Make Magazine

You know how we love our DIY folks here at AltE! Soon we’ll be reaching a whole new audience because you’ll be seeing us in the May issues of Make Magazine! In fact, AltE will be featured on the back cover of their DIY Renewable Energy issue!!

We are very excited to start our relationship with Make Magazine because we know they are as passionate about innovation and discovery as we are. We’re also considering attending the Make Magazine Maker Faire so we can show off some of the cool stuff we’ve been doing in the AltE Labs!

Either way, you’ll be seeing more of us here in the blog, via video tips and in places like Make Magazine - grab it on newstands or subscribe today!

Our own Amy Beaudet, one of our resident experts on all things solar thermal, was recently covered in a blog post on Boston Green Scene. Katina Fontes, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage who is EcoBroker Certified, wrote a great article all about our Solar Heating class here at AltE in Hudson, MA.

Please take one hour out of your evening on Saturday, March 28th, at 8:30PM, to join millions of people worldwide in an event called Earth Hour.

You can read all about it at the Earth Hour website here: www.earthhour.org

It’s a worldwide, voluntary rolling local blackout!

Is your house, neighborhood, township, city, region, county, state signed up? Make some calls and send some emails; this is a good way to spread the word about energy consumption!

~Ben
altE U.

My 3rd electric bill came in at the same usage as the 1st full month: 73kWh.

My latest natural gas bill also came in and, though it wasn’t as low as I’d anticipated in my last blog entry, it does show a substantial reduction over the previous tenant’s usage. The actual meter reading showed about 86 CCF of gas used in January and February combined (72 {estimated} and 14 CCF, respectively).

The usage history for this apartment for February (the month for which I have the longest record, 3 years), shows a much steeper decline than what I suspect actually occurred. In 2007, the previous tenant was billed for 111 therms (CCF) for February; in 2008, the figure was 34 therms. I suspect that the apartment was unoccupied for a substantial part of the month (or it was unusually warm in Columbus!). If we assume my own consumption was about the same for both January and February this year, then I used about 43 therms in February (though I think it was somewhat lower than January’s usage).

As it is, the graph, going from 111 to 34 to 14, could be a poster child for conservation and efficiency! But 111 down to about 40 is still a 64% decrease– that’s nothing to sneeze at, and I haven’t even done all that I could do to minimize consumption and maximize efficiency.

~Ben
altE

I finally had a visit from the plumber, as promised by my landlord. It happened while I was at work one day last week. I found out he’d been there after I got home when I turned on a water tap in my apartment and was startled by the loud burst of air and water that indicated the pipes had been partly emptied. I knew right away what must have happened and went down to the basement to see the result. Indeed, my hot water tank had been plumbed backwards, as evidenced by the fact that the plumber had refit the pipes to switch the hot and cold connections.

So last weekend I set to work installing the insulation I’d purchased earlier, for the tank and the hot water pipes. Here are some snaps of the process and results.

Fitting the insulation blanket

Wrapping the tank is easy enough, but I’m fortunate in having the most accessible, isolated tank in the basement of my building. Some of the others are pressed right against one another, making the prospect of wrapping them individually somewhat less than rosy. As it was, access to the back of the tank was tight enough. I passed the blanket inside the gas pipeline (which descends from the basement ceiling right beside the tank), but outside the pressure relief downpipe, which was plumbed very close to the tank.

The only unfortunate part about these blankets is that they’re not designed to cover the tops of the tanks, where heat loss is substantial; that’s to avoid interfering with the exhaust port. So some heat loss will continue to occur from the top of the tank. Still, I expect it’s a winning proposition.

The blanket installed

Above is a shot of the finished tank. The insulation kit (purchased a Lowe’s) included vinyl tape to close the jacket.

Thermal pipe sleeve

Next, I installed thermal sleeves on the exposed hot water pipes, starting at the hot water tank. The plumbing is a mix of copper and Pex (or equivalent).

There’s something of a spider’s web of 1/2″ pipes on the ceiling because each unit has hookups for a washing machine, resulting in a lot more plumbing. I’m not using my hookups, so the hot water lines are basically just unfortunate radiators in my case. (Well, they would be in any case, wouldn’t they?)

