Two former employees of Apple,  Matt Rogers and Tony Fadell, have teamed up together to use the same type of engineering design that they learned at Apple and apply it to the field of energy conservation with their new firm NEST.  The NEST Learning Thermostat has all of the features that make Apple products so appealing to the masses.  It is simple, incredibly user friendly (something not many people say about their thermostat) and the best part is that it’s software is upgradable over time.  That means that this already incredible thermostat will do even more in the future which is mind boggling to think about.

The design of the thermostat is a simple circular touch screen with no other buttons, very reminiscent of the original iPods with the single circular button controls.  To raise or lower the temperature in the house you just grab the outside of the round thermostat and turn clockwise or counter-clockwise.  Each time you make an adjustment the thermostat remembers what day of the week and time of the day that you made the change to learn what your preferences are for particular days and times.  No actual programming on your part.  No endless series of menus to flip through to simply change the temperature for Saturday morning at 8 a.m.  This is sheer brilliance.

To make it even better, the thermostat has a little green leaf that appears on the circular face to tell you when you have made a selection that will help you save money.  Nothing like a little feedback to help you make better choices.  This amazing little device is also equipped with an occupancy sensor which knows when you are coming and going so it can make adjustments to the temperature for you.  It even learns at what time you typically go to bed and makes adjustments for that as well.

Have guests coming in from out of town in the middle of the day and need to warm things up at your house for them?  No problem.  Just access your NEST thermostat from your cell phone and change the temperature remotely.  You have a nice cozy house to greet your guests and you didn’t have to run home to do it.

I love things that help me save money.  I especially like devices that save me money without even having to think about it.  Check out the video for yourself at www.nest.com.  I know you will be impressed, I sure was.  These things can be preordered now for $250 and Best Buy will begin shipping them next month.  So, you think there will be people lining up at midnight to get new thermostats like they do for Apple cell phones?  I think I might just have to do that.

If DIY projects are not your thing, there are easier ways of harvesting rainwater.  One of the best looking rain barrels I have ever seen is the Rain Hog at www.rainwaterhog.com.  They are rectangular containers that mount against your house near your downspout.  You can mount only one or several together with each one having a 50 gallon capacity.  They originally were olive green in color but they have more recently started selling them in several different colors.  They are flat and mount close to the house and are the least barrel like.

Whichever type of barrel you choose,  you will be doing wonders for your water bill by watering with rainwater instead of tap water.  And remember, don’t forget to extend those downspouts!

What exactly is net zero anyway?  New homes are tested, inspected and rated by a qualified HERS rater and given a score.  A typical code built house will receive a score of around 100.  A home built to the old Energy Star 2.0 standard would have received an 85 and the new Energy Star 3.0 standard would have to achieve around a 75 or better.  A net zero house actually produces as much energy as it consumes, allowing it to achieve the coveted rating of 0.  That’s right, a zero.  Sometimes smaller is better.

And it’s not just the national builders like KB Homes, Pulte and Ryland Homes all agreeing to pursue green certifications like Energy Star and a HERS net zero for their homes, local builders are also taking the green challenge as well.  Hunter Contracting of Matthews is working on an Energy Star3.0 certified house.  Following the national trend, Hunter isn’t satisfied with just achieving Energy Star certification.  He is also seeking  EarthCraft certification on top of that.  He has seen the move towards green and is leading the charge for our area as one of the first home builders to go after the Energy Star 3.0 certification.

Not far behind him are the Habitat for Humanity local groups.  Lancaster/Northumberland is at the very beginning stages of their first Energy Star 3.0 house.  They are committed to achieving both Energy Star 2.0 and EarthCraft certification for everything they build.  They see building energy efficient homes a must when building for lower income families.  The families that occupy their homes may have to worry about many things, but high energy bills are no worry no matter what the weather.

So why the trend towards lean and certified Green?  Because people are paying more attention to where their money goes today.  Attention to detail during construction leads to monthly savings throughout the life of the home.  When a slight increase in your monthly mortgage of around $50 month for the extra energy efficient changes in your home construction are cancelled out be the more than $75 per month savings in your utility bills, the reasons become plain.      And the move to certification is necessary because if you are going to pay a little more for a house that is green and energy efficient, then you had better be able to put a rating on it so you know that you are getting what you are paying for.

With even Martha Stewart climbing on board the lean and green bandwagon, I guess that certifying your new home construction as green has officially become “A very good thing.”

