Posts Tagged ‘energy efficiency’
Green and Sustainable Building in Historic Old Town San Diego
Passive solar design, green and sustainable building are not new inventions. Who would have thought that we would be returning to the house design principles of more than a century and a half ago? I was in San Diego recently and visited the part of town they call Old Town San Diego. I don’t think the buildings…
Read MoreSome Solar Energy Is Unwelcomed in Summer
Yikes! It’s nearly 100 degrees here in North Carolina and the humidity nearly matches it. It was still over 90 degrees at dinnertime! I, for one, don’t find solar energy all that welcome this time of year. Maybe if I was generating electricity from it I would feel differently. But the solar energy I’m talking about makes…
Read MoreGreen Mansions: Building Green – Part Six
Sustainable building materials are more and more available these days. “Sustainable” means the materials are manufactured in environmentally responsible ways. They may be made from recycled materials, such as tile or wallboard.Some are made from agricultural wastes, like wheat straw and rice hulls. Still others are made from rapidly renewable materials, such as bamboo or…
Read MoreGreen Mansions: Building Green – Part Five
An energy management system can reduce your electric bill and help reduce energy demand at peak times. This system monitors and controls what equipment can come on during certain hours of the day. It may block an electric water heater from starting until an air conditioner that is already running has completed its cycle. Most…
Read More“Green” Mansions: Building Green – Part Four
When it comes to “building green,” There are other energy-saving measures that can occur behind the scenes. Proper insulation, including draft blocking to prevent convective loops of cold or warm air within walls and ceilings will reduce heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. I’ve found that in southern climates insulation and building tightness…
Read MoreSummertime Energy Tips
Are your windows locked? We don’t tend to think of air leakage in the summer like we do in the wintertime. When it’s cold, we can feel the cold drafts wafting through the house. But in the summer, warm drafts are not as easily felt. But the more hot air that seeps into your house,…
Read More“Green” Mansions: Building Green – Part Three
An even simpler way to think about how to situate parts of a house with regard to climate and weather is to imagine yourself standing outside on your property on a sunny, windy winter day. To stay warm, you would naturally turn away from the north wind and face the southern sun. You might even…
Read MoreEnergy Efficient Air Conditioners
These days, it seems like everything anyone sells is energy efficient, green, or sustainable in some way. Those are the words plastered on the products we buy because without those claims, a product is virtually unsaleable in this climate (pardon the pun) of environmental zeal. This is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say, but…
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