Saving Money by Going Green: Knowing Your State’s Incentives

Did you know that many states are now offering incentives to residents for energy-efficient upgrades to their home? To determine what’s available in your state, one great resource is the online Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (http://www.dsireuse.org). This website continuously updates their listings, so check it often to see what programs and rebates you can benefit from.

From the DSIRE homepage, click on your state for a comprehensive list of state policies and incentives. For any particular rebate, it’s important to consider the available details. Click on the name of the rebate program to review the specific terms, deadlines, and application procedures to make sure that you can get the most money back for your conservation investments.

With all of the incentives out there, choosing the best energy-efficiency investment decisions and green product purchases can be a challenge. Making sure to follow the correct steps in obtaining your rebate can also be overwhelming. Your local Green Irene Eco-Consultant is the perfect local resource to help you make sense of your state incentives and determine the best path for you to follow on the road to energy efficiency. Your Eco-Consultant can also introduce you to Green Irene’s full line of green products, including products that qualify for local rebates! For instance, there is currently a rebate available in Arizona and Nevada that offsets much of the cost of the low-flow shower head that Green Irene offers. Contact your Eco-Consultant today, and take advantage of your local energy-efficiency incentives while they last!

Building a Foundation for Energy Conservation

Want to get the most bang for your buck in going green? High profile projects like home solar panels may not actually be the best first step. Check out Minnesota Power’s energy conservation pyramid above, which can help in understanding the best choices to get the highest return on your investment.

As the pyramid shows, changes like reducing vampire power and switching to energy-efficient lighting can make a big impact for your home without the significant cost of more complex projects like replacing windows or installing a home wind turbine. This means smaller purchases like CFL bulbs to replace incandescents or power strips for electronics can be the best way to start conserving.

Even more importantly, the pyramid shows that the base for energy conservation is information. Understanding your energy usage, potential steps, and appropriate products and tools is fundamental to any other conservation measures you may take.

A Green Home Makeover from your local Green Irene Eco-Consultant is a perfect first step in determining your best path to energy conservation. Your Green Irene Eco-Consultant is your local green friend who can help in making sure you get the best possible return on your investments. They can also provide you with more information on Green Irene’s wide selection of products for energy conservation and more, making sure that you choose the right products for greening your home. Contact him or her today, and start building the foundation to your family’s energy efficiency.

Characteristics of “Green” Window Treatments

“Going green” is a concept that can be applied to almost every area of your life, including how you select your home’s window treatments. Most people see window treatments as a way to decorate or have more privacy in their homes, but there are a few characteristics you can look for in blinds, shades or draperies that make them more eco-friendly.

The first of these characteristics is energy efficiency. This is not only good for the environment; it’s good for your wallet too. Energy efficient window treatments can help drastically reduce your energy bills by providing thermal protection. In the winter, certain window treatments can help provide insulation by preventing heat loss. Others can be effective in the summer by reducing heat gain. Your location and the type of material you select are both factors in a window treatment’s energy efficiency.

Checking the R-Value and Shading Coefficient ratings of the material is the best way to determine how energy efficient it is. The R-Value tells you the material’s effectiveness at preventing heat loss and the Shading Coefficient will tell you how much heat is coming through the window. So, if you live in a region where temperatures are colder for most of the year, you want to go with a material that has a high R-Value and low Shading Coefficient.

The next characteristic you want to look for in a “green” window treatment is whether or not the material is made from recyclable or renewable materials. Try and find products that are made from natural materials like cotton, hemp or silk and are not treated with pesticides or other harmful chemicals. The impact a treatment has on air quality is a factor in this as well. GREENGUARD certified products are well-regarded, as they have been tested for chemical emissions. The GREENGUARD Environmental Institute is a non profit organization whose mission is to improve public health and quality of life by improving indoor air quality.

Sustainable manufacturing is the final characteristic you should look for in an eco-friendly window treatment. This means selecting a product that is manufactured without the emission of greenhouse gases, generating waste, or using non-renewable or toxic materials. A product’s entire life cycle and its full impact on the environment and the surrounding community are considered in sustainable manufacturing. The goal is to be able to manufacture in a way which is so sustainable that it is able to continue far into the future.

There is no one treatment that encapsulates all of these characteristics and unless the product comes with some sort of certification statement, you may have to do some research into a product to find out just how eco-friendly your window treatment is. NYC area residents may want to consider Horizon Window Treatments. But regardless of your location, if you follow these guidelines you should be able to select a treatment that is best for you, your wallet and the environment.

