Thursday, March 27, 2008

Legislative Alert


  • You are an important voice in Juneau!

  • State legislators are currently in session working on a bill which proposes increased funding for Alaska Housing and Finance Corporation programs for these types of weatherization projects.

  • It is Senate Bill 289: Home conservation and weatherization, and it’s very important to ask your Representatives to pass this one. It allows AHFC to assist Alaskans through existing programs to deal with home energy conservation and weatherization without limiting it to low income. It would still give first priority to those most in need. The increase in demand for this work will create job training and employment opportunities for Interior Alaska. Please write your local Representative today www.legis.state.ak.us

Retrofit to Save Money!


So How’s Your House Doing?

Rich Seifert

The reality of a few days at 40 below is always an impressive reminder of where we live. There you are listening to the furnace running and running, on and on. Darn, I should have added insulation to the attic or weather-stripped the doors. Now there’s that frost on the door threshold, and I can see air leaking out the gable ends of the attic.

Spring officially begins today, signaling the time to start on projects around the house. So what to do? Since I work at the University’s Cooperative Extension Service, I have some helpful suggestions. Not only that, but these suggestions are in a high priority order. That means what’s at the top of the list is the most effective thing to do, and doing those things first saves the most money. All this comes from our publication “Tips on Insulting an Existing Home”, available on our website (http://www.uaf.edu/coop-ext/faculty/seifert/) or by calling 474-7201.

This checklist assumes that you are starting with a fairly standard existing house relative to energy features: for example, an uninsulated basement: 2x4 walls insulated with R-11 fiberglass; a flat ceiling insulated with R-19 fiberglass; insulated-glass windows or single-pane windows with storm windows; a relatively leaky 5-7 air changes per hour at 50 pascals (ACH50), and an atmospherically vented furnace or boiler. The checklist starts with easy, low-cost measures, and includes progressively more costly or difficult measures.

So here’s the list of winning actions for warming up the home team:

- Air seal foundations and attics. Identify and seal major holes in the foundation and attic; patch holes in ducts through unconditioned spaces.

- Fix moisture problems and insulate basement walls.

- Air seal the house; weatherstrip windows and doors. Be aware that tightening up a house can lead to higher moisture levels that may have to be dealt with.

- Add insulation to the attic, but air seal the attic first! It is best to install attic insulation by blowing it on top of the old insulation. This adds insulation value and fills voids in the insulation blanket.

- Insulate the water heater. If you haven’t already done this, it is always a good idea. Water heater insulation blankets can be purchased at many local building supply stores.

- Tune up the heating system, inspect it and ensure that the mechanical systems are in top working order, efficient and reliable. This is always a good plan when we need the heat so much!

- Finally, a good idea but expensive, is to replace your boiler or furnace. This is especially wise if it is more than 20 years old. Newer boilers and systems are more efficient than the older models and you should buy a heating system with its own air supply directly from outdoors and with a closed exhaust, so that it cannot be “back drafted”. This can occur if the exhaust stack is not sealed from possible negative pressure from other appliances such as a clothes dryer.

This checklist gives you some money-saving ideas for getting started with your own retrofit. Visit the Cooperative Extension website or give our office a call for more information.

Rich Seifert is Energy and Housing Specialist for the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His professional mission is to retrofit Alaska's homes with insulation for the future, and helping Alaska to a sustainable economic future.



Friday, March 14, 2008

Don't be Fuelish!



2nd Annual Don't be Fuelish Competition

Sign up now!!

May 1st - September 30th, 2008

Tired of fighting traffic?
Want to save money on gas?
Want cleaner air?
Would you like to enjoy cleaner air?

This is a friendly competition among organizations in town to raise awareness of the need to save on fossil fuel usage.

Save miles and money by carpooling, biking, walking, taking the bus, or other alternative transportation to work. Keep track of miles saved, and the organization saving the most will win the coveted "gas can" trophy, currently held by U.S. Fish & Wildlife.

Please email lori@northern.org
to sign up as a coordinator for your organization or for more information.

Energy Focus

Lighten Your Electric Bill

Install New Lights

John Davies, CCHRC Research Director
photo from Cold Climate Housing Research Center

Fairbanks Daily Newsminer 03/13/08 Section A3

CCHRC Building Manager Dave Shippey Installs a CFL Lightbulb

There are many different types of energy efficient lighting available. For indoor use, typical choices involve replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFL) or old fluorescent tubes (T12) with newer ones (T8 or T5). LED lighting is available for some uses such as holiday and closet lighting, exit signs, work lights, etc., but for general illumination they are still somewhat expensive and limited in availability.

Replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs is as easy as unscrewing the old bulb and replacing it with a CFL of comparable light output, usually measured in lumens. The energy savings can be 50-80% and most bulb types are readily available. This is a classic no-brainer, although there are some limitations—they don’t work very well at low temperatures, if at all, and switching the light off and on many times per day can significantly shorten the bulb life. They are perfect for locations where they are likely to be on for several hours per day such as kitchens, living rooms, play or work areas, and bedrooms.

Replacing old T12 fluorescent tubes with the newer T8 ones is another matter. To use the new tubes in the old fixtures and get the maximum value in energy savings and light quality you must replace the old magnetic ballast with a new electronic ballast. The electronic ballasts are more energy efficient; eliminate the hum and flicker associated with the old magnetic versions; they have instant, rapid, and programmed start options; and some are dimmable.

A difficulty is that they are wired differently in the fixture, so replacing the ballast requires some electrical acumen. If you don’t have the skills yourself or don’t want to hire an electrician, you can simply buy a new fixture that has the ballast installed in it. The rewiring is not hard (it took me about 20 minutes to revamp a 4-tube fixture), and ballasts for 2- and 4-tube fixtures are readily available in local electrical stores at a cost ranging from about $18 to $40. For the project in our kitchen, replacing four T12 tubes with four T8 tubes, I figure that we will recoup our cost for the ballasts in about one year, a 100% return on our investment! Not bad.

In some applications, T5 tubes are a better choice. They are slightly more energy efficient, generally brighter and well suited for indirect or diffused lighting or very high ceilings. You will need to buy new fixtures as the T5 tubes are shorter than the comparable T12/T8 standard lengths.

Almost any choice that you make in replacing old lighting with newer options will reduce your electric bill and you can feel good about also reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Additional Information

Cold Climate Housing Research Center

EPA Energy Star Program: Light Bulbs and Fixtures

DOE Building Technologies Program: Lighting