Summertime is going to be here shortly and 90 degree weather will be the norm rather than an exception.
Now is a great time to get a local Vancouver, Wa air conditioning company to come out and do an inspection of your home.
Every major heating and AC business in the in the area has some sort of inspection home inspection program that is very inexpensive and takes less than an hour to do.
Many people do not realize it but there are many “energy hogs” in your typical American household. It could be from one or several of your appliances or it could be coming from somewhere outside.
Many residential air conditioning units could appear to be working fine while in reality they are working at 60% potential efficiency. As these units age they need to be checked and tested to make sure all of their components are in good order. Many times its something as small as changing the air filter out of it but other times it could be major like the actual motor going bad.
You would be surprised by what some of these technicians can find. They are specially trained to to spot items that could be causing your home to use more energy than it really needs and will give you a full write up when they are done.
How much does an air conditioning (cooling system) inspection cost.
Each company sets their own rates but the average cost is not high. They want to inspect your home, find problems, and the hope is that you will use THEM to fix it.
All the technicians recommendations will be in his final report for you to take a look at and see what you can and cannot afford.
Wait! Need an Portland air conditioning company to come out and do this work for you? Please call Advantage Heating and Cooling.
Also, click here if you wish to learn ways on the subject of decreasing air conditioning bills during the summer.
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The most valuable kilowatt hour is the one you never use. That’s a great way to think about the pay-off of making your office more energy efficient. Remember that every dollar you save on your utility bill drops straight to your bottom line. The money you save can be kept as profit, shared with employees, or reinvested in your business to make it even more competitive and appealing to your customers.
Lighting, space heating and office equipment account for more than 70 percent of all energy used in a typical office setting, according to survey information released by the Energy Information Administration. As energy prices steadily increase year after year, with no end to these increasing costs in sight, the savings you realize by reducing your energy consumption now will only become more valuable in the future.
Here are 10 quick tips to reduce the energy consumed by the lighting, heating system and office equipment in your office, which are the top three categories that consume the bulk of energy in a typical office environment:
1. Switch to compact fluorescent lighting when possible. Compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs use about 75 percent less energy and last about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb that gives the same amount of visible light. In the United States, a compact fluorescent light bulb costs more initially but can save about $30 USD over its lifetime and pays for itself in about 6 months.
2. Turn off the lights if no one is in the room for more than 5 minutes. Why light a room at all if no one is there to use it? It’s a good idea to install automatic dimming switches or motion sensor switches in all the rooms of your office or shop.
3. Install reflectors in your lighting fixtures. Get the most out of the lighting equipment you already have by installing reflectors in your lighting fixtures. You can reduce your lighting needs up to 50 percent by making this simple modification to your existing system.
4. Control the temperature of your office. In the winter, set your thermostat to 68 degrees during the day and 55 degrees at night, and 75 degrees in the summer, with a relative humidity of 55 percent or less. Be sure to install programmable thermostats in each heating and cooling zone. Cover and lock all thermostats to prevent tampering. The hassle of occasional grousing by employees who may want to make adjustments will be more than offset by lower utility bills and the good you are doing for the planet in the long run.
5. Maintain good air flow. Don’t make your heating and cooling system work any harder than it must to keep everyone comfortable. Walk around your facility and unblock all heating and cooling registers. Have your maintenance crew check for and repair any leaky ductwork. At the beginning and end of every season, make sure condenser coils are clean.
6. Put your office computers and copy machines in sleep mode or shut them off after hours. By properly adjusting the power management settings built into computers and monitors, you can save approximately $60 in electricity costs per machine each year, according to the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. A free, downloadable energy-monitoring application from Verdiem called Edison allows you to control the energy used by your PC and shows you the results by calculating your estimated savings based on the settings you choose.
7. Turn off peripherals such as printers, scanners and speakers when not in use. Automatically turn off your accessories when you shut down your computer by using smart power strips that detect when the main switched equipment, like your PC, is shut down. You can also plug all your electronics into one power strip and turn the strip off when you are finished using your computer. For added convenience, some power strips work with a remote control.
8. Don’t use a screensaver. Screen savers, originally developed to prevent etching of patterns on older monochrome monitors, are not necessary on modern monitors, but they are still used for aesthetics and entertainment. They actually consume more energy than allowing the monitor to dim or go into sleep mode when it’s not in use. Bottom line, don’t use them at all, or at least set the screen saver “wait time” to less than the period of time after which the monitor enters sleep mode.
9. Use a laptop instead of a desktop computer. A desktop computer typically consumes twice the power that a laptop uses. That’s because energy consumption is a critical factor in the design of a laptop computer, since extended battery life is key to keeping the laptop user happy. As a result, laptops use more energy efficient CPUs, hard disks, displays and other components. So buy a machine that sips watts when it’s plugged in, instead of one that guzzles power from the wall socket.
