On June 26, at the Cambridge, MA YWCA Emergency Family Shelter, about 30 people from Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET)

Reduced the leakiness of the building by 12% (reducing the air leakage by 1,500 cubic feet per minute as tested by a pre and post blower door test.  Each 100 cfm reduction = 7 therms of gas savings.  Thus saving $1,480 for them over the next decade in heating.)

Installed 20 cfls [compact fluorescent lights] (saving probably $11 per year on each one because of the high occupancy of the building)

Installed 3 incandescent exit signs with LED retrofit kits (saving 36 watts per bulb  24 hours a day all year long.  Since there were 2 bulbs in each of the 3 signs this will save over $388 in total per year)

Installed 7 low flow showerheads (each saving $42 each in heating the water and $26 in water and sewer charges) $476

Installed 2 programmable thermostats which can save up to 10% on heating if used to turn the temperature down during the winter when no one is home or everyone is sleeping.

We did other work too, but we should save the shelter at least $14,260 in total in energy bills over the next decade.  

Thanks for all your work.

Thomas Bjelkeman Pettersson on the global swadeshi ning is working on a “flat-pack emergency home” which includes most of what you need for a functional emergency (or camping) home.

We intend to actually put together a working demonstration and show that this can be done for under a couple of hundred dollars/euros.

The demonstration will most likely include the following:

Housing / shelter

Hexayurt – our favorite emergency shelter system

Water purification

Siphon filter – an in production unit, costs around $10, made in India.

Chlorination

Light and power

Nova S201 – solar light and mobile phone charger

Sunday, Jun 13th, 12:30-5:00 pm

Last call, we still need at least 20 people!

Weatherization Barnraising at the Democracy Center

Right in Harvard Square

45 Mt. Auburn St.

(Leakiest site we’ve every seen! Over 18,000 cubic feet per minute as measured by the blower door.)

Home Energy Efficiency Team

http://www.heetma.com

1.  Consistently demonstrate practical, affordable energy efficiency and renewable energy ideas, devices, and systems at the over 4000 weekly farmers’ markets that take place across the USA from Memorial Day to Halloween or Thanksgiving.  

The people who attend farmers’ markets are a core constituency for green technology and practical applications that save money, energy, and resources.  They are likely to be early adopters who can spread those possibilities into the community.  I’ve done energy demos at my local farmers’ market and know that a renewable energy company sometimes participates in the year-long weekly market near Providence, RI.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more examples out there.  

Do energy education weekly at as many of those 4000 weekly markets as possible and over one growing season energy use and attitudes would change significantly.  See Mr Franklin’s Folks for one vision of how this might work.

I went walking down by Magazine Beach today

and picked up

a clear plastic cup with clear cover

a black plastic cup cover

a white plastic cup cover

a smaller plastic cup, crushed

a broken white styrofoam “clamshell” container

a brown plastic tray for cookies or something like that

a white plastic spoon, dirty

and an orange straw

At the NESEA Building Energy Conference in March, the winner of the MA Zero Net Energy House contest was announced.  It is the Stephens/Clarke Residence in Montague, MA which was built by Bick Corsa.  The 1152 square foot, 3 bedroom house cost $180,000, was monitored from January 1, 2009 to January 1, 2010, and produced two and a half times the energy it consumed.  This Zero Net Energy House is actually a Positive Net Energy House.

The house is highly insulated, with R42 walls, R100 ceiling, and stands on an R30 insulated slab.  It is powered by 4.94 kW of solar electric panels, solar air and hot water heaters, and passive solar heat gained through U-.17 windows (about R 5.8, according to my calculations).  There is a mini-split air source heat pump serving as a furnace and demand hot water heaters as back-up in case it’s needed.

The house used 1,959 kilowatts for the entire year with an annual energy bill for heating, cooling, hot water, cooking, appliances, and lighting of $392.  They sold 2,933 kilowatt hours worth $586 back to the grid over that same period.

Got the following email and thought I’d pass it on in case somebody here might be interested:

Do you want to know more about green building? Do you know a student who might want to earn college credit to learn about green building?

My name is Ryan Harb. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a finishing graduate student from UMass and in May I will become the first person in the country to receive a MS in Green Building. I have a strong interest in ecological design and for 4 years I have been transforming my single-family home in Amherst, a college rental property, into a model sustainable residence. One project I’m working on now is a front yard transformation – creating a 5000 s.f. highly productive, food producing, permaculture garden at my home. Designing sustainable (food and other) systems is one of many aspects of green building.

This summer I will be co-teaching a 3-week Sustainable Design and Construction course at Sirius Community in Shutesbury, MA – a model educational and sustainable ecovillage in scenic western Massachusetts. This is one of the few opportunities in the country to receive college credit while learning experientially about sustainable design and construction. All students will receive natural building certification upon completion of this course.

I’ve been using my recycled solar cloches for years to start my garden early.  This year, here in Planting Zone 6A, I started planting a few days ago with tomatoes and basil in one solar cloche, zucchini in another, roquette and broccoli in a simple single cloche, and spinach in the space between them.  It was a great early Spring day as I planted the seeds and I was happy to spend an hour in the garden.  I’ll be happier when I see the seeds become seedlings and happier still, a couple of months down the road, when I get to taste my fresh vegetables.

Next week, I plan to plant more spinach and sugarsnap peas.

In the background of two of the pictures, you can see my Dirty F*ck*ng Solar Hippie Backpack which I have been using for about five years.

Climate change is moot.  If we halt air and water pollution (using the zero emission standard of such treehugging radicals as DuPont), end our dependence on foreign fuels (through systemic efficiency coupled with cogeneration and renewables), and create new energy jobs here at home, then we can save ourselves.  The planet can take of itself.

For instance, the Home Energy Efficiency Team of Cambridge, MA  began doing monthly weatherization barnraisings in the summer of 2008. Today they are in contact with about 20 other communities in MA, RI, and NY which are doing something similar and there are other groups in MA, NH, ME, CA that are doing solar barnraisings.

Just for a change, we should spend some of the time and media real estate on a few of the ready solutions like that (weatherization, insulation, efficiency, renewables) instead of the phony debate about global warming, global weirding (a term Friedman got from Hunter Lovins, I believe), and climate change we have been indulging in for years.  I don’t care if you believe in anthropogenic climate change or not.  If you insulate your band joist and attic hatch or install a setback thermostat, you’re going to save money and energy and reduce greenhouse gases and other pollutants whether you trust the science or consider it a liberal conspiracy.