It is reasonably priced to put on the exterior of your home and it is eco friendly. There are several reasons to install vinyl siding on your home and one of these is the energy bills.

Why Vinyl Siding?

· It has the energy star rating and can save you up to twenty five percent on your energy bill. This is a huge savings and over a year it can really add up to a ton of money in your pocket.

· You can also get rid of unwanted outside noise with this. You can relax in your home without a ton of noise. Noise is very disturbing and you can eliminate it with this simple change.

· Vinyl siding can also withstand storm damage really well. If you live in an area that has violent siding this may be a great choice for you. Storm damage can cost you a lot of money and having vinyl siding can give you peace of mind during a storm.

· Vinyl siding is energy efficient and can reduce your energy bill because it can keep your home at a very comfortable temperature year round. It can keep you warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. This is a plus because we all want to have the perfect temperature in our home. You can have this at a great price.

· It is also much more cost effective than timber or aluminum. It is also more durable than these choices. Why would you choose to pay more for a material that can cost you more?

· It is eco friendly and this alone saves you money and makes you feel good about your choice. You are not only saving money but also helping the planet. This should make you feel great about your decision to have vinyl siding on the exterior of your home.

· It is also almost maintenance free. You do not have to do a lot to it to keep it looking great and appealing.

· It looks good on your home and can make the value go up.

· It provides insulation for your home and this can save money on your energy bill.

You can save money on your energy bill by installing and this can also provide a wealth of other benefits to your home. You can have a home that looks good and saves you money. It is the choice of many and there is a reason for this choice.

It is all that you want in siding and it can make a difference on the exterior and interior of your home. It is really can help you reduce your energy bill. All you have to do is choose a color and have it installed!

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Besides recycling, switching light bulbs or using energy efficient appliances, we can decrease our carbon footprint by sealing a crawlspace in our home. Did you know that almost 70% of the houses in North and South Carolina have crawl space foundations? Is your house one of them? Did you notice any allergy problems within your family? Are your energy bills high? Smelling any foul odors recently? Your crawlspace and its condition are probably in direct relation to some or all of these results.

The crawlspace of our home is often a neglected area of concern, yet moisture buildup, mold and bacteria growth and mustiness are all very real problems affecting the health and energy efficiency of the house. If you see any drywall cracks or unevenness to the floor of your crawlspace (or any basement with dirt floor) or smell any musty or foul odors you may need some repair work. If you have heightened allergy or asthma symptoms during the warm weather season, you could probably benefit from sealed crawlspace solution.

Crawlspace encapsulation is a green, environmentally sensible solution, helping you and the planet at the same time. It’s a process of preventing moisture from entering the crawl space either from the dirt below or from the outside and then closing vents and completely sealing it for a sterile environment. A 7 layer barrier, installed over walls and floor, prevents mold and bacteria growth. The white covering makes the area brighter, cleaner, and healthier.

Besides significant energy savings of up to 20% of your air/conditioning and heating costs, encapsulated crawlspace means no moisture, mold or musky odors in your house. Additional storage space, created by crawlspace sealing, increases a resale property value of your home. Indoor air quality is improved and levels of radon, mold, and other allergens in your home are decreased.

This is just one more way that you can help save the environment by applying a green solution to your home. A sealed crawlspace equals to a healthy and efficient home.

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1. EWI is simply the application of insulation layer to a building’s exterior wall to improve its energy efficiency.

2. Insulating a building’s external (solid) walls will help reduce energy bills. Homeowners who invest a top quality exterior wall insulation system get to save up to £385 yearly on their heating expenses! By insulating your building, you will not only reduce heat loss but also reduce your heating costs by 40%!

3. If you invest in insulating your residential building and the building where you conduct your business activities, you will be reducing carbon emission into the earth’s atmosphere. With Insulated Render System installed by Renderline, one can reduce their property’s carbon emission by a whole 50%!

4. One of the advantages of choosing to install external wall insulation is that you and members of your household or company will not be required to move out of the building when the insulation job is being done. You will not have to move in with a relative or friend (temporarily) when your property is being insulated. No single stick of furniture or fixture will be removed when work is going on, you can get on with your day to day activities.

5. You will not lose any of your precious internal living space. Since the insulation job is being done on the building’s exterior walls, it will not in anyway affect the internal living space.

6. If you plan on selling your property some time in the future, you will be glad to know that insulating it will add more value to it when it is listed for sale. A lot of property buyers are known to jump at properties that are energy efficient. Another good thing about buildings with exterior insulation layers is that they are very beautiful to look at.

7. The other benefits of installing External Wall Insulation include:

• It stops rain water from leaking through the walls of your property
• It absorbs and blocks out sounds – especially unpleasant ones
• It can be applied without stress
• Adds to the lifespan of your property by protecting the building’s brickwork
• Stops internal & interstitial wall condensation

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If you’ve ever experienced heat loss in your after just a couple of hours from turning the heater off, that would indicate your house was not properly insulated. 25% of the heat escapes through the roof, while 35% is lost through the walls.

