Electric bills always seem to be going up. Wouldn’t you like to find a way to reduce your electric bill? To reduce our electric bill, we usually think of ways to use less electricity, which is a good thing. You can reduce your electric bill by making your house more energy efficient. You can reduce the wattage in the lights in your house. I’m not a fan of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs, as I’ve written in an earlier post to this blog. But advances in LED technology are quickly changing the way we produce light and much lower electrical consumption. Although it helps, changing light bulbs is not the quickest way to reduce your electric bill. You can immediately reduce your electric bill by 20% to 40% by installing a Computerized Energy Management System.

     One company I’ve worked with here in North Carolina is Smart Energy Solutions. They have a computerized system that manages the big consumers of electricity in your house, like water heaters, air conditioners, dryers, and such. Here’s how it works. In the background, without any noticeable change in your daily living habits and convenience, this system prevents the big electricity consumers in your house from coming on simultaneously. The dryer might wait to start its heating element until the air conditioner is done with its cycle, for instance. This prevents peaks in your electrical usage from occurring and levels out your electrical consumption throughout the “on-peak” period. In most places, the “on-peak” period is usually from around 8:00am through early evening during the weekdays. (more…)

    Passive solar design, green and sustainable building are not new inventions. Who would have thought that we would be returning to the house design principles of more than a century and a half ago?

    I was in San Diego recently and visited the part of town they call Old Town San Diego. I don’t think the buildings are the actual original structures, but they are reproductions that are authentic to the mid 1800′s. One house La Casa de Estudillo, is built in the Spanish Colonial style of the early California settlers. You can see from the photographs that it is built in a “U” shape with a covered veranda wrapping the inside of the “U”. In the center is an outdoor space that is planted and has a water feature in the center. (more…)

    Green roofs are roofs that have grass of other plant materials growing right on top of them. The theory is that the roof will stay cooler and reflect less heat back into the atmosphere.

    There was an interesting article in the Raleigh News and Observer today. It was about how the local Universities are going “green” in an effort to attract students. They discussed some of the green projects, especially the green roof at Duke University Hospital. (more…)

    Yikes! It’s nearly 100 degrees here in North Carolina and the humidity nearly matches it. It was still over 90 degrees at dinnertime! I, for one, don’t find solar energy all that welcome this time of year. Maybe if I was generating electricity from it I would feel differently. But the solar energy I’m talking about makes me roast whenever I step out of the shade and it makes my attic a veritable furnace. But, I’ve found a building product that comes to the rescue. (more…)

      Sustainable building materials are more and more available these days. “Sustainable” means the materials are manufactured in environmentally responsible ways. They may be made from recycled materials, such as tile or wallboard. (more…)

      An energy management system can reduce your electric bill and help reduce energy demand at peak times. This system monitors and controls what equipment can come on during certain hours of the day. It may block an electric water heater from starting until an air conditioner that is already running has completed its cycle. (more…)

      When it comes to “building green,” There are other energy-saving measures that can occur behind the scenes. Proper insulation, including draft blocking to prevent convective loops of cold or warm air within walls and ceilings will reduce heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. (more…)

      Are your windows locked? We don’t tend to think of air leakage in the summer like we do in the wintertime. When it’s cold, we can feel the cold drafts wafting through the house. (more…)

      Here’s a discussion that came up today on one of my projects. We were making a brick selection for the exterior of the house. The brick companies readily provide sample boards that have thin pieces of actual bricks, not just photos, for you to see. That’s very helpful, but the problem is that the cardboard sample boards do not have any mortar between the bricks. If there are sample boards with “mortar,” they use a synthetic mortar substitute because real mortar would break out on a board like this. It may or may not be the color of the mortar you will be using. Either way, the true, final color that your brick wall will produce is not readily apparent. (more…)

    Last week, at BookExpo America, I was discussing my book with a young woman and I mentioned that it concerned me how there is such hysteria and fanaticism surrounding anything touted as being green or environmentally friendly and often these things are not very “green” and maybe have negative environmental implications that are not readily appreciated. I pointed to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, known as CFL‘s, as an example. (more…)