I purchased the cheaper insulating sleeves and used up three 6′ lengths but ideally need more. I covered the main line going to my bathroom, but skipped the line to the washer/sinkhookup and the line going toward the kitchen. I can do those later when I buy more lengths of insulation. In some places, I’ll have to separate the hot and cold lines, as they were sometimes anchored together, in contact, probably for the plumber’s convenience.

Freshly sleeved piping

Here’s a shot of my work, showing the compromises I had to make to get around the flush-mount pipe hangers. Using this ready-made product is very simple and takes very little time (unless your plumbing is awkwardly placed). Learning how to make turns can also be rather fun!

In any case, it’s a good starting project and can be done by almost anyone with a scissors and reasonable manual dexterity.

And it puts you one step further along on the road toward energy efficiency. Conservation and efficiency are often achieved incrementally. Start now!

I received my first full month’s bill for electricity at my new apartment. I didn’t bother to measure “baseline” usage; that is, before doing what I could to reduce consumption and increase efficiency. One of the first things I did in this small apartment was to replace almost all the light bulbs with CFLs. So this first bill IS my benchmark.

73kWh, or 2.43kWh per day

In my favor is the fact that heat is not from electricity in my building (except to run the furnace fan); that and living alone and being very frugal!

~Ben
AltE

The filter port, taped

Here are two photos of the taping job I did on my furnace in the basement. I’m sorry I don’t have the brand of tape that I used; I can get that later for those interested. But it is NOT plastic/vinyl duct tape. It IS metal tape; that is, it’s made of thin metal, probably aluminum, backed by a strong adhesive. It’s heavy-duty stuff and I would not recommend classic duct tape for ducting! The heating and cooling effects will wear down the adhesives and tape material, rendering it useless in short order. We’ve all seen old duct tape dropping off surfaces in brittle ribbons. Be sure to clean the surfaces where the metal tape will be applied– dust will prevent adhesion. I used a dust rag followed by a damp sponge.

I was not alone in this work. Another resident in my building helped me start work on what has proven a more substantial project than we’d first thought. The building has a few years on it and some of the galvanized ducting joints have come loose. Either they were only fitted, but never screwed, together, or screws have come loose. Some of the joints were covered in a white fabric tape that my neighbor seems to think is asbestos-based. Danger, Will Robinson! Please recognize that asbestos (no longer available) poses a serious health hazard and should be dealt with by professionals.

First two joints, taped

My neighbor and I reattached a few ducts, cleaned and taped quite a few joints, tightened hanger wires as needed, and even used a can of spray foam insulation to seal some joints. There’s more yet to be done, but I expect that, in the case of my own apartment, we’ve reduced heat loss by, say, 5-10%, maybe more.

This sort of work is an easy way to make a difference in your home energy consumption. You’ll lower your bills and reduce your carbon footprint. The cost for the metal tape is minimal (I just saw a roll online for under $3) and the time required is not substantial for a few joints.

We had an ice storm last week. It didn’t seem so bad during the storm – at least in our little house – but when we woke up to no power we knew something was amiss. Apparently there were 250,000 other people who woke up with the same issue that morning.

In reality, we were really lucky. We have a propane stove and a French press so there was coffee and a hot breakfast. The house was still pretty warm and I had my iPhone so I could connect with the outside world and find out that most of Massachusetts was blacked out along with me. We have plenty of candles and lots of cozy fleece blankets.

At first I had an instinct to escape the house with my husband and small daughter but my husband didn’t want to drive so we stayed in. He picked up his biography on Miles Davis, I started a fire and we set up our four year old with some coloring and alphabet work. I picked up my needlepoint and we sat, in the silence of our small sitting room in front of the fire, quietly occupied as a family.

Rather than being stir crazy and seeking sounds and activity, I found myself relaxing. We were warm and full and happily occupied. The rhythm of my stitching became almost meditative and the dogs and child were lulled by the sounds and warmth of the fire.