10. Buy Energy Star qualified products for your office. Energy Star, a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, provides a label on thousands of models of products for the office and home that have met Energy Star energy efficiency criteria. These products deliver the same or better performance as comparable models while using less energy and saving money. A new Energy Star compliant PC or laptop, for example, uses 15 to 25 percent less energy on average than a standard new computer.
So where to begin in your quest to save dollars by reducing energy consumption in your office? It’s always a good idea to start with an inventory of what you are spending now on energy. Audit current practices then put a plan in place to improve your operations in a systematic fashion. Measure the results of your efforts so you can track progress along the way in order to make any necessary adjustments to you plan. You’ll likely be surprised at how quickly your savings start to grow as you tighten up the use of energy throughout your organization.
Ray Berardinelli is a principal and founder of Kalpa Consulting in Portland, Oregon, which provides sustainable solutions that deliver financial results to businesses, not-for-profit organizations and municipalities nationwide. Visit http://kalpaconsulting.com/ for more resources and information about how to bring sustainability to your workplace.
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For a person who is interested in building an energy efficient home in these times of rising costs, including energy costs, the amount of information is daunting if not downright scary. We’ll try to pare the information down to something manageable by looking at some of the ways we can build and keep our energy demands under control. Our solar energy facts give us a number of options:
-Conventional structure-stick and wood
-Earth bermed-using earth for a moderator
-Rammed earth
-Rammed earth blocks
-Adobe
-Straw
-Earthbag
-Cordwood construction
An energy efficient conventional house can cost anywhere from around sixty thousand to more than two hundred thousand dollars, depending on how much energy you, yourself are willing to invest. One thing to bear in mind-how much skill do you have for this kind of project? To build a successful energy saving house of this sort would require super insulation, photovoltaic or wind power, and solar hot water, as well as some form of space heating.
A well designed earth bermed structure has only minimal needs for space heating. I’ve seen many options for this including wood stove, baseboard heating, and European tile stoves. Combined with solar hot water and either photovoltaic or wind energy, this is an excellent way to go, and is adaptable to any climate. I’ve seen costs for this type of construction from the seventy thousands to over two hundred thousand.
Rammed earth is a viable concept probably only if you are prepared to do a tremendous amount of physical labor, or you have laborers available. This method involves using forms between which dirt is compacted layer after layer until reaching the desired height. If you are really interested in this process, I recommend two books, Comfort in Any Climate, by Michael Reynolds-Solar Survival Press; and The Rammed Earth House, by David Easton-Real Goods Press.
One of my favorite choices is rammed earth blocks. This concept was developed several decades ago in Columbia with the invention of the cinva block ram. This is a mechanical device with a long handle with which one can compress soil to about half its former volume. With the right mixture of soil, water, and about 3% Portland cement, we can make earthen blocks that are very tough, strong, and cheap-really excellent building materials. These blocks are a product that can be pretty much used anywhere in the world.
Adobe is another of our prime choices, according to our solar energy facts. Some people might think adobe construction might be limited to our southwest, but for a slightly higher cost adobe bricks can be stabilised using either 3 to 6% asphalt emulsion or 5 to 10% Portland cement. There is a strong customer demand for adobe. In New Mexico half of all new homes selling for more than $300,000. incorporate some form of earthen construction. Most are adobe, but some of them are using new earthen technology.
In the last few years, building with straw bales has become very popular as a means of keeping costs down and providing a great deal of insulation. There are many good designs to choose from and this is another method of construction that is usable anywhere in the country, as long as one can locate the straw at a good price. This method of construction either uses the structural integrity of the stacked bales, themselves, or a post and beam construction with the bales just used as walls and insulation. Either scheme requires that the bales be stuccoed inside and out. This type of housing can be very cost effective with the proper design.
One method of construction that has gained a certain popularity in recent years is called earthbag construction. Basically it consists of polyester bags, filled with soil and stacked according to the design. The bags are nearly always stacked in circular patterns so as to achieve a certain rigidity. Barbed wire is laid between the courses to give strength to the structure. Plaster is applied to the outside to provide waterproofing. Solar energy facts assure us that this is a legitimate form of construction and seriously to be considered.
These are some of the main options we have when considering building with energy efficiency in mind. Before any kind of choice is made, the prospective builder needs to consider climate and land considerations. Size is another thing to think about because the smaller a structure is, the less energy it will require. The proper preparation for a venture of this sort will certainly make the outcome more satisfying; so, the more research, the better.
Harry Faris has been involved in alternative energy for the past three decades. He generated his own electricity for some twenty years using solar and diesel. “12 volt is great!” solar energy, solar hot water http://www.solaradvocate.blogspot.com.
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