How to determine whether or not your house is properly insulated

The first step would be to take a look into your loft and check whether the wooden joists are still visible. If they are then your insulation is not thicker than 4-5 inches which will require topping up. The current UK standard for loft insulation is 11-12 inches deep.

If your loft is insulated up to the recommended standard but you still lose heat in your property, it will be very clear that the walls have not been insulated. In most UK houses built after the 1940s, the external walls are made of two layers with a small gap or ‘cavity’ between them. If your home has unfilled cavity walls, a considerable portion of your heating bills will be spent warming the air outside.

How much money your loft and cavity wall insulation could save you

If you insulate your loft up to the UK recommended standard you will save around 20% on your annual heating bill. For an average size property that means you could save between £180 and £220 and around 400kg of CO2.

If your house was built with cavity walls, insulating them could save you around 25% per year on your heating bill which for an average size property is between £200 and £250 and around 1 tonne of CO2.

These figures are provided by The Energy Saving Trust and are based on an average size property heated by gas. Greater savings can be made in larger properties or those heated by coal or electricity.

More energy efficiency tips

Turn your thermostat down. Just by reducing your room temperature by 1°C you could save around £50 per year. If you have a programmer, set your heating and hot water to come on only when required rather than all the time.

Set your cylinder thermostat at 60°C/140°F.

Close your curtains at dusk to stop heat escaping through the windows and check for draughts around windows and doors.

That’s it for now. Please stay tuned for more energy efficiency articles.

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Dirty Filters Increase Electricity Use

Whether you know it or not, there is an entire ocean of microscopic dust particles, skin cells, and other detritus floating around your home’s air. As your HVAC unit pumps air into and exhausts out of your house, it sucks in a great deal of that debris. Over time, the debris collects on the inner walls of air ducts and on your filter especially. Your filter prevents the majority of this dust from being breathed by the home’s inhabitants.

As more and more dust accumulates, your air conditioner has to work harder and harder to force air through the filter. Unattended, this can cause little to no air to pass through the filter, and the air will have to escape through the ducts into your crawl space. This is an example of an inefficient air conditioning system that can be prevented by simply changing your filter regularly.

Clean Filters Reduce Energy Costs, and Prevent Unit Breakdown

On the other hand, a clean filter allows your system to run smoothly and efficiently. When there are no gaps or blockages in your system and clean air is allowed to flow smoothly through ducts, filters, and vents, your system can regulate temperature while using less energy. The unit’s motor does not need to work nearly as hard to achieve the same comfortable temperature to which you are accustomed.

Not only does this save you money on your monthly utility bills, it also extends the life of your air conditioner. When your unit works more efficiently and less often, it is less susceptible to the wear and tear that comes from running constantly to keep your house cool. A/C units are built to last for decades. You can ensure that yours do and protect your home’s value by simply changing your filters regularly. A good rule of thumb is to simply change them whenever you pay your monthly bill.

Better Air Quality

As mentioned before, a clean filter blocks dust, debris and other things you would never want in your lungs from entering your breathing space. Most people do not realize the poor quality, or in some cases, significant toxicity of the average household’s air. Fibers in your carpet break down releasing petrochemicals into the air. Dead skin cells abound and are easily breathed in. Repeated exposure to these particles can cause respiratory illness and damage and other forms of lung disease. This is easily preventable. Protect yourself and your family from this avoidable hazard, and change your air filters regularly.

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Solar panels can be used to create electricity. These type have been around since the late 1800s.These panels are called Photo-Voltaic or PV for short. When the sun hits the panel it set electrons in motion which in turn create direct current. This current is either used directly to power pumps,equipment charge batteries, or it is converted to alternating current which is what we use in our homes.In this case a device called an inverter is used to change from DC to AC current. When it is used to charge batteries a charge controller is used to keep them from over charging so the batteries don’t get damaged.

Next up is Solar Thermal. First, let’s talk about thermal for domestic hot water. There are a few different types of panels but the 2 most common are the “flat plate collector” and the “evacuated tube” types. They typically are placed on a south facing (north facing if you are in Australia) roof but can be installed in your yard or just about anywhere in the sun. Water flows through the panel, gets heated by the sun and returns to your storage tank which is basically a larger hot water heater. In colder climates a system called a closed loop is used. In this system a water glycol mix is used and the mixture runs through a heat exchanger to heat the water. The water is isolated from the mixture for safety reasons. The glycol is actually safe. This type of glycol is used in toothpaste. I don’t know if that qualifies as a “Fun Fact” but read your label on your toothpaste. It’s there.