I’ve been reading and writing a great deal about the holidays for the last weeks. I’m gearing up to host 10+ for Christmas dinner after feeding 23 at Thanksgiving. Although our family doesn’t go in for the tons of presents under the tree thing, the holidays still manage to stress me out a bit and now, I think back to that morning with no power and no heat and I’m so thankful because it reminds me what a holiday should be like.

I’m always busy – working, cleaning, wife-ing, mom-ing – it takes a lot to get me to slow down, and the holidays nowadays are really set up to wear everyone out.

I think a lot of it comes down to habit. As I grew up, the holidays needed to look perfect and be perfect. Lots of decorations, lots of presents, lots of food, lots of friends – everything in excess. Some memories are fond but mostly they blur together in a red and green haze wrapped with stress and fatigue. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I actually started to break those old habits – much like forcing myself to sit still on the blackout morning.

We’ve come a long way already. I’ve exorcised the yearning for excess on Christmas morning and I’m working hard to make sure my daughter isn’t raised with those expectations or needs. We get each other a few gifts and we create a delicious meal each year. We make a great event of building the gingerbread house. We get together with friends to relax and make merry.

Since I let go of the shopping and the buying, my holidays have been much more fulfilling. My gifts are more thoughtful and take more time than money. The holiday itself becomes restful and slow and I realize that I’m offering my daughter the gift of a non-frenetic Christmas - something she’ll probably enjoy far more than the newest gizmo.

It isn’t right for everyone, I’m sure, but the more I read about the effect of consumerism on the environment and the more I see the benefits to my psyche of releasing myself from “stuff” the more I think other people should try to take a break as well.

So now my “perfect holiday” doesn’t involve the images that have been pushed on me by stores and marketing geniuses that want me to buy buy buy – it involves no electricity, no TV, no music and a simple day with my family finding creative ways to have fun together without all the noise.

My apartment’s on the 2nd floor of a 4-unit brick building. I started my work by examining the doors. The front door leads to an indoor stairwell, so it’s not as much of a heat loss risk as the back door that leads outside; nevertheless, there was a gap of nearly 3/4″ beneath the front door (not to mention the fact that the door’s main panels are made of mere 1/4″ plywood!). The doorframe is metal and is in good shape.

So I went to Lowes and bought a selection of door weather-stripping solutions, not sure what would work best. I settled on a vinyl door bottom sweep, with three fins, that I nailed to the bottom of the door; of course, that meant removing the door at the hinges. That covered about 1/2″ of the gap. Then I installed a hardwood threshold that I screwed onto the existing wooden threshold. I later stained it to match the dark wood of the door; that covered the rest of the gap, providing a fair seal for the bottom of the door. I used a roll of EPDM hollow-core weatherstrip to seal the rest of the door. It’s not airtight, of course, but it’s a vast improvement over the way I found it.

The back door leaked air something fierce. It’s a typical double door: an inside panel door of wood (glass upper panel), and an outside storm door of metal and glass. I installed a new rubberized door sweep for the outside face of the outer door (the old one had crumbled away to nothing) and I rolled out a self-stick foam rubber weatherstrip onto the inside doorjamb. Now, when the doors are both shut and I put my hands down at the lower corners, I can feel only a tiny draft of cold outside air coming in. More tweaking to do, I suppose; or get a door pillow.

Air leak at intake duct

Back in the basement, I’ve examined my unit’s furnace and noticed a couple of significant leaks: the first I found is on the intake side, at the base of the unit, where the filter slides into the galvanized intake ducting—it’s a loose fit, so lots of basement air gets pulled into the system. Given that the basement, so far in my one month’s residency, has not been cold (despite outside temperatures often in the 20s and 30s), this may not be a huge problem. But since a forced-air heating system operates on a feedback loop, eventually there will be an efficiency loss. As the apartment warms up, the return air going down to the furnace would normally tend to get warmer; cycling the ever-warming air allows the thermostat to reach its preset temperature sooner than if only outside air were pumped in. But the leak at the furnace intake is interrupting that feedback, requiring the system to run longer to heat my apartment than it otherwise would do.

Furnace out-port leaks

I found a second leak in the furnace, this one on the output side: at the very first joint, the round duct is not seated properly into its hole in the side of the furnace wall. Hot air is blowing out into the basement. That partly explains the comfy temperatures down there! I’ll pick up some silver tape patch that leak.