New National Rebate Program for ENERGY STAR Appliances

2010 might be the perfect year to replace your old home appliances. A new government initiative, modeled after the popular “Cash for Clunkers” program, provides rebates to consumers who purchase energy-efficient appliances to replace their older energy-hogging models.

The program will be administered at the state level, so the details will be different depending on your location. To find out what your state is offering, Consumer Reports has created this interactive map:

You can also visit the Department of Energy’s directory for local programs (http://www.energysavers.gov/financial/70022.html) and select your state.

Rebates will only be available during the specific time period established by your state, so make sure to check out when your program begins and ends. Also keep in mind that the program has only one-tenth as much funding as Cash for Clunkers, so rebates could run out fast.

This is a great opportunity for consumers to save money both through the rebate and through energy conservation from the use of more efficient appliances. The older the appliance, the greater potential you have to save on your utility bills going forward. Do consider though, that for appliances that are less than five years old, it might not make sense to buy a replacement just for the rebate unless you plan to upgrade to a much higher efficiency model.

Also in effect through Dec. 31, 2010, is a federal tax credit for 30% of the cost of certain energy-efficient equipment items for your primary home (up to $1,500). Your local Green Irene Eco-Consultant can help you to make sense of these rebates and credits as part of a Green Home Makeover. Contact your local Eco-Consultant for more details, and start benefiting from energy conservation within your home.

Have you taken advantage of any green tax credits, rebates, or incentives? Let us know in the comments below!

85% likely to reduce energy consumption in 2010

The website Environmental Leader recently highlighted a survey by Tiller LLC with really interesting findings: about 85 percent of those polled said they were at least “somewhat likely” to reduce household energy consumption next year, while 84 percent said they expected to recycle more. So make a New Year’s resolution to reduce your energy use!

3 easy ways to start reducing your energy use include:

1) Turn off lights and appliances when not in use. This is the easiest way to use less energy – just like mom always told us.

2) Switch to energy efficient Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) Bulbs. The technology has come a long way, and there are CFLs in just about every size and shape and brightness to meet all your household needs. These CFLs only use about 1/4 the energy and last up to 10 times as long, often paying for themselves in one year. Look for the Energy Star label. A Green Irene Eco-consultant can help you pick the right ones for the right applications.

3) A few degrees make a difference. In the summer, set your AC to 78 degrees when you are home and 85 degrees when you are away. In winter, set thermostats to 68 degrees when you are home and 55 degrees when you go to bed or leave the house. If you install a new “simpler to program” thermostat, you only have to think about these adjustments once.

Don’t forget to get your kids involved! An innovative and kid-friendly website, http://www.greenallowance.com, has launched, which provides practical ideas and customized assignments for kids — showing how they can save energy and, in turn, save money. Kids are encouraged to make a deal with their parents to share the savings on their electric bill – savings that are calculated and programmed to show up on their home computers every billing cycle.

There is so much more that you can do! Taking the little steps will add up to big steps which will make a difference for the environment and save your family money.

If you’re in the northern or central New Jersey region, contact me for more information on ways to conserve and save through Green Irene’s Green Home Makeover or Green Office Makeover services. For other areas, contact your local Eco-Consultant, and begin taking steps toward reducing your energy consumption today!

Barry Dambach
Green Irene Eco-Consultant
barry.flemington@greenirene.com
http://www.GreenIrene.com/BarryFlemington

Staying Warm For Less

As we head quickly into colder weather, now is a perfect time to make sure your home is ready for winter. The drafts we feel on cold days can add up: a leaky home wastes up to 25% of the energy that is used to heat it! Here are a few great tips to prepare your home for the season:

- Fireplaces can be a huge energy drain on your home. Make sure to close the fireplace damper when not in use, and consider using a Chimney Balloon (a removable, inflatable way to seal your chimney’s flue) to stop drafts and heat loss.

- As the weather gets colder and windows stay closed, there’ll be a lot less fresh air circulating into the house. Replace the air filters for your HVAC system with a permanent filter or with a MERV 13-rated filter. An air cleaner machine can also help in making sure your home’s air is pollutant free.

- Also, remember that with less home air circulation in winter, it is even more important to be mindful of the carbon monoxide emitted by furnaces, gas stoves, and other appliances. A CO detector is important for every home.

