Clock Controls and Programmable Thermostats

The most powerful technique of energy conservation is turning off equipment when it is not needed. To accomplish this the user must follow three steps;

1.       Choose controls that have enough flexibility to change to all planned variations of work.

2.       Clear instructions on using and setting controls.

3.       Ability to over-ride setting for unusual demands

There are three basic types of controls, they are either digital or analog types:

1.       Manual – Switches and dimmers

2.       Open Loop Automatic-  timer

3.       Closed Loop Automatic – thermostat, humidistat and dimmable ballast w/photo sensor

It is recommended that when choosing an electronic timer that Leap Year and Daylight Savings be included in the programming if using anything more than a daily timer. Also if battery backup is required during power outages an alarm warning of low battery power is a good feature.

Ease of use is a fundamental requirement for programming switches. If people can not easily change or program a switch they tend not to use it.  Ensure that switches are easily understood and the directions and buttons will remain legible for life of switch.

Override Problem

Disadvantage of cheap timers is that they are disabled the first time someone uses the equipment at an irregular time.  Proper features and ease of programming can eliminate this problem.

Switches are based on reading input information and then providing output, such as in chart below, these are not related and only show types of inputs and outputs:

Installation Issues

The controls should be accessible, well explained and well protected. The device itself should be installed where it is accessible for people who are programming it and using the equipment it controls.  In some facilities, such as office buildings, it may be necessary to install device in one location and overrides in another.

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The loans can help you tap the equity in your house. Just don’t get tripped up by greedy salespeople.

Interesting article from Money Magazine warning US seniors about the risks to Reverse Mortgages.  Would not the same problems exist in Canada?

(MONEY Magazine) — Last year, borrowers took out more than 132,000 reverse mortgages – 50% more than the year before and almost 10 times as many as five years ago. Such loans, as you may already know, allow you to draw down your home equity if you’re 62 or older without repaying it as long as you stay in your house.

That’s good news. Reverse mortgages can help cash-strapped retirees generate extra money for living expenses, pay for home improvements, lower other debts or fund the occasional splurge.

There’s also a downside to reverse mortgages’ growing popularity, however. Loan-origination fees that can top $7,000 on a $500,000 home are attracting aggressive salespeople intent on getting you to take out a reverse mortgage whether you need one or not. Some may try to persuade you to invest the proceeds in high-priced financial products, such as annuities, boosting their commissions even more.

No one can say how widespread such tactics are. But the Senate Special Committee on Aging was concerned enough to hold a hearing in December, while FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) issued an investor alert in March. Several lawsuits have also been filed, including a class-action alleging, among other things, that Financial Freedom, one of the largest reverse-mortgage lenders, encouraged brokers to steer seniors into the loans under the guise of providing financial planning services. Financial Freedom says the allegations "are baseless and without merit" and that the company "does not sell, require, promote or recommend annuities to reverse-mortgage borrowers."

So if you’ve been considering a reverse mortgage, how can you avoid making a misstep? Follow these three tips.

Make sure you really need it

A reverse mortgage can generate cash, but it’s not the only way or necessarily the best. Up-front costs can exceed 10% of the loan, making a reverse mortgage a very expensive option if you’re borrowing a small amount or you plan to move in a few years. In such cases, you might pay far less by taking out a home-equity line of credit. And hanging on to your home might not be a great idea. You may be able to generate more income by selling and moving to a less expensive place.

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Energy Audits and Your Home

Posted in June 22nd, 2009

by admin in Home Improvement, energy audits

Grant Table for ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes

Effective March 30, 2009

Thinking of ways to make your home more energy-efficient? Here’s what you can do to reduce your energy consumption and receive grants through ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) is offering residential energy efficiency evaluations through licensed service organizations to owners of single-family homes, including detached, semi-detached and low-rise multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) that are no more than 3 storeys high. Also eligible are some small buildings of no more than 3 storeys for which at least 50 percent of the floor area is used as one or more permanent residences. Under ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes, property owners can qualify for federal grants by improving the energy efficiency of their home and reducing their home’s impact on the environment.

Download the PDF

Receive 25% More Money!

As part of the Government of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program has been expanded to help 200,000 more homeowners cover the cost of making energy-efficiency retrofits to their homes. The expanded time-limited program includes a $300-million increase in funding over two years.

Energy advisors that are certified by NRCan conduct a detailed, on-site evaluation of your home’s energy use from the attic down to the foundation. They then provide you with a personalized report, including a checklist of recommended retrofits to improve the energy efficiency of your home or MURB and, in some cases, reduce water consumption. The report also shows the grant amounts for each eligible upgrade that you can receive by carrying out these energy-saving improvements.

On the following pages, you will find a list of improvements and retrofits that are eligible under the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program and the corresponding grant amounts. The maximum grant you can receive for a home is $5,000. In the case of MURBs, the maximum grant receivable is $5,000 per dwelling unit. The maximum grant for property owners with multiple properties is $500,000.

The grant is calculated and based on the grant amounts and eligibility requirements that are in effect at the time of the post-retrofit evaluation. You must complete your retrofits and receive your post-retrofit evaluation by March 31, 2011, or within 18 months from the date of your pre-retrofit evaluation report, whichever comes first and subject to available funding.

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The History of the Blower Door by Abba Anderson

Posted in June 22nd, 2009

by admin in Home Inspections, Insulation, energy audits

The History of the Blower Door by Abba Anderson Perhaps no piece of equipment has changed the way energy professionals look at buildings more than the blower door. Over the past 15 years, entire diagnostic procedures have evolved around this relatively simple device that can make subtle, but measurable, changes in house pressures. The blower door as we know and love it today springs from technology first used in Sweden in 1977, where it was actually a blower window. The idea migrated to the United States with Ake Blomsterberg, who came to Princeton University to do research in 1979. “We started using it because we were trying to understand infiltration,” says David Grimsrud, who was a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in Berkeley, California, at the time. According to Grimsrud, the Princeton researchers decided to mount the fan in a door because door sizes are more uniform than windows. Ken Gadsby (who was and still is at Princeton) recalls that they based the height of the lower door panel on his inseam length! With the help of the blower door, the researchers discovered that hidden leaks accounted for a much greater proportion of air leakage in a home than the more obvious culprits, such as windows, doors, and electrical outlets–a giant leap forward in our understanding of how a house operates (and malfunctions). Researchers at LBNL began to see how useful the blower door would be in weatherization and retrofitting work. Blower door companies started springing up to serve the new market. LBNL energy researcher Max Sherman even got into the business of manufacturing blower doors for a short time. “The Department of Energy put out a solicitation to buy ten blower doors, so my father and I started a company and bid on the contract and we won,” Sherman remembers. These were big, heavy, clunky blower doors, made of plywood and Formica. “We were all working out of our garages,” recalls Gary Anderson, cofounder of the Energy Conservatory. In 1986, Home Energy (then Energy Auditor and Retrofitter) identified 13 blower door manufacturers, with combined revenues for sales and testing nearing $10 million per year (see “A Healthy Outlook for the Blower Door Industry,” EA&R May/June ‘86, p. 6). Home Energy estimated that blower door sales alone reached $1.2 million in 1985. The focus at that time was on making more powerful fans in more manageable sizes. And Then There Were Three

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