tom here testing the blog

The results are in! Published in early May, Home Energy magazine’s annual survey went out to thousands of our readers, both online and in print, who took the time to answer questions about themselves – everything from how their organizations are funded to what online features they’d like Home Energy to include. And we’re happy to report that you all have a lot in common.
 
We have already started incorporating your interests into our 2012 editorial calendar and plan to take the rest of these findings into account in order to improve our website, magazine, and overall product.
 
Below are snippets of the results.
 
Home Energy readers are:

• 40% building/energy consultants
• 37% home performance auditor/analyst 

Our readers work for small companies:

• 52.3% work in companies with 1–4 employees
• 15.7% work in companies with 5–19 employees 

A majority (81%) of our readers do not have a governmental affiliation.
 
They primarily hold BPI and RESNET certifications:

• 62.5% BPI
• 33.6% RESNET

Readers enjoy both the print and online versions of Home Energy:

• 30.9% subscribe to both online and print
• 19.2% subscribe in print

They spend time with, and hold onto, the magazine:

• 37.1% spend an hour reading either in print or online
• 71% keep the magazine, referring back to it at various levels (either a couple times a year, often, sometimes, or rarely)

They like reading technical and how-to articles, quickly followed by case studies:

• 79% enjoy technical most
• 78% enjoy how-to most
• 64% enjoy case studies most

They think Home Energy’s technical articles are “just technical enough” (75.1%).
 
They’d like to see webinars added online (25.1%), shortly followed by more affordable online subscription options (20%).
 
Thank you to all of our readers! Be sure to also participate in our new biweekly poll.

As a continuation from yesterday's blog post, I'd like to also explain the opportunities we have in hybrid lighting. Modern fixtures present lighting designers with the opportunity to adapt the lighting to the needs of the space. Adjustable features such as open wings allow certain fixtures to throw more light onto a ceiling and flatten the light out evenly, providing even illumination that is ideal for low-ceilinged rooms.

Rubinstein argues that "until research drives the cost of LEDs down substantially, the greatest potential for improvements in lighting energy efficiency will come from combining advanced lighting controls with hybrid (fluorescent and LED) lighting systems, and designing the lighting to fit the space and occupant requirements in which they're used."

Figure 2. Modern hybrid lighting combines fluorescents with LEDs to deliver pleasing ambient light and strong targeted light for tasks.

Figure 2 illustrates a hybrid lighting solution called task-ambient lighting, which some lighting designers are using more frequently. An overhead or undercabinet fluorescent fixture provides low ambient lighting to the pictured office, while an LED desk lamp provides task lighting to the office occupant at the desk and screen levels.

But Rubinstein believes that the real future of energy-efficient lighting is in hybrid systems with control devices. "As time goes on we're going to get smarter and smarter, and develop smart furniture with built-in occupancy and light sensors. The sensors, as part of a larger automated building energy control system will reduce the energy we waste from lighting we don't need."

Using a wireless lighting control system such as that pictured schematically in Figure 3, the lighting can respond automatically to increases or decreases in daylight coming through nearby windows if these are present; shut down and turn on automatically when office occupants leave and re-enter their office space; and even respond to the conditions on the electricity grid such as high prices or unusually high demand prefiguring grid failure (another technology known as automatic demand response).

Figure 3. Wireless lighting control systems such as this Integrated Building Environmental Communications System (IBECS) communications network can respond automatically to ambient lighting conditions and other signals, to maintain optimal light levels while saving energy.

An important component of this system will be personal controls. "Study after study has shown that lighting systems which give user personal control over the lighting in their work area results in saved energy," says Rubinstein. "They give users who don't want the full level of ambient lighting the option to set lighting at the level they're comfortable with."

A study by Rubinstein in a federal building showed that occupant-responsive lighting and personal controls resulted in 40% less lighting energy use than an energy code-compliant baseline system that had low power density but was manually switched. By giving occupants control over their environment, and the ability to adjust the overhead light level to their satisfaction, they make occupants feel happier with their surroundings--despite other shortcomings in their environment.

"Modern fluorescent lighting is the most efficient, cost-effective source for general lighting available today," he concludes. "Until LEDs become cost-competitive with modern fluorescents for general lighting, hybrid solutions are still the most energy-efficient lighting systems in the marketplace. And whatever lighting technology is used, the key to maximum energy savings and comfort is an intelligent control system that combines automatic with manual controls."

Allan Chen is the leader of the Communications Office in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

The future of energy-efficient lighting, many experts will tell you, is the solid-state LED (light-emitting diode). You have already begun to see these tiny, bead-like lights in special applications such as traffic signals, exit signs, automotive headlights, and lightweight flashlights. Maybe you have begun to see them in high-end ambient room lighting applications, such as energy-efficient desk lamps and kitchen underlights.