What makes the installation so unique is how the Redskins management along with the solar installation firm of NRG creatively installed the panels.  The majority of the opaque panels have been installed on platforms above the visitors parking area.  This way the panels are generating electricity while also providing shaded parking for visitors of the field.  NRG also installed several electrical vehicle charging stations in the front of the parking lot to give visitors coming to the field in plug in electric vehicles VIP parking places.

There are also translucent panels installed over the entrance gate that generate electricity while providing natural lighting to the entrance area cutting down on the need for additional lighting.  The third type of solar panels installed are the thin filmed flexible panels that are creatively bent into a 30 foot tall sculpture of a quarterback throwing a football that is just outside the entrance to FedEx Field.

The combination of the three different types of solar panels makes it possible for the field to provide 100% of the facilities daily weekday needs.  On the weekends when the facility is at capacity, the panels generate roughly 20% of the power needs for the building.

This latest renovation makes the Redskins the proud occupiers of the greenest stadium in the entire NFL.  I guess it’s time to try to score some tickets to see the Redskins play at home.  But if you want VIP parking, you had better go shopping for a plug electric vehicle first.  Check out pictures and a video of the installation online at http://www.redskins.com/news-and-events/article-1/NRG-Redskins-Unveil-Largest-Solar-Installation-At-Pro-Football-Stadium/4350cfac-ee35-46f4-bd2f-022f17f0d4ba

That creature is the Ductopolis.  The ductopolis is known to exist inside homes all over the United States and can actually be quite costly for the poor homeowner with whom this creature has chosen to reside.  I have included a picture with this article so you can quietly head up to your attic and see if you might be one of those unlucky few.

A ductopolis consists of a lot of flexible round supply duct wrapped in shiny insulation.  The one in my picture is a four legged creature, but the actual number of legs may vary depending on the number of rooms in your house.  The large duct feeds down to a box which has, in this case, four smaller round ducts leaving it.  The large flow of air coming down the main supply line terminating in the box causes turbulence and causes uneven flow to the many legs of the ductopolis.  This means that some rooms get a lot of flow while others get very little.  In fact, that is one of the reasons we were doing this audit in the first place, some of the upstairs rooms were hot while the others were fine.  When this happens, you tend to turn the thermostat down to make the HVAC system run longer to compensate for the poor duct design.  This, of course, costs you money.

If you are having a new system put in your existing house here are the top five things to watch out for:   1. Insist on a rigid duct supply line that gets smaller every time a supply line comes off of it.  2.  Insist that supply line connections not be bunched up together or across from each other.  3. There should be no supply line connections in the last 6 or 8 inches of your main supply line.  4.  Ask that your system be designed before it is installed and ask to see the complete calculations before you sign on the dotted line.  5.  Make sure to tell your contractor you are having the ducts tested for air tightness when he is done and you want the system as tight as possible.  These steps will help you get a system that will operate at optimum performance, saving you money in the long run.

Energy Auditors love testing ductwork, doing our part to rid the world of ductopolii.  These monsters are becoming endangered species though, as more people have their new construction certified through Energy Star, Earthcraft or LEED, all of which do not permit ductopolii of any kind.  So help us in our effort to push for the extinction of ductopolii everywhere.  Making the world a better place, one house at a time.

There are lots of ways to save energy.  One way to save is to reduce the amount of water you use.  Sure, you could take shorter showers or turn the water off when you are brushing your teeth, but that all takes thought and changing our habits and we all know how likely that is.  A much simpler way to save water without even thinking is to install aerators on all of your faucets and low flow shower heads in your showers.  The Environmental Protection Agency says “If one out of every 100 American homes retrofitted with water-efficient fixtures, we could save about 100 million kWh of electricity per year – avoiding 80,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.”  That’s a lot of water and all without even thinking or changing any of my habits.

Now, I have a test for you.  Get a 2 qt saucepan out of your kitchen and head to the shower.  Yes, the shower.  Place the saucepan on the floor of the shower right in the center of the shower discharge and turn it on.  If it takes less than 12 seconds to fill the pan, you need a low flow shower head with an aerator.  It doesn’t take away from your shower experience, it just helps you save money.  Changing out your shower head  could help you use as much as 50% less water!  How does that save you money if you pump it out of the ground instead of paying for your water?  I have teenagers.  Have you seen how long they can stay in a hot shower?  Nuff said?

