five steps you can take to turn a crawl space into a clean, healthy, energy-efficient part of your home. Here they are roughly in the order you should tackle them:

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Glass as a design choice

A look at today’s architecture and design magazines, or at new construction projects in NYC, confirms that the current material of choice is glass.  Floor-to-ceiling windows, 360° views, natural daylight, connecting inside to the outside are the design vocabulary du jour.  Glass, and lots of it, is intended to convey modernity, sophistication, and, increasingly, green design.

The first glass was made about 2,000 years ago.  It was used to seal off small apertures made to let in light.  However, it was not until many centuries later that the use of glass in buildings became widespread.  Still, window sizes were constrained by practical considerations: impact on the load-bearing capacity of the walls, material limitations, energy conservation requirements, expense.  In the 20^th century, the development of structural steel, and later reinforced concrete, allowed to transfer bearing loads from the exterior walls to interior columns.  At the same time, glass came in increasingly bigger unbroken sheets.

The International Style in architecture, made simple glass façades and huge opens spaces synonymous with modernity.  In the late 1940s, double-pane glass with thermal insulation was created.  Windows were becoming bigger and bigger, until eventually the entire exterior skin of a building was made of glass – it was called the curtain-wall.  Lever House, built in 1952, was the first curtain-wall building in New York.  By 1970s, coated, laminated glass, and other innovative glass products were created.  Today, fully-glazed office buildings are ubiquitous, and in residential buildings, especially on the higher end, panoramic, huge, often floor-to-ceiling windows became a requisite amenity.

What is it that makes glass so appealing to architects and building owners? 

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Just because you’re doing your part for the environment and instituting more eco-friendly measures, it doesn’t mean you have to throw your fashion sense out your newly-green windows. These days, there are more ways than ever to introduce earth-saving accessories to our energy-efficient windows that are as easy on the eyes as they are on the environment.

Choosing eco-friendly window treatments is also much easier on the wallet than replacing every window in your home with energy-efficient ones. Including the cost of labor for installation, one can reasonably expect to pay anywhere from $400-$1,000 per energy-efficient window; for someone with even a dozen windows in their home, the costs could easily come in between $4,800-$12,000 for the entire project!

Once you consider the fact that you cannot take your super-expensive windows with you when you leave and that you will almost certainly not recoup 100% of the costs, other alternatives start to look much more promising.

Meanwhile, upgrading your window treatments is not only an exponentially more economical choice on the front end, but you are also able to transport them to your next home if you decide to move.
Here are a few of the most energy-saving options for eco-fashionable window treatments.

Honeycomb Cell Shades

In terms of extreme insulators, the honeycomb cellular shades can’t be beat! The unique honeycomb shape works like a quilt in that it insulates your windows by trapping air between the honeycomb cells. They not only block heat in the summer but they also block cold air from entering in the winter.

On the surface, they have an accordion-esque appearance and come in a variety of colors. Honeycomb cell shades are a good way to incorporate a bit of textural interest to your windows, as well.

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Despite the growth of public transportation and other transportation alternatives, parking locations remain necessary in much of the nation. Even though parking consultants and design teams have been using sustainable practices for parking structures in recent years, many do not calculate energy use as part of their standard methodology. Unknown to most, a garage typically uses 15% of the energy that the building that it is designed to support uses.Worse, this energy use is often lost in the periphery of energy efficiency efforts. Parking structures should not be overlooked, though, because the savings potential is immense. Energy use can be reduced by more than 90% over an ASHRAE Standard 90.1 2007 baseline parking structure with typical construction costs.

Here are some design elements that can be implemented to improve the energy efficiency of parking structures

Ventilation

Design the parking structure to maintain an approximate 40% façade openness, which allows natural ventilation on all levels. This will be enough ventilation to preclude the need for mechanical ventilation systems.

Daylighting

Lighting is typically the largest load, particularly for naturally ventilated structures. To reduce the lighting load to almost zero during daylight hours, perforate the façade with aluminum panels that let in sunlight (while keeping out weather) and, if possible, design to include a “light well” in the middle of the structure to meet a full daylighting effort in the center of the space. If done properly, only a few places in the structure, such as under the stairs, need to be electrically lighted between sunrise and sunset.

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The newest installment of CleanEdison’s LEED Certifications of the month series.

The month of March had a wide variety of buildings get their LEED Certification. The usual American college campuses were joined by a Holocaust museum and a university in Hong Kong.

In no particular order, here are the LEED Certifications of March 2013

Philadelphia School’s Ellen Schwartz and Jeremy Siegel Early Childhood Education Center

The Center, located at 2501 South Street, was recently awarded LEED Silver Certification under the US Green Building Council’s LEED 2009 New Construction Rating System.

During construction, a commitment was made to use as much locally produced materials as possible; preferred materials had recycled content. Spray foam insulation and fiberglass batts installed in the ceiling and walls resulted in a high R-value, a measure of insulation’s ability to resist heat traveling through it, and reduced air leakage in and out of the building.