"The common view," says Francis Rubinstein, a scientist and energy-efficient lighting expert at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division, "is that LED lighting is replacing fluorescent lighting with the same inevitability that mammals replaced dinosaurs as the dominant large life forms on Earth."

Ongoing research at national laboratories and in the lighting industry is focusing on improving the light output, lifetime, and durability of LEDs, as well as driving their costs down. Many lighting experts expect that LEDs will eventually be used widely in general lighting applications, replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs, as well as energy-efficient fluorescent lamps (both the linear and compact varieties). LEDs have the potential to be more energy-efficient than fluorescent lights.

But wait, says Rubinstein, who has been delivering a talk to lighting industry audiences titled "Why Fluorescent Lighting Isn't Dead." He believes that modern fluorescent lighting will continue to dominate the general lighting market and that solid-state LED lighting will coexist in the marketplace with fluorescent lighting for some time to come. Rubinstein sees a near-term future in which LED and fluorescent lighting coexist in hybrid systems that will be more adaptable to the lighting needs of a wide variety of residential, commercial, and industrial building types and space configurations.

Rubinstein has been studying lighting systems in buildings for some thirty years. He has participated in energy efficiency improvement projects at the White House, congressional office buildings, the San Francisco and Oakland federal buildings, public and private buildings, and military bases. In his current research, much of which takes place in real buildings such as federal offices and large commercial facilities, he's been studying lighting systems combined with advanced wireless control systems, personal and workstation controls, and daylighting, to manage the lighting needs of work spaces energy efficiently.

In some recent studies, Rubinstein and his research team have installed an advanced lighting and wireless control system in a testbed on one or more floors of a building, monitored the energy use, and surveyed the user satisfaction with the new system. Such systems now on the market, or in prototype, use lighting industry standards such as BacNet and DALI, and leverage wireless protocols such as ZigBee and Wi-Fi.

"Modern fluorescent lighting is the most energy-efficient, cost-effective source for general lighting available today," says Rubinstein. "Although solid-state LED technology has advanced, fluorescent lighting technology is also improving in energy efficiency and new features."

Where Edison's Fixture Still Rules

Residential lighting is dominated by the Edison fixture, into which occupants screw incandescent bulbs or compact fluorescent lamps. There are about 4.5 billion of these in the U.S. In commercial buildings, there are about one billion linear fixtures and anywhere from two to three billion lampholder pair fixtures.

"LEDs already have two strikes against them in this market," says Rubinstein, "They have to fit into an electrical infrastructure that isn't designed for LED replacements, and incandescent sockets work best with point sources such as the CFL or incandescent, while the fluorescent works best with line sources such as the linear fixtures everyone knows from office buildings."

Although researchers are working to improve the performance of LEDs and drive down their cost, fluorescent lamp and fixture technology is not standing still either. The lighting industry, Rubinstein points out, has improved ballast technology in fluorescent lighting substantially.

Figure 1. Improved ballasts and innovative fixture design have brought offices better efficiency and lighting distribution.

Ballasts are the electronics that regulate the power flowing into the fluorescent lamp. Back in the 1970s, most fluorescent lamps used magnetic ballasts. At that time, EETD researchers began developing electronic ballasts, which are 20 percent or more energy efficient than magnetic ballasts, and they worked with the lighting industry to field-test and commercialize the technology.

Today, the lighting industry has run with it. Manufacturers have introduced and improved the energy efficiency of instant-start ballasts, and they have introduced and increased the performance and efficiency of ballasts designed for dimming fluorescent lamps.

The industry has also improved the light distribution efficiency of its fixtures (see Figure 1). Rubinstein has measured the fixture efficiency of 1990s-vintage parabolic louvered fixtures at around 60 percent. Current-technology recessed direct/indirect fixtures distribute 90 percent of the light coming from the fluorescent lamp into the space (see illustration).

"My key point," says Rubinstein, "is that if you use LEDs to replace fluorescents, then you are on a battleground where cost is king, and the performance of fluorescents has slowly, but continually improved over the years." LEDs have not yet caught up to fluorescent lighting in cost per lumens of light delivered—they are sometimes ten times more expensive per lumen than fluorescent lighting, and in the lighting market, decisions about which technology to install are cost-driven.

"We are so blasé about how good and cheap modern fluorescent lighting has become, that we forget what a well-evolved technical tour de force it really is," says Rubinstein.