- Installing Energy Star programmable thermostats are an easy upgrade that can save your family up to $200 per year on energy bills. These devices have many more options than your manual thermostat, such as allowing you to set different target temperatures by day when you leave the house, at night when you’re sleeping, over the weekend, or when you’re traveling for the holidays.

- Turn on your ceiling fan when you’re in the room. Winter fan use can save you 10% on your heating costs. Reversing the direction of a ceiling fan helps redistribute warm air by pushing it back down from the ceiling, hence conserving energy. Fans only work as temperature regulators when you are in the room; otherwise they are wasting energy, and cool/warm no one.

Taking these initial steps can help to keep you warm all winter while also keeping your utility bill as low as possible. Your local Eco-Consultant offers many energy-saving products, and they can provide you with even more ideas for energy conservation, so you can make sure that your home is well prepared for the winter months.

Do you have other steps that you take to winterize your home? Share them with us in the comments below!

Staying Warm in Minnesota

Anyone who lives in a cold climate knows that the only thing that can chill you more than Old Man Winter is that energy bill in February.  About eight years ago, the first winter in our home was quite a learning experience; the February gas bill was over $350!  We didn’t realize just how much it would cost to heat our home, and we didn’t sign up for a budget plan with our utility provider.  Even though it balanced out with lower gas bills in the summer, we still needed to do something to reduce that winter bill.

Two years ago, our monthly budget for natural gas averaged out to $103 ($1,236 per year). We then started on our green journey and made small improvements around our home; a little here and a little there. Last year our budget dropped to $64 monthly ($768 a year).

Last summer when I became a Green Irene Consultant, I decided to challenge my family to bring down our energy consumption even more without breaking the bank on home improvements.  So my first makeover was our own house, and just by doing the simple things and modifying our habits we were pleasantly surprised when our utility company sent us our budget amount for the 2009-2010 winter.  We now pay only $41 per month or $492 per year!

That’s over a 60% savings, and we did NOT replace our furnace, windows, doors, or any other major gas appliances.  Our house is a toasty 69 degrees when we are home and we use NO space heaters!

Just goes to show that you don’t have to invest a ton of money to save money!

Chris Hughes
Green Irene Eco-Consultant
Minneapolis, MN
http://www.GreenIrene.com/MNGreenteam

Mercury in CFLs: Should I be concerned?

I often get questions about the safety of mercury in CFLs. We know that mercury is bad for us – pregnant women are told to avoid eating fish high in mercury and we’re supposed to take extra care around mercury thermometers. Given these warnings, it makes sense that people have some concerns about using a mercury-containing light bulb around their family. I want to address those concerns briefly, and share with you why I’m so confident that CFLs are a great choice all around.

First off, CFLs do contain a small amount of mercury. Mercury has special properties that help make CFLs so efficient. Generating light is a function of vapor pressure. Too little vapor, and most of the energy goes to heat the lamp; too much vapor and the light gets trapped and degenerates into heat. Mercury is still the only substance that yields just enough vapor pressure to shed light efficiently without having to heat the lamp.

You should know that, according to EPA and many other sources, no mercury is released while the bulbs are intact. The amount of mercury in the average CFL is very small – usually around 4-5 milligrams. The premium light bulbs offered by Green Irene contain even less mercury than average – around 1 milligram for our mini spiral bulbs. By comparison, older thermometers contain about 500 milligrams of mercury, and many manual thermostats contain up to 3,000 milligrams. It would take 3,500 Green Irene light bulbs to match the amount of mercury in a house that had just one older thermometer and manual thermostat.

Since the amount of mercury in the bulb is so low to begin with, the risk posed by a broken bulb is minimal. Moreover, airborne mercury poses a very low risk of exposure.  Mercury becomes much more problematic when it enters the soil and water, transforming into a highly toxic chemical as it builds up in fish and other animals. If a CFL bulb does break, there are special clean up instructions you should follow. See AGI entry #317 and #716 for more information about options for disposal and recycling.

The majority of your mercury exposure is likely due to our continued reliance on coal-fired power plants. According to EPA, power plants account for 40% of all human-caused mercury emissions – by far the largest source. Once released, mercury bio-accumulates in animals and plants, entering our food system and posing a significant danger to everyone, particularly children. We still rely on coal more than any other source to meet our power needs. In 2006, nearly half of all electricity generated in the United States came from coal power plants. CFLs, which use 75% less energy than incandescents and last up to 13 times longer, can dramatically reduce the overall demand for power. That means less demand for coal, and less mercury in your environment.  When you add the money savings from CFLs, it becomes clear that switching to CFLs makes sense for your health, your environment, and your wallet.