A radiant heat system was installed. The size and positioning of the building’s many windows ensure ample natural daylight. Interior materials meet rigorous air quality standards. The drought-resistant landscaping and hard-surfaced areas were designed to help rainwater infiltrate into the ground rather than enter the city’s storm-sewer system.

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Welcome to CleanEdison’s new series for the month of April: 18 Actionable Steps Towards Energy Efficiency!

We’ve all heard about the amount of money that can be saved by changing a few simple behaviors and making some adjustments to your home.

But where to start? Who has the time? How much can be saved?

We are here to answer these question in the form of small, actionable steps that you can take each day after work or school that will add up to major savings in the end.

On weekends, there will be slightly bigger projects that will unlock even greater energy savings.

Together, let’s make our homes and communities more energy efficient and our nation cleaner, safer and healthier!

April 18th – Repair, replace and add insulation to your attic

Remember last week when you checked for uneven insulation and water damage in your attic? Well today is the day you do something about it.

Summer is coming and you don’t want to have one day of wasted energy leaking from your attic, not this year at least. Improving your home’s air leaks are the fastest and most cost-effective ways to reduce energy waste and make the most of your energy dollars.

If you found any missing insulation you’re going to want to make sure that every inch of space between the beams is accounted for. If you see fiberglass insulation, you’re probably good, this seldom needs to be replaced – UNLESS it is water damaged. Also inspect dirty spots in your insulation for air leaks and mold. You can seal leaks with low-expansion spray foam made for this purpose.

Don’t forget to use the proper mouth and hand protection when handling fiberglass insulation.

How’d it go up there? Don’t you feel all the money you’re saving?

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Combined, buildings in the United States consume 40% of all energy. But these buildings are not created equal. The important first step in reducing energy use in buildings is to understand what type of building it is, and what the occupants are there to do. A school will have different energy consumption habits than a single family home; a large office building will perform differently than a five story walkup. But what exactly are the differences, in aggregate, between the residential sector and the commercial sector?

1) In the residential sector, space heating accounts for 43% of energy use. In the commercial sector, space heating is only 25% of energy use.

2) In terms of energy used for space heating, the residential sector uses twice as much renewable energy as the commercial sector.

3) In terms of percentage of related carbon emissions, space heating is twice as much in residential buildings than commercial buildings.

4) 93% of the residential sector’s direct greenhouse gas emissions come from the combustion of fossil fuels, primarily for heating and cooking. Only 60% of direct emissions come from on-site fossil fuel combustion in commercial buildings.

5)As a percent of total energy consumption, lighting in commercial buildings is twice that of residential buildings.

6) As a percent of total energy consumption, water heating in residential buildings is almost three times that of commercial buildings

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We’re all looking to save a buck – if we can save the environment while we’re at it, even better. Over the last couple of decades, the ENERGY STAR trademark has found its way onto everything from washing machines to refrigerators to indicate the product’s ability to conserve energy and save money. More recently, the application of the ENERGY STAR to buildings and businesses has gained in popularity. Regardless of the level of involvement you attain within the ENERGY STAR Program, doing your part to ensure optimum energy performance can have widespread benefits for your business.

The Energy Star Program: An Overview

In the official words of the EPA on the Energy Star website, www.energystar.gov, the energy use of your building can be likened to that of the miles per gallon for your car: understanding what you are dealing with can help shape decisions, strategies, and even budgets. Moreover, being able to compare the energy usage of your building to other, similar buildings can help keep you on track with your energy goals.

To facilitate this comparison, the EPA has established an energy performance scale, ranging from 1-100, to determine how your building’s energy efficiency stacks up to other equivalent buildings throughout the country. To earn the ENERGY STAR, a building (or manufacturing plant) must score a 75 or higher on the performance scale, indicating that the facility operates better than at least 75% of similar buildings nationwide. In short, an ENERGY STAR certified facility meets the EPA’s strict energy performance standards, is less expensive to operate (because it is more energy efficient), and causes fewer greenhouse gas emissions than comparable facilities.

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by Frank Sherman,

(reposted with permission from Alpine Green Solutions Blog)

2012 ends as a year of uncertainty. Uncertainty about the political landscape, uncertainty about climate change, and uncertainty about business have weighed heavily on our clients minds. At least the Mayan calendar did not end. What is certain is that 2013 looks to be a good year.

Energy plays a significant role as we look ahead to 2013. It fuels and impedes business success. It causes global climate change yet holds many of the solutions to this crisis. The politics of energy reflect the transformation that is happening throughout our economy. Old ways are dying and old industries and business practices are becoming relics relegated to the LA Brea Tar Pits of time. The more entrenched businesses and industries become, the more they sink into the past. Innovation, technology, and new economic models are creating the next generation of great businesses, and their approach to energy is critical to their success.

We look at 2013 as a year for performance and it reflects our optimism for all the business opportunity we see across the country. We sense this in conversations with our clients and our colleagues. Businesses are looking ahead and planning for long term growth and success. 2013 looks like it will be the year of the long play, where smart investments position businesses for future success. Here are a few trends to take advantage of in 2013.

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