Allan Chen is the leader of the Communications Office in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

At the most recent ACI conference that took place in San Francisco, Home Energy had the opportunity to see old friends and, of course, make new ones. Although there were many great conversations had, there were a few people that stuck out to me. One of those people was Corey Breed, founder of Vent Cap Systems. We were trade show floor neighbors and we got to talking.

Corey started the conversation by telling me that he had come up with something to replace the tape that auditors use to cover vents while doing duct testing for energy efficiency in homes. He said, "Think about this: Two auditors or technicians who are sealing two A/C vent systems each, on weekdays only, will throw away more than $23,000 in tape—over a mile of plastic—every five years." And that’s not even taking into account the negative environmental impact of the tape, as it’s manufactured, packaged, shipped, and thrown away.
 
A Texas native, it didn't take Corey long to realize the tape was a problem and that he wanted to solve it. In 2010, Vent Cap Systems was born, and the 100% reusable vent cover that uses a hook-and-pull system and a soft-foam sealing was introduced to the market.
 
Our conversation piqued my interest and I just had to follow up. Below is a short Q&A with Vent Cap Systems founder Corey Breed, a certified building analyst in Austin, Texas.

HE: What brought you into the energy auditing business?
CB: I started doing energy audits when they were mandated by the City of Austin in 2009.
 
How long did it take you to see the inefficiency of tape?
I didn't like it right off the bat, but got to the point where something had to be done after using it for a month. Watching all that tape pile up was just too much, especially after being SO amazed at its cost in the first place.
 
What was your favorite part of this year's ACI conference?
I'm new to the trade show experience so I immediately am surprised by the camaraderie. Everyone is there to learn and spread what they've learned along the way. While it is decades-old science, it really seems to be getting traction all over regardless of location and/or political affiliation.
 
How has your response to Vent Cap Systems been?
We have received warm receptions at every show we've attended. Not only do people seem to appreciate what Vent Cap Systems can do to reduce waste, but there is a lot of animosity toward tape. Not just because it's wasteful, but it's unnecessarily frustrating.
 
What's next for the company?
The tool that will allow you to set the [Vent Caps] at a distance is finally going to be ready at the end of this month. After much difficulty in China, I'm now pleased to say that our product is now being made in the U.S. I've also applied for patent protection on a couple new items I think you're really going to like! Stay tuned...

Do you also hate the tape? Join the conversation, "You might be an Energy Auditor if..." at Home Energy Pros!

It seems that some materials being used by contractors during energy retrofits may not meet code or manufacturer's requirements for an ignition or thermal barrier, according to Pure Energy. In this case, the company, which is dedicated to quality assurance in the home improvement industry, is referring to the use of rigid or spray foam products. “When some building and retrofit products burn, they can release potent fumes that can make people sick or die," says Pure Energy founder Tamasin Sterner.
 
Some plastic foams, both rigid and spray, require being covered by an ignition or thermal barrier after installation. Others do not. The deciding factor about whether or not they need to be covered is the installation location, whether or not the product has a fire rated barrier already built into the product, and for some products, the product thickness. (The thicker the product, the higher the hazard if it burns, so some thicker products need a covering).
 
The following is a breakdown of what contractors need to know, courtesy of Pure Energy:

Spray Foams

• When applied to sill plates and headers, spray foams are permitted to be installed without a thermal barrier when they meet the installation thickness of up to a maximum of 3.25 inches, density range of .5 to 2.0 lb/cu ft, and tested in accordance with ASTM E 84.
• When applied in small quantities in attics, crawl spaces, basements and other areas of the home to fill gaps and cracks, products such as Dow’s Great Stuff (single component polyurethane) spray foams can be used without a thermal barrier providing manufacturer installation specs are followed with typical sealing widths of 1-5/16 inch maximum, and nominal foam thickness not to exceed 3 inches.
• When applied in large quantities to areas such as attic roof decks, crawl and basement walls, when using two-part polyurethane, each product must be evaluated for location use and requirements for coverings, and the coverings must be evaluated to be sure they meet the requirements as a barrier.
• Based on area usage (storage, heating appliances, etc.,) and codes, an ignition and/or thermal barrier may be needed—either spray product, or drywall, or other approved covering.
• When applied to ducts in attics and crawl spaces an ignition barrier may be needed dependent upon product and manufacturer testing.  Spray polyurethane foam is permitted to be applied to duct joints and seams without additional covering.