Solar thermal can be used to heat your swimming pool. I personally have installed over 2,000 of these type systems. In this case your pool is you storage tank. Water from you pool is diverted through the panels and the sun heats the water before it is sent back to your pool. My self I don’t understand why anyone owning a pool and heating it does not use solar. This type of system pays itself off in 2-3 years and can last 20+ years. Solar in almost all regions in the U.S. can extend your swim season by 3 months. In warmer climates, like Florida, you can swim the year round. The fact that your system is paid off in 3 years so it starts to pay you back for up to and beyond 17 more years. You don’t get any payback from your fossil fuel heater or heat pump. So in reality Solar is not only free (in this case after 3 years) but it will pay you cash to use it. Could it be possible that if you look up the term “win/win” in the dictionary there will be a picture of a Solar Pool Heating system? I’ll have to check and get back to you on this fact.

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A Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is a subsidy paid by The UK Government, through its Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets (OfGEM), to a qualifying producer of heat. An RHI scheme is being introduced in The UK in two phases. During the current, first phase, RHIs are being paid to accredited, non-domestic producers of heat from nominated, non-fossil-fuel sources.

What are The UK Government’s objectives in paying RHIs?

The EU ‘Renewables Directive’ or the’DIRECTIVE 2009/28/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources’ sets mandatory targets for proportions of Member States’ final use of energy from nominated, non-fossil-fuel sources. For The UK, the target is 15%. The UK is obliged to achieve this target by 2020.

The RHI-scheme provides incentives for The UK to comply with The Renewables Directive. It also helps The UK to meet objectives of increased security of supply of energy and reduced emissions of greenhouse-gases from use of fossil-fuels.

Who is eligible to be paid it? For how long will it be paid?

Non-domestic organisations may apply now to OfGEM for accreditation and payments under the RHI scheme. Owners of accredited heating systems receive payments for useful heat generated and metered. For example, an RHI is payable quarterly for twenty years for supply of heat from qualifying, non-domestic, biomass-fuelled, heating systems.

Can I afford to invest in supplying heat from wood-fuel?

Locally produced wood-fuel from sustainably-managed sources is a cheaper, less damaging, more secure and more sustainable source of heat than, for example, heating-oil or LPG.

Changing fuel used for heating from oil to wood-chips would typically halve fuel-costs. If using a qualifying, wood-chip-fuelled boiler, rated at less than 200kW, income from RHI-payments would, at typical fuel-rates in 2012 March, result effectively in free fuel and quarterly income of the order of 4p/kWh of useful heat metered.

When is an RHI-rate determined?

Once an installation is accredited under the RHI scheme, its owner will receive an appropriate rate of subsidy from OfGEM. Accreditation can only be given once an eligible installation has first been commissioned.

Is an agreed rate fixed?

Agreed RHI rates will be adjusted annually, normally in March, in line with inflation.

Where can I find more about the RHI?

LC Energy is a leading provider of wood fuel and wood burning biomass systems. Clients include schools, hospitals, airports, including Heathrow and many other commercial, residential and industrial premises.

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The most common way to generate Hydro is by using Dams. It is a competitive means of generation costing around 3-5 cents in U.S. dollars per Kilowatt Hour (KWH). This statistic is based on plants producing 10 or more megawatts.

Some common terms for generation are:

1) Conventional or Dams. The largest in the world in terms of installed capacity is Three Gorges in China. It is capable of producing 21,000 MW. The leader in actual production is the Itaipu Dam located on the borders of Brazil and Paraguay.

2) Pumped Storage is moving water between 2 reservoirs stored at different elevations.

3) Run of the river is based solely on current to produce power. This could be a system installed in the creek in your backyard. The current needs to be no less than 2 mph with a minimal drop of 2 ft. The current turns a generator which produces DC electricity which can be converted to AC by means of an inverter.

4) Tide is to me one of the more fascinating ways because it uses ocean or river current taking into account the changing tides. Even though this method is not widely used it is gaining momentum. Right now it is being used in a 6 countries with South Korea out in front. They have 2 up and running, 1 being built and 1 being proposed. Russia has 1 going and 3 proposed. I’ve heard these referred to as “current harvesting turbines”. They are also called “hydrokinetic” systems.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia they have a system that has been producing 20 MWs of power since 1984. They say the cost for production is right in line with Wind Power but is far more predictable. The down side to these systems is the fact that they alter the tides. For example the one in Halifax has had an impact as far away as Boston.

There are experiments going on in New York’s East River and talk about using them in the Mississippi river.

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is granting permits in several different states including Mississippi for large scale systems.In July of 2009 a company called Free Flow started test a 1/3 scale model in the Mississippi river and a full scale model in their labs. They received 7.4 million in funding from investors and the U.S. department of Energy. That in itself tells us there is interest.

