Project: Greenify | Guide to Going Green in Your Home, Office & Life

The Energy Tax Credit: Is it Worth it? Part 3

How it Works: Insulating & Taking the Tax Credit

Heating and air conditioning account for 50 to 70% of the energy used in the average American home. While air sealing and duct work sealing can improve performance, neither of these is going to compensate for insufficient insulation for the whole house.  Throughout most of the country, the US DOE recommends at least R30 (about 1 foot of blown cellulose or fiberglass) for attic insulation and a minimum of a R13 (a bit more than 3 inches of blown cellulose or fiberglass) in the walls.  Most new houses are built with R13 in the walls but few have R30 in the attic.  

Let's say that our sample starter home has R13 in the attic of settled blown cellulose insulation. To bring it up to at least R30, we need to add a further 17 R-value's of insulation to the attic.  The easiest way to do this is to either apply another 5 inches of blown cellulose or put down un-faced R19 fiberglass batts (about 6 inches thick).

Read this whole article at the Bounce Energy Blog

A Few Interesting Facts about the Clip-On Desk Lamp

You can find loads of great information at doityourself.com, specifically their new section on green living. I googled "conserving energy" for giggles and puppy smiles and found a link to an article on conserving energy using, you guessed it, a clip-on desk lamp.

The article mentions a few interesting points:

• Lights a space efficiently - Interestingly enough, this is not exactly a revelation, but the real reasoning behind this benefit is that you can utilize a small clip-on lamp to illuminate only the small area you need to see, versus a less efficient desk lamp that uses an incandescent bulb and lights a large swath of space you may not need, hence wasting energy.
• Most clip-on lamps apparently use LED lights.

The second bullet sent the wheels to overdrive, so I searched around a bit and found that while not every clip-on lamp could be classified as efficient or actually do use LED lights, there are several that do. In fact, those of us on a budget can find at least one LED clip lamp for under $25 at Target.

The Energy Tax Credit: Is it Worth it? Part 2

How it Works: Windows & Water

To see how the credit works, let's look at an example of a modest starter home: a single-story 3-bedroom 1750 sq. foot home built in 2008 on the Gulf Coast.

Replacing old-style single-pane aluminum framed windows with energy efficient windows with good air seals can save money.  Upgrading windows on our little starter home to triple-pane insulating low-E, argon gas wood-framed windows can save $69 per year (note: windows and skylights installed after June 1 require a U-factor and SHH Coefficient of .30 or less). Factor in the tax credit for $1600 and you can deduct $480 from your 2009 taxes.  Your total cash layout for the windows comes to $1120 (excluding installation labor).  Even though adding in the energy savings brings the return to $549, that might not seem a big return on the first year.  But the energy cost savings are immediate.  Over the windows' 30 year lifetime, this becomes an energy savings of $2070.

Heating water in your home accounts for 17% of annual energy costs.  That's $221 of Energy Star's annual cost of $1,300. Most of the water heater's time will be spent keeping the water heated for when it is eventually used.  Putting a water heater blanket around it will help some, but you are still paying for this "stand-by heat" whether you use the water or not.

In our example home, the 40 gallon electric water heater's tank is warranted for 6 years.  The average lifespan of any electric or gas home water heater tank averages about 8 to 12 years depending on local water quality.  The water heater tank will eventually degrade from deposits of calcite and corrosion and then leak; forcing us to purchase and install a new one.  So we have several options: install a comparable electric model, install an equal capacity high efficiency Energy Star heater, or install a tank-less water heating system.

Read the rest of this entry at the Bounce Energy Blog.

The Energy Tax Credit: Is it Worth it? Part One

The US Government's Energy Star Program reports that the typical American household spends approximately $1,300 per year on home energy bills. Anyone feeling the pinch of a tight economy knows they can save money from their home energy costs just by caulking and sealing drafts (air sealing), switching from incandescent lights to compact fluorescents, or even putting an insulating jacket on their water heater. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that homeowners can typically save up to 20% of heating and cooling costs (or up to 10% of total energy costs – or $130) by air sealing their homes through caulking and sealing drafts.  Furthermore, a home owner can save up to $300 from their annual heating and cooling costs by sealing leaks and insulating their duct work.