Rigid Foams

• In some cases, rigid boards may be used in unfinished attics or crawl spaces without covering as long as they are not over a certain thickness. 
• When applied in attics, most must have a barrier over them unless the attic is used for service of utilities only.  In other words, most rigid foam boards don't have to have a barrier over them if they are used in an unfinished attic that is used for utility service only.  If the attic is used for storage, heat producing appliances or if it is finished, most rigid boards need to be covered with an ignition barrier or thermal barrier. 
• Most rigid boards are not permitted to be used in unconditioned or conditioned basements without a thermal barrier.
• When used in crawl spaces, most rigid boards don't have to be covered if the crawl space is used for utility only.  However, if the crawl space is used for storage or heat producing appliances, some rigid boards must be covered.
• When used in the living spaces, most rigid boards must be covered.

Along with the above, it is recommended that all contractors read the literature available from the product manufacturer to be sure they are using the correct product for the location and application. 

"As QA inspectors for several weatherization, conservation, and efficiency programs, Pure Energy must know as much as possible about fire, electrical, building and other codes.  We also must know about products and where they are allowed to be used in buildings, with or without ignition or thermal barriers that are required to protect people in the case of a fire," Sterner says.  "Code books are hard to read and understand!  We are doing our best to clarify the issues, and we believe we are on the cutting edge with this information."

For more information, download the entire whitepaper, “Air Sealing and Insulating Using Rigid or Spray Foam Products” here.

Pure Energy uses a coaching model for all of its services, whether it be QA inspections for programs, audits, or teaching. Since 1987, Pure Energy has served over 40,000 households.

This week the cable TV industry is having their big annual meeting in Chicago. The meeting includes three days worth of in-depth technical sessions and it looks like not a single one covers the energy use or environmental impact of the ubiquitous set-top box (otherwise known as a cable, satellite or DVR box) that the cable companies install in your home when you sign up for their service. This is a pity as the set-top boxes in the field today act like vampires by sucking up huge amounts of electricity all night long even though the user has turned off their box. A fact to get your blood boiling (vampire inspired pun intended) and interested in reading further: Due to outdated designs, today’s cable and satellite set-top boxes consume a whopping $2 billion per year of electricity when they are turned “off.”

Now that I have your attention, I’d like to highlight the findings of a report NRDC released a couple of days ago on the energy use of the set-top boxes including the DVRs installed by the cable, satellite and telephone companies that enable you to access pay-TV. NRDC and its consultant Ecos recently went into the field and monitored the power used by basic set-top boxes and DVRs that were connected to a wide range of service providers including Time Warner, Comcast, Dish Network, Direct TV, AT&T and Verizon.

The biggest finding from our field work was that the only way to really turn these boxes off is to unplug them -- not an attractive option. For almost all of the boxes we tested, hitting the power button simply dims the clock or display. For a typical DVR, instead of consuming 30 Watts when on, the box used 29 Watts, only the difference of one Watt. When you add it all up, this means it’s costing our nation $2 billion per year in electric bills to power devices when we are NOT using them. That’s money and energy we simply don’t have to spare these days.

Here are some of the key findings of our research:

• More than 80% of U.S. home subscribe to some form of pay-TV. There are more than 160 million set-top boxes installed in U.S. homes, or roughly one box for every two Americans.
• On a national level set-top boxes are consuming 27 billion kilowatt-watt hours per year. (That’s equivalent to the annual electricity use of the entire state of Maryland.)
• It takes the equivalent of nine coal burning power plants (500 MW) to operate these devices. 

For those of you that are more visually oriented, take a look:

To put set-top box energy use into perspective for the average consumer, we developed the bar chart shown below. Some of the things to note:

• Many DVRs consume more electricity each year than the big-screen TV they are connected to.
• A household with one DVR and one basic HD set top box uses roughly 450 kWh/yr or the equivalent annual electricity use of one new Energy Star qualified refrigerator.

So now that we’ve identified the problem, what can we do about it? The challenge is finding a way to have the box go into a significantly lower power state when not in use AND maintain network connection, security and be able to resume functionality in short order. 

But solutions already exist. In Europe they’re making progress. For example, Sky TV now has three power levels on its DVR boxes: 

• 22.5W On
• 13.2W Sleep
• 0.65W Deep Sleep

They’re programmed to auto power down at 11 p.m. to 0.65 Watts -- but for those who tape late night shows, the boxes wake-up automatically to record programs. Sky’s boxes also wake-up every 30 minutes to check for new program recording requests entered by subscribers using smart phones. 

If we switched to better boxes, we could dramatically cut our energy costs. We hope these findings help inform U.S. service providers and set-top box manufacturers and lead them to develop and deploy more efficient boxes.  

And for consumers, help is on the way. You can call your pay-TV service provider and request a set-top box that meets Energy Star Version 4.0. That means you’ll have the most efficient box on the market, keeping the vampires on your screen, not next to it.