As with anything that the government gets involved in they will have to prove number one that it will not have an impact on wildlife in the area. It seems that the draw back is that this type of Alternative Energy is deemed to be an unproven technology.

I say we have to get a start somewhere. Why not here in the U.S.?

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Did you know that there are good and bad ways of storing firewood? Of course we deliver firewood to you in bulk bags, and that’s a very suitable storage method because it largely keeps the elements out, but if you have a small or narrow storage area then bulk bags can get in the way.

Storing Firewood in Small or Cramped Conditions

If our firewood bags restrict the access way, or if you get your firewood delivered loose on the road verge, then you need to read on.

Firewood is almost always delivered in logs of even length, but the widths vary widely from large logs, too big to burn without being split, to small pieces used as kindling. It may be tempting to store all the big logs on the bottom of the pile, but this means that you may not have the right mix of kindling and bigger pieces, so try to stack them in varying thickness throughout.

Storing firewood by placing it in a crisscross (#) pattern it will keep drier and let the air pass through, but if you plan to cover the load, then stacking it neatly in rows that get shorter (like the sides of a pyramid) is also acceptable and may take up less space.

The Secrets of Stacking Hassle Free Firewood:

Do it right the first time and take the time to stack your firewood for ease of access, ease of use over time, the best conditions for the wood and mess-free.

Don’t stack firewood higher than your waist. Make a new row rather than a higher pile. This will reduce the strain of lifting, damage in high wind and slippage.

Don’t stack too close to a fence or the house. You don’t want to encourage white ants – or worse, firewood may dent or rot the wall or fence.

Don’t stack directly on the ground. Use 2 lines of pavers or any other non-wood base to lift the firewood at least 10cm off the ground to restrict white-ant access.

Don’t apply insecticides. You (and your neighbours) are going to be breathing in smoke from your fire so don’t poison it with chemicals.

Check for insects before bringing your firewood indoors.

Unless your firewood is freshly cut, cover the top (but not the bottom) to prevent heavy rain from wetting the surface. (Rain will not soak into properly seasoned wood, but surface damp may make your fire more difficult to light.)

As well as the usual Australian insect hazards – spiders! – be careful of European wasps. Firewood stacks make ideal nesting places and while wasp nests can start small, they, and their population can grow very rapidly. If you stack your firewood outside of the containers we bring it in, please inspect it regularly for wasps, particularly if you do not disturb the pile for some time. If you do have a wasp nest in your wood pile, please contact the professionals to have it removed – wasp stings are very painful and if you have an allergy, or enough wasps sting you, the stings can be very dangerous.

There is nothing like a real fire to warm more than just the room and occupants, it creates a place to gather and talk or to simply gaze at in the relaxing warmth.

Enjoy your winter.

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Residential Photovoltaic (PV) Systems

At the top of the home solar project list is a residential solar energy system, an array of solar panels that are mounted on the roof to provide electricity for the home. Advancements in solar technology are making them more affordable, and rebates and tax incentives offered by government programs offer additional savings. Many homeowners opt to lease a system from solar providers. The provider installs, insures and maintains the system and homeowners pay for the electricity that the system generates, saving around 10 to 15 percent on monthly electricity bills.

Home PV systems typically pay for themselves in around ten years. After the payback period, the electricity that the systems generate is virtually free. Since home PV systems can last as long as thirty years, that’s a substantial savings. Professional contractors install most residential solar energy systems, although DIY systems are becoming more available and user-friendlier. As home PV systems are modular, homeowners have the option to start small and add more panels to the system over time.

Solar Water Heating Systems

With a solar hot water system, flat-plate collectors absorb heat from the sun and transfer that heat to a liquid. The heated liquid travels to an insulated tank where it heats water for domestic use or for swimming pools. These systems can cut costs for hot water by more than 50 percent. Government incentive programs offer substantial savings on installation costs. The systems typically pay for themselves in less than five years.

Solar Cabin Kits

Several manufacturers offer battery-operated solar panel kits that let homeowners provide electricity to a garden shed or cabin. A single solar panel collects energy from the sun and stores it in a battery. While these kits typically only generate enough electricity to power one or two light bulbs, they are relatively inexpensive and easy to install. Government incentive programs make them even more affordable.

Solar Outdoor Lighting

One of the most inexpensive home solar projects is a solar outdoor lighting product. They require no wiring and are easy to install. Most come with sensors that turn the lights on at dusk and turn them off again in the morning. Some have motion detectors, adding a measure of security to the home. Solar lights are available in a range of decorative styles as well.

From an extensive array of solar panels that generates all the electricity that a home consumes to a solar recharger that in four hours produces enough energy to recharge a mobile phone, tablet or MP3 player, solar products for the home help preserve the planet’s resources and offer opportunities for people to save money too.

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