Check out our full range of CFLs and our new LEDs (which contain no mercury).

Rosamaria Caballero
The Original Green Irene Eco-Consultant

Upgrade to White Roof to Save $1,000s in Warmer Climates

If you live in a warmer climate (or even as far north as Chicago and NYC),  the next time you need to replace your roof (usually every 20 years), please go with a white color to save 20% on your A/C costs and reduce your carbon emissions as a result. White roofs can cost as little as 15% more and may be eligible for Federal and State tax incentives as well.

Your local Green Irene Eco Consultant will point this out to you as well as many other ways to save energy and go green. Your local eco consultant may even have a white roof expert in their Sustainable Contractors Network they can refer you to.

Please enter your zip code here to find a local Green Irene Eco Consultant who can perform a $99 Green Home Makeover.

Rosamaria Caballero
Co-Founder and the Original Green Irene

Excerpts from New York Times article:

Returning to their ranch-style house in Sacramento after a long summer workday, Jon and Kim Waldrep were routinely met by a wall of heat.

“We’d come home in the summer, and the house would be 115 degrees, stifling,” said Mr. Waldrep, a regional manager for a national company.

He or his wife would race to the thermostat and turn on the air-conditioning as their four small children, just picked up from day care, awaited relief.

All that changed last month. “Now we come home on days when it’s over 100 degrees outside, and the house is at 80 degrees,” Mr. Waldrep said.

Their solution was a new roof: a shiny plasticized white covering that experts say is not only an energy saver but also a way to help cool the planet.

Relying on the centuries-old principle that white objects absorb less heat than dark ones, homeowners like the Waldreps are in the vanguard of a movement embracing “cool roofs” as one of the most affordable weapons against climate change.

Studies show that white roofs reduce air-conditioning costs by 20 percent or more in hot, sunny weather. Lower energy consumption also means fewer of the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

What is more, a white roof can cost as little as 15 percent more than its dark counterpart, depending on the materials used, while slashing electricity bills.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, has proselytized for cool roofs at home and abroad. “Make it white,” he advised a television audience on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” last week.

The scientist Mr. Chu calls his hero, Art Rosenfeld, a member of the California Energy Commission who has been campaigning for cool roofs since the 1980s, argues that turning all of the world’s roofs “light” over the next 20 years could save the equivalent of 24 billion metric tons in carbon dioxide emissions.

“That is what the whole world emitted last year,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. “So, in a sense, it’s like turning off the world for a year.”
This month the Waldreps’ three-bedroom house is consuming 10 percent less electricity than it did a year ago. (The savings would be greater if the family ran its central air during the workday.)

California, Florida and Georgia have adopted building codes that encourage white-roof installations for commercial buildings.

In cooler climates, they say, reflective roofs can mean higher heating bills.

Scientists acknowledge that the extra heating costs may outweigh the air-conditioning savings in cities like Detroit or Minneapolis.

But for most types of construction, they say, light roofs yield significant net benefits as far north as New York or Chicago. Although those cities have cold winters, they are heat islands in the summer, with hundreds of thousands of square feet of roof surface absorbing energy.

The physics behind cool roofs is simple. Solar energy delivers both light and heat, and the heat from sunlight is readily absorbed by dark colors. (An asphalt roof in New York can rise to 180 degrees on a hot summer day.) Lighter colors, however, reflect back a sizable fraction of the radiation, helping to keep a building — and, more broadly, the city and Earth — cooler. They also re-emit some of the heat they absorb.

Houses in hot climates have been whitewashed for centuries.

Before the advent of central air-conditioning in the mid-20th-century, white- and cream-colored houses with reflective tin roofs were the norm in South Florida, for example. Then central air-conditioning arrived, along with dark roofs whose basic ingredients were often asphalt, tar and bitumen, or asphalt-based shingles. These materials absorb as much as 90 percent of the sun’s heat energy — often useful in New England, but less so in Texas. By contrast, a white roof can absorb as little as 10 percent or 15 percent.

“Relative newcomers to the West and South brought a lot of habits and products from the Northeast,” said Joe Reilly, the president of American Rooftile Coatings, a supplier. “What you see happening now is common sense.”

White is not always a buyer’s first choice of color. So suppliers like American Rooftile Coatings have used federal color charts to create “cool” but traditional colors, like cream, sienna and gray that yield savings, though less than dazzling white roofs do.