Noah Horowitz is a senior scientist in the Natural Resources Defense Council's energy program and works on a wide range of energy efficiency issues, including voluntary programs and collaborations with industry, as well as the development of mandatory codes and standards at the state and national level.

As we are working hard here to put the July/August annual training-focused issue "to bed" (that's magazine speak for getting it ready to send to the printer), I got to thinking: training really is the guiding force behind the future of the efficiency industry. I mean, what do we have if we don't have proper training and techniques?

That's why it makes me happy when I come across things such as the recent announcement by New York State's Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to provide $125,000 to the Northeast Parent & Child Society in support of a workforce development program specifically for students that are interested in New York's green jobs.

Northeast Parent & Child Society was selected by NYSERDA as part of a $5.4 million Workforce Development Program (PON 1816) for energy efficiency job training statewide. The funding will provide these students with basic skills training courses, hands-on internship programs with energy efficiency companies, train-the-trainer sessions, as well as further technical training in energy efficiency.

Twenty-five students will be selected to participate in a 120-hour basic skills training program for work in residential and commercial energy efficiency. Following this training, 20 students will then participate in a six-week, full-time paid internship program with Capital Region businesses specializing in energy efficiency. Potential employers include energy service companies in the commercial and industrial energy efficiency sector and companies who perform residential energy audits and retrofits for homeowners through NYSERDA’s Home Performance with Energy Star program. 

“Programs like this are an investment in the economy of our region, and every resident will reap the benefits of a strong, green economy,” said John Henley, President and CEO of Northeast Parent & Child Society.

Since 2006, NYSERDA has provided $23 million in funding to train more than 13,000 New Yorkers for jobs across the clean energy spectrum. Their funding has also helped to create a network of more than 40 clean energy-training facilities across New York State.

For more information, visit http://www.getenergysmart.org/GreenJobs/Default.aspx. 

In life, there are some clubs that you are just dying to be a part of. In the life of a home performance contractor, that club is the Century Club. Defined by an award given each year by EPA and DOE, the Home Performance with Energy Star Century Club Award recognizes companies that improved the energy efficiency of more than 100 homes in a year through the Home Performance with Energy Star program.
 
This year’s winners were not only widespread geographically, but their numbers soared high above the 100-home benchmark. Coming in as the top producer was Hutchinson Plumbing-Heating-Cooling along with their sponsor, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, who were responsible for 713 (!!) completed jobs in 2010.
 
Below is a list of the rest of the top five winners:
 
2. Reeis AZ, Inc. (sponsor: FSL Home Improvements) – 554 jobs completed
 
3. Nemow Insulation Company (sponsor: Missouri - Implemented by Columbia Water & Light) – 502 jobs
 
4. Comfort Home Improvement, Syracuse (sponsor: NYSERDA) – 498 jobs
 
5. Strand Brothers (sponsor: Austin Energy) – 484 jobs

For more information about the Home Performance with Energy Star program, visit their website here.

In New York City, office buildings consume nearly 80% of all the city’s energy, making that energy weigh in at $2.50 per square foot—nearly $1 more than the national average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
 
In response to this number, Con Edison will hold its first Energy Efficiency Summit, taking place June 1 at the Hilton New York. The one-day summit (running from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) will feature business strategies, new technologies, and rebates and incentives that are available to Con Edison’s commercial and industrial (C&I) customers—all aimed at managing energy use and costs.
 
“Con Edison is committed to providing our customers with the resources they need to lower their energy usage,” says David Pospisil, Con Edison C&I Program Manager.
 
The company’s Energy Efficiency Program offers businesses cash back through its rebate program for the installation of energy efficient equipment including lighting, heating, air conditioning, LED exit signs, among others. For those customers that want to tackle more complex energy efficiency projects, Con Edison also offers custom programs that include refrigeration system upgrades, compressed air system improvements, industrial process improvements, and more.  
 
If you’re in the area and would like to register for the summit, visit http://conedci.cvent.com. Or, follow them via Twitter at hashtag #EESummit on June 1st for live updates and content.  
 

A recent study done by Germany’s Bonn University has determined the most energy efficient ways of cooking. The study, done by Professor Dr. Rainer Stamminger and his assistants, was commissioned by the HEA, a German organization that supports energy efficiency. The results were presented to the Energy Efficiency in Domestic Appliances and Lighting (EEDAL) 2011 international convention in Copenhagen, Denmark, and it was sponsored by the European Commission and the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy.

