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Archive for the ‘Home Energy’ Category

Focus on Green Homes – Heating Your Green Home
By Kimberley Ward

Methods used to heat a green home are cleaner, more efficient, less expensive and more comfortable than conventional methods. The heating systems are simple for the home owner to operate and maintain. However, since the system is basically custom-designed for each home, it is very complicated for the contractor to calculate the exact heating needs of every home and is based on an enormous amount of variables. A green home takes a lot of things into consideration when it comes to heating your home.

For example, variables such as the direction the house faces, how many windows are in the home, what is the solar heat gain of the window, the amount of shade, the insulation value of the home, and the ceiling height of the house need to be taken into consideration. Then owner preferences about the type of system desired are factored in. Choices include forced air heat, radiant heat (hydronic systems), gas, propane, or electric.

Third, another consideration in designing your heating system should be how clean the system is. For instance, radiant floor heating has a couple of major advantages over forced air, since it more efficient than forced air and does not circulate air back and forth spreading germs and bacteria throughout your home.

The efficiency in radiant floor heating comes from three sources. First, a thermostat on a forced air system might be set at 72 F while a radiant floor heat system thermostat may only need to be set at 65F or less and still maintain the level of warm comfort. Imagine your entire floor of your green home warm all the time! Second, heat rises. By heating the floor, the heat rises over the entire length of your body keeping you warm no matter where you are in the home. No more cold corners or freezing cold bathroom floors.

The last source of efficiency for radiant floor heating comes from the source of the heat. What does the heating of the water for this type of system? There are lots of options, some more efficient than others. One option is using a boiler or hot water heater, however efficiency is sacrificed. The best option is a secondary heat exchanger plumbed off a very high efficiency water heater. Another option is using a geo-thermal ground loop with a heat pump. Currently this option is too expensive for affordable green homes.

When considering your heating system for your green home, it is important to look at the pay-off time for your system. Some systems can be extremely efficient, but costly, costing tens of thousands of dollars to install. Why pay a dollar to save a penny? By carefully designing and building an affordable, practical green home, you can save utility costs immediately since it will not cost more than a conventionally built home.

Kim Ward is Marketing Director for Green Earth Energy Homes at http://greenearthenergyhomes.com

Green Earth Energy Homes offer affordable, practical, LEED and Energy Star certified homes. Save thousands on energy costs and qualify for thousands in government tax incentives and benefits. Contact Kim for more information about our green homes or to view our model.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kimberley_Ward
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Hints and Tips That Will Keep Jack Frost and the Tax Man From Your Door
By David John Martin

Now that winter is creeping in, ready to send a chill up your spine and turn the tip of your nose to ice as you lie in bed at night, those of us without proper insulation could really be feeling the heat. Or not.

With new government schemes in place to encourage householders to save energy for the sake of the planet, now is a better time than any to ensure that you are not wasting energy or money. With the oncoming recession and the panic over global warming, restricting the amount of gas and electric you use is a good way to ensure that you save money and do your bit to cut down on your carbon footprint with one stone’s throw.

In the winter it is usually the elderly who suffer. The need to heat their homes sufficiently enough to avoid health problems and discomfort is essential. Viruses such as the flu can be very dangerous for older people and it is much more common to catch in the colder months. Unfortunately if you are retired and do not have a substantial and steady income, the cost of central heating can be a burden.

One way of cutting down heating costs is to ensure that your home is properly insulated. The government have put in place new schemes to help the elderly pay for proper insulation in their homes, providing all or some of the cost of the materials and installation. These are schemes designed to help reduce the UK’s carbon footprint yet they also ensure that thousands of people who are less well off can afford a standard level of protection for their homes.

Having the proper insulation in your house can make a huge difference to the size of your monthly bills. There are government approved fitters who will take care to make sure that there are no signs of harmful materials such as asbestos and if there is, they will be able to take the relevant precautions to remove it and avoid contamination.

Asbestos was once widely used to insulate properties before it was discovered that particles could become trapped in the body when inhaled and be the cause of serious illness or related cancer. Therefore it is essential that you ensure that professionals do any insulation fittings.

With Christmas languishing at the end of December, it is an expensive time of year for most of us. Saving on bills and other household outgoings should be the first port of call as this is where we can lose money without realising. Comparing gas and electric companies online is another way to see how you can save money. It is often easier to stick with the companies that you have been with for years but all too often loyal customers can be taken to the dry cleaners by companies taking advantage of their complacency. Don’t let one of those loyal customers be you.