But he points out that most roofs, whether tile or asphalt-shingle, have a life span of 20 to 25 years.

Read Full Article at New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/science/earth/30degrees.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=white%20roof&st=cse

A Green Irene’s Story: Living Off-Grid (Part 2)

Living off-grid is an awesome way to reduce your impact on the environment – if somewhat “challenging” (to put it mildly!). Our property is located in “county islands” in the Coconino National Forest, and there are no services at all – no powerlines, no water, no phone, and no road maintenance!

First, a primer on renewable energy (RE) systems. Renewable energy is any energy that is derived from resources that aren’t going to run out or regenerate themselves relatively quickly. Coal and oil are non-renewable resources: once it’s gone, it’s gone. Renewable energy sources includes solar, wind, hydro-power, and geothermal. In Arizona, solar is the most popular, with our 300+ days a year of sunshine. In some areas (like my place), wind power is also feasible, but generally, Arizona is not the best wind state.

For a complete RE system, you need a way to generate the electricity (in our case, solar or photovoltaic (PV) panels which collect the sun’s energy), a battery bank (special deep-cycle batteries are required) for storage of the electricity, a charge controller to protect your batteries from overcharging, and (unless you run all DC appliances) an inverter, which turns the DC electricity stored in the batteries to AC for use by standard household appliances. The solar challenge is that on cloudy or rainy days, you don’t get much energy. So that’s what the batteries are for – storage – and the bigger your battery bank, the better. Other components may include a backup generator for when you need extra power, or a Wind Generator for creating energy from the wind on those windy days. There are also ways to feed excess power back into the utility grid but this is something I don’t have much experience with, as we don’t have powerlines at all at our home.

Our home had four 80-watt solar panels, four deep-cycle “L16” batteries, and an aging inverter. When we moved into our solar-powered home on Christmas Day, it was snowing, which meant there wasn’t much sun. We knew that in order to live this lifestyle, we would have to learn to conserve energy – a lot of it. The first things we did were to install compact fluorescent lightbulbs in all rooms, and to put all our electronic equipment on power strips. I’ve been telling people for years to put all computer & entertainment equipment on power strips to save energy! I didn’t realize until moving into a home where I produce all my own power just how important that advice was. We kept gadgets with digital clocks unplugged except when we needed them. “Are you done with the lights in the that room?” was the most often asked question in our house.

We had to run the backup generator a lot those first few months. Gradually we realized that even when it was sunny, our battery bank was not getting a full charge. We were “testing” the system to find out just what we could do with it. It turned out that making coffee, being on the computer, running a load of laundry, and having a couple of lamps on, all at the same time, just didn’t work. We felt like we were really spoiled when we could do all that! We lost power due to overloading the system countless times.

That’s when we realized the batteries were very old and not functioning to capacity. Out came the Visa card, and in went eight new deep-cycle (golf-cart type, which are very popular due to their relative low cost) batteries. About the same time, we also purchased two new 130-watt solar panels, which would allow us to take better advantage of the sun’s energy.

Several months late, I was browsing on Craig’s List and found a fellow who was connecting his house to the grid and decided to get rid of his solar equipment. It turned out that his solar panels were the same as the ones we had bought, and the price was right. So up went three more panels.

We had been in the house almost a year when the inverter blew out over Thanksgiving. Four days without any electricity! We only had oil lamps and candles for light, and no other “luxuries.” For the most part, we went to bed when it got dark, and got up only after the sun came up. We started to think about what it was like in the “old days” before electricity was wide-spread. As soon as the local solar supply store opened up after the long holiday weekend, out came Visa card and in went a new inverter.

Currently, our home is powered by five 130-watt solar panels, 8 deep-cycle batteries, and a 2000 watt inverter. Our system is still a little small for what we do with it (we have an AC electric refrigerator – most off-gridders go for a propane or DC fridge). We have to run the backup generator to vacuum or run the clothes dryer, but we hope to add a small wind turbine to our system within a year to boost the system.

We also have a “mini-system” set up for pumping water. Two of the original solar panels, one of the original batteries, and a small inverter are dedicated to the water pump. Did I mention we haul our own water? There are a lot of stories associated with that too, so next time I’ll write about water challenges.

Jo Starr
Eco~Consultant
Green Starr Makeovers
www.greenirene.com/1301
GreenStarr.Flagstaff@greenirene.com

Next Page »