Spring into Energy Savings

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.
- Hal Borland

In my part of the country, winter seems to hang on an interminably long time. So I always look forward to the first signs of spring with unbridled glee. At the first glimpse of a cherry blossom, the winter boots are banished to the back of the closet and the sandals are put to work in earnest.

But while spring may give the perfect excuse to hang up the winter coat, the advent of spring does not mean that we can pack away thoughts of energy efficiency with our wool sweaters. Last winter, Jennifer Carter gave us a number of great energy efficiency tips for winter. Now that spring's milder temperatures are upon us and it's time to consider what energy efficiency means in warmer weather, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's new Stay Cool, Save Money website is a great resource for efficiency tips. The site has a wealth of no-cost and low-cost advice that can help you lighten your energy load without lightening your wallet. And, for those ready to make a more long-term investment in energy savings, the site has resources to help you make well-informed decisions to get the most bang for your energy buck.

The following tips provide a taste of the energy saving-strategies that the Web site has to offer:

• As the days become longer, consider opening the curtains in your home to let in more natural light for indoor illumination. This is an especially useful tip if you haven't yet had the chance to make the switch from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent lighting. Since nearly 90% of the electricity incandescent bulbs consume is turned into heat, leaving your lights off during the day can mean less work for your cooling system.
• Anyone who's done a lot of cooking on a hot summer day knows how much your oven or stovetop can heat up your kitchen. As the weather improves, you might consider doing more cooking on your outdoor grill or in smaller kitchen appliances like your microwave or crock pot. Not only will this result in less overall energy usage while you cook, it will also mean less heating in your kitchen and thus less work for your air conditioner to do.
• A warm spring breeze can help reduce your overall energy usage: you can throw open your windows to take advantage of natural cooling rather than using your air conditioner or you can use that breeze to dry clothes in the sunshine rather than in your dryer.

Remember, there's no need to wait until summer's heat is upon us to think about energy efficiency. Now's the time to stay cool, save money, and spring into energy savings!

Amy Foster Parish is on staff with the Washington State University Extension Energy Program and answers inquiries through the EERE Information Center.

Comments

[ladies bike]

Cycling into school or work is a great way to save energy, and is good for you too.

[Thomas P. McGrane]

Title: Simple energy resources overlooked

I posted the following on the new york times "Green Inc" webpage to share with all those interested in saving energy.
Today, April 15th, 2009, I can write that my 6000 watts of reflected solar is working great in warming and illuminating the large room in the back of the house.
Now, the attic is getting hot on sunny days so it is a good time to start designing and implementing the attic heat storage idea. This will additionally, help cool the house in the summer. Read on!

Isnt it interesting that almost everyone considered a HOT attic a bad thing.
Two years ago, I measured the temperature in my attic on a summer day. It was 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I consider the entire roof of a typical dwelling to be a large solar collector that heats the attic with some of the absorbed solar energy. Some is lost above the roof but a hot attic has been overlooked as a large energy source.
A simple way to tap that resource is to mount Finned copper tubing, commonly found in baseboard heat radiators, up in the peak of the attic where the highest temperature would exist. These heat exchanger tubes would absorb the heat to warm a flowing liquid to be transfered down to the house to heat domestic water or even more beneficially, to be stored geothermally under the house for extra heat in the cold months. Yesterday, April 5th, I observed a peak temperature of 86 degrees in the attic on a sunny day, while the outside temperature was in the mid 50's F. This early high temperature indicates that geothermal storage could occur for 6 or 7 months here in the northern latitudes and even more in the south. A geothermal heat exchanger could be placed below the structure at a depth determined by the soil type and the rate at which the stored heat would rise up to warm the house. Optionally, a heat pump system could be used but the prospect of only needing a water pump between the attic plumbing and the well is very attractive in terms of efficiency and cost. A natural convection flow of hot and cooled air would occur in the attic. Hot air would rise directly underneath the roof up to the peak of the attic where it would heat the fluid in the tube. The cooled air, having lost some of its heat would sink down and start a flow to be reheated again by the roof. The off the shelf parts could be assembled by a tradesman or plumber.
This is a significant source of solar energy that could be tapped in most homes.

My other current project involves the use of reflective surfaces to illuminate the shady part of structures such as the North side of a building. Reflecting solar energy onto the dark side of the house warms the exterior siding, thus slowing the loss of internal heat through the wall to outdoors. If the light energy enters through a window, it will be absorbed by internal surfaces and be converted to heat to help warm the interior. This will also greatly illuminate a normally darker room reducing the need for electrical lighting energy. I tried a 26 square foot reflector on the north side of the house which, I estimate, reflected about 2000 watts of solar energy. The room was very bright and the temperature rose 2 degrees F. in about an hour and a half. Last night, I purchased two 4x8 foot sheathing foam boards with a reflective aluminized plastic film laminated to the surface. They are placed behind the north side of the house and should provide about 6000 watts of solar energy on a sunny day. In principal, the more solar energy on the exterior of the house, the less regular fuel is needed to heat the structure. Many different materials such as polished aluminum sheets could be used as reflectors. They could be mounted temporarily during the cold months and disassembled and stored in spring. They should be mounted as close to the exterior wall as practical to assure the most illumination for varying sun angles along the horizon. Of course, it would be a fun project for the homeowner to periodically adjust the reflector angles through the winter.