Next, you need to check out your kitchen faucet.  You want an aerator to lower the flow rate of this fixture as well.  The thing to keep in mind in the kitchen is that you routinely are filling pots and things for cooking so you don’t want to lower the flow as much as you would in the bathroom where you are only washing your hands and brushing your teeth.

All faucet aerators have WaterSense ratings on them to insure that you are getting an aerator that has a flow rating that falls under the EPA recommendations.  For your kitchen think about purchasing one that is between 2.0 – 2.5 gallons per minute or gpm.  For your bathroom you can go as low at 1.5 gpm and never even notice the difference.  If you have no aerator at all now, you will probably be reducing your flow by as much as half.

You can find aerators and shower heads at any hardware store and the prices will vary depending on the manufacturer, just remember to look for the WaterSense label when you buy!

Insulation blown off of the bathroom ceiling due to high winds through eave venting.

Thank goodness, our weather has broken a little lately.  This wonderful, not hot, not cold, somewhere in the perfect middle temperature.  This is the perfect time to head into your attic.  Any other time of the year and it would be unbearable.  Right now, before the temperatures climb into the upper 90’s again outside and into the 140’s in your attic, Get into your attic and let’s assess the situation.  Do you even have insulation in your attic?  I see a lot of attics and you would be surprised how many attics have no insulation or at least none in a portion of their attic.  Do you have blown in insulation?  Take a 12” ruler with you and push it down into the insulation beside a ceiling joist.  How many inches do you have?  You need at least 13” to just meet code and we all know that code is just the bare minimum.  Chances are you have a lot less because insulation compresses over time and loses some of it’s ability to protect you from the extreme temperatures in your attic.  Do you have batt type insulation?  Is it everywhere?  Are there portions missing or pushed out of the way?

The sad fact is that most houses that we inspect are missing insulation or the insulation is compromised in some way.  If you don’t know enough about insulation to know if what you have is enough or if it is functioning the way it should, call an energy auditor to come and make a quick evaluation.  A little professional advice to help you evaluate and decide if you need more insulation may help keep you from making some costly mistakes.   The most important decision when adding insulation to your attic is to purchase the right type.  Don’t know what kind of insulation would work best in your attic?  Get an Energy Audit.  Have the whole house and the insulation evaluated and ask for a written report.  The report should explain in detail what needs to be addressed and how to address it.

So take advantage of the next few days and head to your attic and take a look.  Find something that concerns you, send me a picture, I’d love to help you out. E.guinn@DanGuinnHomes.com

In the past couple of weeks we were called out to not one but two different houses to look at the same issue, extremely damp crawl spaces.  Why should you care if your crawl space is damp you ask?  Because lots of really scary stuff can live in your crawl space if the relative humidity level is over 60%.  Not to mention that moisture causes damage that could cost you a small fortune if not addressed.  And I haven’t even mentioned termites yet, ugh!

The first house suspected they were having issues when their amazingly beautiful hardwood floors began to cup.  Cupping is when the wood begins to curl up on the sides due to excessive moisture on the bottom of the flooring boards, not a good thing.  What makes this even worse is to think that there was enough moisture in their crawl to pass through the plywood subfloor and then affect the hardwood that was nailed on top of that.  That’s a lot of moisture.  The owners had done all the right things to try to address the issue like closing off the crawl space vents using foam board, but the water was coming up through the ground and a less than perfect moisture barrier.

The homeowner had placed the outside unit to his weather gauge in the crawl space and had instantaneous readings of both temperature and humidity levels and knew he had a problem but could not figure out how to address it.  The solution was a work of art.  I know you probably don’t think things like crawl spaces can be beautiful, but the engineer in me loves it when something functions perfectly and at the same time looks pretty darn good.  That is what solved these homeowners perplexing problem.  We plugged a few more holes to the outside and then turned their crawl space into a completely sealed conditioned crawl space with an industrial strength poly on the ground taped and sealed to the insulation on the walls.  Voila!  A work of art.

The second crawl space that I went into still had open vents to the outside and was extremely wet.  On the very hot and humid day that I was under there, it was so wet it was actually raining under there.  Vented crawl spaces seemed like a great idea when the idea was conceived and improvement over the old pier foundations of the past.  However, this was before new construction ideas were actually tested in reputable labs like the National Labs, to find out if the great idea actually worked.