“While most people look for low energy needs when buying household appliances like refrigerators and washing machines, they hardly pay any attention to their everyday habits,” said Claudia Oberascher of the HEA. If, she said, the cooking process could be optimized at 20 minutes per day, the savings could be 147 kWh a year.

Here are additional findings from the study:

• Because of its automatic off switch, the electric boiler is the quickest and best means of heating water, beating both the pot and the microwave.
• The coffee maker with thermos pot is best for preparing the beverage and keeping it warm. It needs energy only for the boiling, while glass makers with hot plates can use three times the energy. 
• The pot is best for foods, such as potatoes, that must be boiled for a long time, provided it is covered with a lid and contains only a small amount of water. The energy consumption can be three times as high if there is no lid and lots of water. 
• An egg cooker is four times as efficient as a pot with no lid. Because of the automatic off switch, the egg doesn’t need watching and can’t be overcooked. Even if the pot method is optimized, with a lid and reduced heat after boiling begins, the cooker is still twice as efficient.
• The microwave is best for heating small portions and things that need little time to warm.
• It is most energy efficient to cook large quantities at one time. 

Ted Shoemaker, an American, first went to Germany as an Army officer, then married a German woman and stayed on as a writer/editor. Now retired and based in Frankfurt, he keeps his hand in by acting as a correspondent for a number of American magazines.

Photo courtesy of Fotolia/Oliver-Marc Steffen.   p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

HUD's Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control (OHHLHC) and its partners are excited to announce the inaugural 2011 Healthy Homes Leader Awards. For the first time ever, we will acknowledge and honor the extraordinary achievements of those who are "Leading the Nation to Healthy Homes, Families and Communities."

You're invited to nominate colleagues, state and local leaders, agency teams and programs that have made significant contributions to making our homes, families and communities healthier and safer. Join us in honoring the recipients at the Awards Reception at the National Healthy Homes Conference in Denver, Colorado on June 22, 2011.

Nominations will be accepted until June 2, 2011 in the following categories:

1. Healthy Homes Pioneer Award
   

   This award honors ground breaking leaders in the healthy homes movement. The nominee has been a pioneering leader in advancing the field of healthy housing

2. Healthy Homes Innovation Award
   

   This award honors individuals or organizations that have made cutting edge contributions to healthy homes policy, research, design, education and/or advocacy. Without their efforts, the field would not be where it is today.

3. Healthy Homes Hero Award
   

   This award honors an advocate for healthy housing whose dedication and leadership has made significant impacts on the lives of families living in underserved communities.

4. Healthy Homes Partnership Award
   

   This award honors community and faith based organizations, healthcare organizations, academia, industry, government, and others who create partnerships that have resulted in healthier housing and communities.

5. Best Exhibit Award
   

   This award honors entities and/or organizations who have displayed the best exhibit, as determined by conference participants at the 2011 National Healthy Homes Conference. Nominations will be accepted during open hours of Exhibit Hall at 2011 National Healthy Homes Conference.

How to nominate

• Download and complete the nomination form
• E-mail nomination form to Kenae Boyer at Kenae.W.Boyer@HUD.gov

Kenae Boyer is a member of the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control's Lead Programs Enforcement Division. She can be reached at Kenae.W.Boyer@HUD.gov, or by phone at (202)402-4314.

During ACEEE’s Hot Water Forum that took place in Berkeley, California last week, not only did I learn a bit about water pipes and their distribution, but I also learned how the Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center at the Berkeley Marina does their laundry. Just another hot topic among the professionals, manufacturers and specialists that came together to discuss what’s happening in the world of hot water.
 
Although I learned a lot about the federal programs that are in effect for hot water efficiency, how solar water heating is expanding (and what holds its popularity back), and gained insight into how pipes actually work together in homes, there was a larger personal takeaway for me.
 
In a lecture given by Craig Selover, of Masco Corporation, and Jim Lutz from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, called “New Knowledge on Distribution: How Do Pipes Work Together,” the pair showed off research on shared volume and use of pipes in homes. During the session they asked the crowd the following: “Has peoples’ behavior changed so much so that we can give them new systems?” As the crowd took that question in, I jotted in my notebook: “People’s behavior IN RESPONSE to systems.” And then I thought, this industry is full of people who have made it their life’s work to not just find more efficient ways of using energy (and in this case, water), but to do so based on people’s behavior. At the Hot Water Forum, I saw that these particular people had done research on families’ behavior in their homes, but there’s another factor I hadn’t thought about. Things like how long a person waits for hot water in their shower, although expending unnecessary water and energy, is based solely on the efficiency of the system in their home.
 