I am publishing these ideas so they cannot be patented, assuring competitive mass production at the lowest possible cost to consumers. Just as you were shocked by escalating energy prices over the last few years, so was I. This is my way of thanking everyone for supporting me.
I have concluded that patents stifle progress and raise the price of goods due to a lack of competition. I hope new ventures arise to build these products with a resulting savings of energy.

I have been contributing to an energy department weblog since last september with some other energy saving experiences and ideas. Follow the link for more.

http://eere.typepad.com/energysavers/2008/09/blogging-commen.html

Four or Five years ago, when I buckled down with the rise in oil prices, I read somewhere that the typical house has enough air leaks to equal one open window all winter. I spent about 200 dollars on weatherstripping, door sweeps, and window sealing kits and sealed the living area of the house. I was careful to seal only the living spaces seperate from the basement where the oil furnace is located. That, of course, reguires some fresh air for combustion. I have a carbon monoxide alarm and occasionally on a nice day, I open up to change the air. My furnace filters before the work were dirty, but after sealing the living area, the filters come out looking new. Less air infiltration also means cleaner indoor air in this house. As a result of this air sealing alone, I have saved about 800 gallons of heating oil in the last 4 winters. This was a very cost effective savings of 30 percent of our oil consumption.

The internet was a nearly infinite source of energy conserving information.

I hope everyone likes and utilizes the attic heat and reflectors ideas. Save that energy!

Thomas P. McGrane

[Thomas P. McGrane]

Please look back at the following page for more energy ideas to do this spring and summer to save gobs of energy next winter.

http://eere.typepad.com/energysavers/2008/09/blogging-commen.html

TPM

[Merry]

Nice post!!!

[Thomas P. McGrane]

Thanks Merry, hope you save money.

Update on the reflectors use on the north side of the house.
I have been observing the effects of the foam board reflectors on the house. I am using 4, 4x4 foot reflectors to shine sunlight on the north side of the house. This is a 1600 square foot house on eastern Long Island. The back room is about 13 by 30 feet with 3 large thermopane windows. On one sunny day this week, the room was brilliant and warmed up about 9 degrees in a couple of hours. It got as warm as 74 degrees. I limit the normal heating in that room. The outdoor temperature was about 55 degrees. The heat in the house last ran at 9 am and didnt come back on until 11 pm that night. This would normally only occur when the outdoor temperature was above 60 degrees. Bottom line is that the 64 square feet of reflectors projected about 6000 watts of solar energy that significantly heated the house and greatly illuminated the north room and the adjoining kitchen in the center of the house which was normally dark.
As a reflector, I purchased 3 4x8 foot sheathing foam boards with a laminated aluminized plastic film on one side of a half inch thick sheet of styrofoam. They are normally used as insulation under new siding on houses. Each sheet was only 10 dollars at Home Depot. They make very good, cheap and rigid reflectors.
Since they are so cost effective, you could also put sheets down flat in front of the South facing wall to reflect additional sunlight on the structure in the cold months.TPM

[Arlin Crane]

Many people have contacted me asking for more information. Here are resources and facts on the state of green energy in the USA.

U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency
and Renewable Energy
Through this site, you can access literally
hundreds of pages containing information
and resources on renewable energy
technologies.
www.eere.energy.gov

Power Topics
This section of the above-mentioned site
provides information about power technologies
(including those powered by
renewable sources) that maximize the
efficient generation, transmission, and
storage of energy.
www.nrel.gov/analysis/power_databook/

National Center for Photovoltaics
(NCPV)
The NCPV site offers considerable information
and resources about solar electricity,
ranging from basic R&D, to industry
contacts, to case studies, to cost- and
performance-estimation tools.
www.nrel.gov/ncpv

DOE’s Distributed Energy and
Electric Reliability Program (DEER)
The DEER Web site provides extensive
information and resources about a rapidly
increasing array of distributed energy
technologies and applications.
www.eere.energy.gov/deer.html

“The Cost of Power Disturbances to
Industrial and Digital Economy
Companies,” pages 9–10, Consortium for
Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital
Society, Electric Power Research Institute.
This report presents the latest research on
the substantial economic impacts of power
disruptions to industrial and digital
businesses.
http://ceids.epri.com/ceids/Docs/outage_study.pdf

“Homeland Security: Safeguarding
America’s Future with Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Technologies”
This August 2002 report by the State Energy
Advisory Board (STEAB) focuses on how we
can make our energy infrastructure more
resilient and less vulnerable.
www.steab.org/docs/STEAB_Report_2002.pdf

[Sharlene]

Having green homes or what they call as energy efficient homes is being practical and environment concerned citizen. It could save you up a lot of money in terms of your electrical and energy consumptions along with saving the environment.