Tag Archives: Energy Efficiency

Duct Testing – FAQ’s

duct-testing-new-constructionIn layman’s terms, what is a duct test? A duct test is simply hooking up a specialized fan & checking to see how “leaky” your duct’s are. How does one perform a duct test / what should I expect to see? Using a calibrated fan & connector as shown above, we hook the fan up
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Posted in Infrared & Energy Auditing | Also tagged , , | 1 Comment

Monitoring your Electricity Usage with MyUsage and Smart Meters

myusage-summaryWhile catching up on my reading I came across an interesting piece in the Alabama Living magazine & that was that Cullman Electric Cooperative was now allowing one to view their daily electricity usage online. They have joined up with MyUsage.com that provides this service for 41 different utilities, located in 13 different states (3
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Posted in General Articles | Also tagged | 5 Comments

Snow is truly one of the best diagnostic indicators out there…

older-house-no-updatesOh the weather outside is so frightful… While the weather might have made a mess of things, one of the good things it does is allow one to quickly look at their house to spot some hidden issues. As you may recall from science class, the second law of thermodynamics, states that heat moves to
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Posted in Infrared & Energy Auditing | Tagged | 12 Comments

Solar – are we putting the cart before the horse?

horseAhhh Solar Power – who can resist the lure of free energy for the taking which happens to also be the golden child of the Clean Tech industry, the government, and numerous other groups? I have been meaning to do an article about this issue for a while, especially after attending the Pickens Plan presentation
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Posted in Green Building / Sustainable Common Sense Building & Remodeling | Also tagged , | 5 Comments

October is National Energy Awareness Month & a Free Monitoring Tool

energy_awarness_month_2010Welcome to the 23rd National Energy Awareness Month, where they choose “Powering America – We’re on target” for the slogan. Seriously – their message is that we are on target, as in we are doing fine, there are no issues, so please keep doing what you are doing? I know this is an election year,
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Posted in General Articles | Also tagged | 16 Comments

Building Green Homes: Looking back & Lessons Learned

Final_MILCI guess I can credit some of my desire to learn about and utilize energy efficient designs, green buildings, & solar power with the area I grew up in. I can recall some of our schools field trips where we would go see new houses being built with photovoltaic panels, and eating food cooked on
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Posted in Green Building / Sustainable Common Sense Building & Remodeling | Also tagged , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Energy Efficiency vs. Conservation – what is the real issue?

bring-it-onI have to admit, I was originally confused by some of the attitudes or opinions given about those in the Energy Efficiency fields. I grant you that there are quite a few individuals in the green community that are five cans shy of a six pack, but the following quotes come from some of the
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Posted in Green Building / Sustainable Common Sense Building & Remodeling | Also tagged , | 27 Comments