So, for less than $200 and just a few weekend hours, you can seal holes and cracks or tape over leaky duct work and potentially save up to $400 from your annual heating and cooling costs.

In fact, any energy efficiency improvements you make now immediately lower your energy bills and will pay for themselves over time.  This is especially true when you consider the major hardware components of your home.

Read the rest of this entry at the Bounce Energy Blog.

Biomass Energy: Wood and Its Friend Wood Waste

Continuing my dive into the nature of biomass energy, wood was the most common energy source in the U.S. until the mid-19th century. Of course, burning wood for cooking and heating is not exactly rocket science, but in many countries this form of biomass is still predominantly used as an energy source.

Wood waste and wood burning biomass generally consists of bark, sawdust and other wood byproducts in addition to, you guessed it, wood, but only accounts for a very small percentage of the energy generated and consumed in the U.S.  Paper plants or other similar industrial facilities do use (in some cases) wood waste to generate steam and consequently electricity.

Interestingly enough, residential and commercial buildings consume large amounts of biomass fuel in Oregon, apparently one of its primary biomass resources. Oregon's wood product industry will often burn wood chips and other forms of waste to supply heat for their processes, as will certain pulp mills use biomass resources from residual chemicals to generate steam for electricity.

DIY T-Shirts from Generation T: Transform Your Wardrobe the Green Way

Interested in do-it-yourself goodness but not sure where to start? Sure you could plug and play and see where your sock drawer takes you, or you could try a slice of Megan Nicolay's newest green DIY book, Generation T: Beyond Fashion. Brethren of the first 108 ways to transform a t-shirt, the new volume chalks up "120 New Ways to Transform a T-shirt." Pure gold from the comfort of your closet.

I can't speak for everyone else, but thanks once again to my Treehugger and their wonderfully delicious and eco TH_RSS on Twitter, this golden bundle of joy didn't pass my prying eyes. What's to find in this DIY manual of goodies?

• Cut, sew, reconstruct, patch and transform a regular Tee into a plethora of other creations
• Somewhere near 200 variations
• iPod cozie ... nuff said
• All the instructions, all the basics, all you need to DIY some crazy wardrobe items without buying more fabric.

Biomass Energy: Landfill Gas

The reality of our ever expanding landfills is that the waste and byproduct of said waste has to go somewhere. Most often the byproduct is nitrogen or other harmful greenhouse gases, with nowhere to go but up. Biomass isn't what it sounds like (to me it screams government experiment). In reality, Biomass is simply a renewable form of energy generated from various types of matter.

Take for example:

• Animals
• Plants
• landfills
• cow manure
• wood and wood waste

I'll explore other forms of biomass in blogs yet to be released, but in the case of landfill gas, there are several ways to process or capture gas and use for energy. Trash from animals and plant products, as in lawn clippings or food scraps are one example. Dairy farmers actually use digesters to collect biogas from manure. In the case of a waste-to-energy plants, methane gas is either captured and used to generate electricity, or trash is actually burned to produce steam for heating or power.

Today's Energy Efficiency and Green Tips: Stopping Leaks

• Increase the comfort of your home while reducing your bills by investing in proper insulation and weatherization products. Reduce air leaks and increase the efficiency of your home by caulking, sealing and weather-stripping all seams, cracks and openings to the outside. Check with the Insulation Contractors Association of America to make sure your home meets current insulation recommendations (http://www.insulate.org/consumerinfo.html).
• Check your ducts to see if there are any leaks and seal them with mastic tape if needed. Caulk and weather-strip doors, windows and pipe clearances. You can save as much as 10% on cooling costs relatively inexpensively by sealing these leaks.