Compare electricity prices at http://www.confused.com/gas-electricity

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_John_Martin
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Focus on Green Homes – Hot Water Systems
By Kimberley Ward

Most home use a lot of hot water and heating that water is usually expensive and inefficient. In this third in our ‘Focus on Green Homes’ series, we look at how water is heated, kept hot, and delivered to your hot water faucet in a green home.

Heating the Water – A standard water heater has a major flaw. A conventional gas water heater has a tank with a tube in the center of it and a burner under it. The hot gas from the burner travels up the tube and heats the tube which in turn heats the water surrounding the tube. Now we come to the flaw. The problem is that the water heater is very inefficient since the gas entering the tube is very hot and remains very hot even as it leaves the top of the tube. However, when the gas reaches the top of the tube it is no longer heating the water. A new generation gas fired water heaters overcomes this flaw by using all the hot gas to heat the water.

Another way to heat water is solar water heating. Have you ever taken a drink from a garden hose during a very hot summer day and burned your mouth because the hose had been laying in the sun so long? If so, you have just experienced solar hot water heating. Similarly, a special solar panel (one that heats water rather than making electricity) can separate water into tiny little lines and run the water across the panel, heating the water. The sun heats the water very quickly and the result is pumped back into a larger line that leads to a water tank in the house that stores the hot water until it is ready to be used. On a cloudy day, the tank reverts back to a conventional water heater. Solar heating is only cost effective for very sunny areas of the country.

Keeping the Water Hot - Insulation is the key to keeping the water hot. The more insulation surrounding your water tank the longer the water stays hot.

Getting Hot Water to Your Faucet – To get the water to your faucet while it is still hot, an alternative to copper pipes is needed. Copper pipes conduct heat, removing heat from your hot water while on the way to the faucet. Using materials that don’t conduct heat as well, such as inexpensive Pex tubing, is one way to solve this problem. In addition, a smaller line can get the water to the faucet faster. Pex tubing can be used in green homes to get the water there now, while increasing the efficiency of the entire hot water system in your green home.

Kim Ward is Marketing Director for Green Earth Energy Homes at http://greenearthenergyhomes.com

Green Earth Energy Homes offer affordable, practical, LEED and Energy Star certified homes. Save thousands on energy costs and qualify for thousands in government tax incentives and benefits. Contact Kim for more information about our green homes or to view our model.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kimberley_Ward
http://EzineArticles.com/?Focus-on-Green-Homes—Hot-Water-Systems&id=1762682

Focus on Green Homes – High Efficiency Windows
By Kimberley Ward

What do windows have to do with a green home? Windows are a big part of your green home, since most of the heat lost from your home is lost though the windows. A set of inefficient, leaky or badly installed windows can defeat any efforts at energy savings or conservation. How can we stop the money from flying out the window? In this ‘Focus on Green Homes’ edition, we explain how to keep the windows from allowing the heat out of your home.

Through new technological breakthroughs, techniques are now available to build attractive, but energy efficient windows that retain heat a lot better than the old way of building a window. First, energy efficient windows have two panes of glass instead of one. And, in addition, newer windows have had the air space between these two panes of glass filled with argon gas that dramatically slows the heat transfer through the glass panes.

Heat is also lost through the air space between the window frame and the window space in the wall. Most people have had the experience of feeling a draft from leaky windows and doors. This gap around the window frame should be filled with quality insulation to reduce the amount of heat escaping from the home. There are several ways to apply the insulation. One effective way is to fill this gap with expandable foam and then cover the nailing flange of the window with special tape to seal the gap completely.

By doing all these steps, you can greatly increase the energy efficiently of the traditional window. Usually windows cannot be eliminated or reduced in size due to building codes and builder’s rules of thumb. Windows are pleasing to the eye and provide ventilation and safety features that are important to any home. Therefore, windows have to be made more efficient in order to make your home truly green.

When choosing windows for a green home it is a good idea to look at many window manufacturers and their window prices because the most expensive windows are not always the most efficient. Calculating the energy pay-off time is an important tool for choosing the most efficient windows for the money.

Kim Ward is Marketing Director for Green Earth Energy Homes at http://greenearthenergyhomes.com

Green Earth Energy Homes offer affordable, practical, LEED and Energy Star certified homes. Save thousands on energy costs and qualify for thousands in government tax incentives and benefits. Contact Kim for more information about our green homes or to view our model.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kimberley_Ward
http://EzineArticles.com/?Focus-on-Green-Homes—High-Efficiency-Windows&id=1762755