“People expect the light to turn on immediately when they hit the light switch, so why doesn’t a shower work like that?” Jim asked. A valid question. Why don’t our systems work the way that’s most efficient for us? “It’s about the efficiency of what you want out versus what you have to put in,” he added. And it’s why these professionals work so hard to make changes to the efficiency of hot water. It’s also why Home Energy publishes results from presenters like those at ACEEE in an effort to change people’s behavior... that is, until there are new, more efficient systems in place.

Last week, home performance contractors gathered in New York and called upon the state to pass on-bill financing, which would allow moderate-income families to have access to funding for their energy efficiency retrofits. Organized by two local groups, Efficiency First and Building Performance Contractors Association, the efficiency advocates held news conferences in both Long Island and Syracuse to get the word out.

According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, the following is an example of how the legislation would work:

A homeowner with a $1,000 annual electrical and heating bill wants to retrofit his house with new insulation at a cost of $2,000. But instead of taking out a traditional bank loan, the homeowner pays the $2,000 over a 10-year period at $200 a year as part of his utility bill.

The estimated savings from the new insulation would be immediately taken into account in his utility bill so that the $200 added on to his bill would not make the total annual cost greater than the initial $1,000. After the 10-year period, the homeowner’s insulation job would be paid for and his utility bill would (in theory) be lower due to the energy savings.

"Homeowners are much less likely to default on this kind of financing because they don’t want the lights to be turned off," said Richard Kornbluth, president of the board for the Building Performance Contractors Association.

If approved, the legislation would also complement Green Jobs/Green NY, a bill passed in 2009 with a goal to retrofit one-million New York homes and businesses in order to help residents save money on their energy bills.

What is the flexible insulated duct  entering the furnance from the top?

What is the flexible insulated duct  entering the furnance from the top?

From sixth-grade Iraqi mine survivors planting trees without hands and Detroit school kids building a plastic bottle boat to Malays cleaning up their waterfalls, individuals and organizations from Delhi, Louisiana to New Delhi have racked up over 100 million Acts of Green in honor of the 41st Earth Day, which took place on April 22.

The achievement puts Earth Day Network’s Billion Acts of Green campaign well on the road to success for delivering a billion acts to world leaders at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to spur action against climate change. It is a fitting new chapter to Earth Day’s historic legacy of inspiring ordinary people to take action against Earth crises.

Earth Day India was one of our great highlights this year, as approximately 150 cities and towns in India held Earth Day events, with an enthusiasm rivaling the first Earth Day in 1970.  Earth Day India 2011 partners included the million-member trade union Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA). 

Globally, nearly 300 city and local elected officials are participating in Global Day of Conversation events with their constituents, in the U.S., China, Macau, Iraq, Mexico, UK, Albania, Italy, Uganda and South Africa.

Schools remained a huge contributor to Earth Day observances, with over 160 universities in the U.S holding over 250 events and 30 million elementary school students in over 60,000 schools receiving Earth Day materials as part of our Green Schools initiative.

Earth Day Network’s Canopy Project continues to make huge inroads against deforestation, as partners such as Trees for the Future, United Nations Environment Programme, Roots & Shootsin China, the Iraq Ministry of Agriculture and the African Rainforest Conservancy plant over 45 million trees across Africa, Latin America, and Asia.  

Finally, Earth Day Network just launched an app in collaboration with Facebook to help spread the Billion Acts of Green campaign. Go to: http://apps.facebook.com/billionactsofgreen.


Marsha Johnston is the Creative Director at Earth Day Network, an organization that works with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. EDN is proud to say that more than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.

On April 15, 2011, Homes for Our Troops, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 2004 that's dedicated to helping veterans who have returned home from combat with serious disabilities and injuries since September 11, 2001, kicked off the build of its 101st home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Homes for Our Troops is building this particular home (see photo) for U.S. Army Sergeant Jude Recendez who lost both of his legs while deployed to Baghdad, Iraq in 2006.

Before Jude's home, the organization completed another feat: Home #100, which was built in partnership with Atlantic Builders (who donated their expertise for the cause @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } —as do all the Homes for Our Troops partners), and was finished in a record 76 hours and 41 minutes. Although speed isn't necessarily a goal for the organization, it was a Homes for Our Troops 100th home celebration that reached out to show the greatness of the community with a kickoff ceremony and a special key presentation for recipient Marine Sergeant Kenny Lyon, who also resides in Virginia.

As if Homes for Our Troops' mission isn't noble enough, they also have a commitment to energy efficiency, says Dawn Teixeira, executive director of the nonprofit. "Energy efficiency is one of our priorities," she says. "It is not only good for the environment, it makes sense to provide our veterans with all the health and economic benefits that energy efficient homes provide."