Next stop: the windows! There are storm windows all around, which is good. With my hands, I’ve felt along the edges of the windows and felt no obvious drafts so far. I may go as far as installing those plastic “shrink-wrap” window covering kits, but I’m not convinced I need them.

~Ben
AltE

I recently moved into an apartment in Columbus, Ohio, and, naturally enough, I’m looking for ways to save energy. Well, naturally enough for me. I’m told that not everyone thinks the way I do! Go figure!

Anyway, this four-unit building has natural gas air- and water-heating: four individual forced-air furnaces and four 40-gallon water heaters occupy a fair portion of the basement space. Of course I spent some time poking around down there, taking a look at plumbing runs and ducting. There’s a mixture of copper and Pex tubing for the plumbing—evidence of a plumbing overhaul sometime in the building’s past.

Something about what I saw there disturbed me. I traced the plumbing lines leading from my hot water heater (a standard, central-flume, natural gas-fired unit) and quickly became confused. It’s a bit complex since the plumbing is individualized for each unit and each includes a run to a separate utility sink and washing machine hookups. I don’t plan to install a washer or dryer, but still there was something very odd: it looked like the hot water run coming out of my tank was connected to the cold water supply line of the building.

Huh?!

I was temporarily stumped. I assumed I just didn’t know enough about household plumbing to understand what was going on. Meantime, I noticed that the hot water delivery to the shower was… less than ideal. You know how it is: you move into a new place and though you’ve put your outward efforts into getting the best deal and landing in the neighborhood you prefer and all that stuff, what you secretly hope for is that water pressure and temperature are good for hot showers! It’s a secret hope because one doesn’t want to be accused of being a waster of water and energy, especially when one works for a renewable energy company. Ahem! To my credit, I had already installed a low-flow showerhead with an on-off valve. I’d hoped the showerhead might improve the feel of the water stream at least, which is on the weak side. Well, the flow was acceptable, but the temperature was borderline. Personally, I don’t like a scalding hot shower; but even with the hot tap fully open and the cold off, I was not entirely comfortable.

I went back downstairs. “Hmm. Maybe I’ll just turn up the water heater’s temperature setting a bit.” Well, it was set slightly below the presumed “normal” marker. so I turned it up. The result the next day was slightly better, but still I was running all hot and no cold. I returned to the basement a few more times to stare at the pipes in bewilderment before it dawned on me what was wrong: the plumber had connected the plumbing to the hot water heater backwards. The cold water supply line was connected to the fitting marked “HOT” on the top of the tank, while the hot water line leading up to my apartment was connected to the “COLD” fitting! Doh!

“Is there a difference?” you ask. Turns out there is. The anatomy of a typical water heater tank includes a pipe called a “dip tube” that is connected to the “COLD” fitting at the top of the tank. The dip tube carries incoming cold water nearly to the bottom of the tank. This way, cold water from the building supply arrives near the (in my case) natural gas burner located beneath the water vessel. As it’s heated, the water rises by convection. This natural convection cycle assures that the hottest water in the tank is found at the top. And that’s where hot water is drawn out of the tan, from the “HOT” fitting, which has no dip tube. Except that, in my case, the opposite has been happening: I’m drawing water, through the dip tube, from the bottom of the tank, where it’s coldest, so my showers have been…. less than satisfying. The water heater, of course, doesn’t know the difference.

I put in a call to my new landlord, keeping my fingers crossed that he was willing to correct the situation (and knowing I am enough of a stickler to be willing to pay a plumber myself to get it fixed). To my joy, he was perfectly willing to send his plumber to fix the problem. The holidays got in the way, but I’m eagerly looking forward to a long, hot shower— er, to reducing my energy consumption! And after the work is done, I’ll move on to the next step: I have already bought an insulating jacket for the tank and a few six-foot lengths of pipe insulation that I will install on the exposed piping I can access there on the basement ceiling. If all goes well, I hope to engage the curiosity—and savings interest—of my three neighbors; perhaps I can get them to do the same with their tanks and pipes. And, yes, I already checked— their tanks are plumbed properly!

~Ben
AltE