For areas like ours where the humidity levels are so high, vented crawl spaces are a recipe for disaster.  In the summertime, very warm and moist air on the outside of your house is attracted through the open vents in your crawl space because we know that hot goes to cold.  As that very warm air enters your crawl space it is immediately cooled because the temperatures under your house are much cooler than they were outside.  As air cools it cannot hold as much moisture as it could when it was warmer.  Just like warm tea will dissolve more sugar into it than cold tea, warm air holds more moisture than cool air.  Since the cooling air needs to get rid of some moisture quickly it seeks out cool surfaces to deposit the moisture on.  Lucky for the cooling air, your cool floor joists and ductwork are ready and available to receive all the moisture that the air needs to dump.  Not a good thing for you or your house.

The only way to stop this process is to keep the moisture out.  At the very least, you need to keep your vents to your crawl space closed in the heat of summer (and winter as well, but that’s another article).  An even better solution is to cut foam board the exact size of the vent and press it into place to block all air from penetrating.  The best solution is to completely seal your crawlspace and do away with the problem completely.  Because moist crawl spaces cause the humidity in your house to rise which makes you uncomfortable and makes your HVAC work harder costing you more money.

So run outside, shut your vents and then like our smart homeowner, go buy a remote sensing weather station and stick the outside portion under your house.  Put the inside unit somewhere where you will see it every day.  Then watch…. and learn, that to shut is the only answer!

The best type of dryer vent pipe is the hard metal pipe.  The smooth interior surface makes this kind of pipe a cinch to clean out.  The lint will simply wipe away and fall out.  The flexible type of dryer piping is not so easy to clean.  If this is what you have, and most people do, you will have to wipe it several times and keep checking to see if you got it all.  Keep at it, dryer lint is a tremendous fire hazard, and is especially a problem in the flexible type of piping since is much more flammable.  You may even find some little critters in your vent when you reach in from the outside, they need to relocate as well.

Check yours frequently, we check them when we do audits and it’s rare that we find one that isn’t at least partially clogged up.  Cleaning your dryer vent helps to improve the efficiency of the unit, that is, when you turn it back on right?  I would love to see pictures of what you found!  Post them here or on our Facebook page at Dan Guinn Homes.

A lot of manufacturers make a lot of claims about the energy efficiency of their products, some even go so far as to offer an energy saving guarantee for their amazing new product.  So how do you know if the product will really perform according to their claims?

I ran into a couple of salesmen this past weekend.  They had their tables set up at an event both selling the exact same product for different installation firms.  They had a shiny product to install in your attic that one of them was guaranteeing would lower your energy bills by 49% while the other one was claiming a 25% reduction.  That right there should clue you in that something was terribly wrong.

My husband and I started questioning the first salesman, not telling him who we were or what we do for a living.  He was claiming that this less than a quarter of an inch of fiberglass insulation sandwiched between some shiny reflective paper had an R-value of R-13.  Knowing how R-values are calculated, that made me smile.  We then asked if the product had been tested at one of the national laboratories to receive that R-value and if it did could we see a copy of the report.  He said that was a good question.

We continued to press him and asked several more questions about the verification of his claims.  He thought those were good questions as well.  I asked who was doing the verification and what kind of license those verifiers were working under.  Yet another good question.  Apparently we had a lot of good questions.  Unfortunately, he didn’t have any answers.

The second guy was only a little better.   He made claims about the products ability to prevent heat radiation from penetrating it that clearly showed he did not understand anything about how heat moves through materials.  He did thank us for carefully explaining how radiant barriers work which was not at all what his boss had told him.

There are lots of building materials out there with some amazing claims, not all of them are true.  If their claims were true, they would readily be sharing those reports from the national laboratories that back up their claims with good solid building science.  We have seen many products over the years that make amazing claims about energy savings and R-values.  I remember a client who came to us excited about a structural wall material claiming it had an R-value of 50.  Sadly after pressing for the reports, we found that it only had an R-value of R-22.  They said that it may have only received an R-value of 22 in the testing, but it really functioned like an R-50.  So how do you as the consumer verify all these claims and make wise choices?

As I see it, you have a couple options.  An educated consumer is always the best option.  There is lots of building science information out there available for consumption for free.  If there is a topic you are interested in, email me e.guinn@DanGuinnHomes.com and I will forward to you multiple sources for you to begin your research.  The other option is to hire someone who is licensed and professionally trained to apply building science and knows how things like how the sun’s radiation heats up your attic.  Looking forward to your questions!  I live for research.