In order to comply with efficiency standards, Homes for Our Troops has joined forces with the Sierra Club Foundation, which has offered them a grant that allows each one of the homes they build to be built to Energy Star standards and to be Energy Star rated. "We have also been able to build several homes that have been LEED certified in Oregon, Colorado, and New Jersey," Dawn says. 

Just as they've done for the first 100 homes, the organization looks forward to completing 100 more in partnership with builders across the country. "The builders have been enthusiastic about building new homes for our severely injured veterans as their way to give back and provide the freedom and independence in their homes that any able bodied person does enjoy," Dawn says.

Homes for Our Troops estimates that there are more than 1,000 veterans that have been so severely injured while serving our country that they qualify for a Homes for Our Troops home, which means there's a lot of work to be done. "We are now looking toward funding 100 more," she says. 

To learn more or to donate services, visit the organization's website here. You can also view a video biography of Sgt. Jude Recendez, whose home is scheduled to be complete this June.

Known to most in the industry as the co-founder (with his wife, Beth Sachs) of Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) and Efficiency Vermont, Blair Hamilton will be remembered professionally for his dedication to affordable energy efficiency—and personally for so much more. At 61 years of age, Hamilton passed away on April 8 after a long battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“The idea of starting a company in 1986 that would focus on lowering the economic and environmental costs of energy was pretty monumental to consider, when the fact was there just wasn’t a whole lot of people who wanted to pay for that, or see that happen at the time,” said Scott Johnstone, executive director of VEIC, regarding Hamilton’s ambitious goals to start VEIC 25 years ago (see "Sweet Success in Vermont").

p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }h3 { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }span.Heading3Char { font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

And in the past 25 years, Hamilton did a whole lot more, including seeing to the installation of at least 30-million efficient light bulbs, according to his Burlington Free Press obituary.

“Blair was a visionary, a friend, a genius, and a mentor to all of us,” Johnstone said. “He left an indelible mark on the world, and he’ll be greatly missed.”

Home Energy expresses its condolences to the Hamilton family and friends. Read more about Blair’s life and work with Efficiency Vermont here.

Although I was a first-timer at ACI a couple of weeks ago, there were so many more numbers that I found interesting. First off, attendees had 144 sessions to choose from in just 2.5 days, there was at least one person in attendance from all 50 states (and 7 Canadian provinces), there were 101 exhibitors (the largest to date), and ACI celebrated its 25th anniversary. For all of this, I have one word: Wow!
 
And as attendees heard in the opening general session, all of this made it worth it for nearly 2,000 professionals to spend the carbon to get together. Although I am local (making my carbon output fairly minor), it was made evidently clear from moment one that this event is where the passion happens in the home performance industry.
 
In all of the sessions I attended, I learned something new. One that particularly stood out, however, was John Tooley’s presentation titled “Mixing the Quality Serum.” Tooley, a well-known senior building science consultant at Advanced Energy has diagnosed and repaired more than 5,000 homes, and has participated in the weatherization of more than 10,000 homes. Needless to say, his advice is worth listening to.
 
During the session, he presented several quotes that he adheres to, one of which comes from W. Edward Deming: “Do it right the first time.” Tooley shared that quality, when it comes to home energy performance, doesn’t come from an inspection. Rather, he said, that quality must be built in, not bolted on. In other words, to see what is wrong in a house isn’t what is valuable (no offense to all the professionals who find out what’s wrong for a living), but rather, the value is in the prevention.
 
Although Tooley had more than one valuable lesson in his 90-minute session, there was one major takeaway that has stuck with me. He said that everyone should, “blame the process rather than the individual.” We are all so quick to blame each other in the workplace @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } —no matter what kind of work you do specifically.
 
For example, the door wasn’t locked when you came into the office this morning. What’s your first response? Mine is to find out who was the last to leave and blame them for it. But Tooley would say to instead blame the process. Why would someone not lock the door? There must not be a system in place that ensures that an individual could not forget to do this. He also said that he’s instituted a blame-free workplace, which means that instead of blaming John in accounting (yet again), everyone at his office must first look at the process. “When you see failure, be slow to judge,” he advised. “All work is a process, and processes fail more than people.”
 
These words have stuck with me and I believe it’s a quality move for every company to inherit such an idea. This blame-free workplace is ingredient number two in Tooley’s Quality Serum. Here are the rest:
 
1.     Define quality.
2.     Establish a blame-free workplace.
3.     Define standard work.
4.     Train for competency.
5.     Commit to continual improvement.
 
For more information on John’s quality serum, visit ACI’s website to purchase the full session audio. You can also read more about him here.