Home Energy articles from November 2002

Home Energy archives from November 2002

The next Energy Star product. (Editorial).
November 1, 2002... One of the largest remaining gaps in the Energy Star portfolio is the domestic water heater. The electric water heater typically consumes more electricity than any other appliance in the home, and nearly half of American homes have one. So why...

Plug and play solar in Germany. (Letters).
November 1, 2002... While in the United States we endeavor to build hundreds of zero energy homes, and perhaps a few thousand grid-connected solar electric (PV) homes, I was truly taken aback by what I recently saw on a trip to southern Germany. I was visiting a...

Venting with louvers. (Letters).
November 1, 2002... I am a technical consultant working on a series of louvers for a manufacturer. I need to know what size openings are required to properly vent a house through the eaves. An engineer once told me that there is a formula used to determine the...

Stay out of the danger zone. (Letters).
November 1, 2002... I read your article concerning refrigerators ("Refrigerator Monitoring, A Sequel" HE, Sep/Oct '00, p. 36) with great interest. However, one part of the article greatly concerned me. The author mentioned that the temperature maintained in the...

Whole-house fans and fractions. (Letters).
November 1, 2002... Will a whole-house fan work in a story-and-a-half home? Randy Evrard Via e-mail Kate Reymer of Tamarack Technologies replies: A whole-house fan will work in a story-and-a-half home, provided the following criteria are met: ...

Mold business. (Diagnostics).
November 1, 2002... Q: We are involved in the mold business here in Texas. Many environmental scientists here are ordering that the continuous exterior vapor barrier that is located between the outside of the residence's stud wall and the brick veneer or siding be...

Concrete's green tones. (Green Building).
November 1, 2002... Q: Concrete is a construction material whose popularity is growing. What, if any, are its environmental benefits or green building attributes? --Looking for Some Concrete Answers A: Concrete building systems come in five basic types:...

Do double walls yield double comfort? (Green Building).
November 1, 2002... My introduction to concrete homes did not leave a favorable impression. In 1970 I was an undergraduate studying in West Germany and living with a family in a row house that could have served as a bunker if the Cold War turned hot. The house was...

Energy Star goes modular. (Programs).
November 1, 2002... Modular homes, unlike mobile homes, do not have a steel chassis with axles below the floor. But like mobile homes, modular homes are made in a factory, assembled on-site, affordable for people of low to moderate income, and popular. Wisconsin...

Policy climate as important as sun for PV market. (Market Transformation).
November 1, 2002... As the cost for solar-generated electricity spirals down toward $4/W in some locales, photovoltaic (PV) systems are becoming viable, as compared to conventional energy sources, in many parts of the United States. While increasing demand has led...

Lights, appliances, and sunshine: a new HERS? The HERS industry debates incorporating new end uses into a HERS score. (HERS).
November 1, 2002... For more than a decade now, a HERS rating has been calculated with an eye on the meat and potatoes of energy end uses. Only the energy use associated with heating, cooling, and the production of domestic hot water contributes to the making of a...

A combined system for home comfort: space heating, water heating, and heat recovery ventilation have now been combined in a single unit. (Appliances).
November 1, 2002... After four years of focused research and development by a consortium gathered together by the government of Canada, the first advanced integrated home comfort system is on the market, and more are on the way. Although combination space- and...

Not your parents' mobile home: some scientists and builders of manufactured homes figured out how to make them more energy efficient, using new materials but the same old factory. (New Construction).
November 1, 2002... Manufactured housing constitutes 20%-30% of new housing across the United States. Because of its sheer volume and the opportunity for factory replication, efforts to improve energy efficiency in manufactured housing can pay big dividends....

All pumped up: new heat pump water heaters consume half the energy of conventional electric-resistance ones. (Appliances).
November 1, 2002... About half of all residential water heaters in the United States use resistance heating elements inside a tank to convert electric energy into heat. The most efficient of these electric resistance water heaters (ERWH) is about 93% efficient, so...

ICFs under the microscope. (New Construction).
November 1, 2002... Build almost identical homes, varying only one component--what the walls are made out of--and then carefully monitor the performance of the nearly twin homes. That's the recipe that two teams of researchers used to better understand the impact...

An opportunity for healthier public housing: the Boston Housing Authority is working to make public housing more energy efficient and healthier for the occupants at the same time. (Multifamily).
November 1, 2002... Public housing, much of it built more than 40 years ago, can have serious environmental problems as a result of age and deferred maintenance. Residents experience asthma and other respiratory illnesses at many times the national average, and...

Habitat for Humanity builds zero net energy homes. (News and Reviews).
November 1, 2002... DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working with Habitat for Humanity to build 20 energy-efficient homes in nearby Lenoir City, Tennessee. The majority of the new homes will be prototypes of zero net energy homes--homes that produce as much...

Accessible home building videos. (News and Reviews).
November 1, 2002... Energy-conscious home builders might want to check out a set of free on-line videos provided by the California Energy Commission (CEC). Although they are intended mainly to educate home builders and energy code officials on California's latest...

From city to state. (News and Reviews).
November 1, 2002... A successful refrigerator replacement program is being expanded from a city level to a statewide level. The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal will initiate a program to reduce...

Urban heat islands cause downwind rain. (News and Reviews).
November 1, 2002... Residents of flooded rural areas near San Antonio, Texas, have one more reason to complain about their city-dwelling neighbors. A new study shows that the heat generated by cities helps produce rainstorms downwind from cities. The study, led by...

Calendar.
November 1, 2002... October 31-November 3 Building Performance: Improving the Quality of the Built Environment Conference, Washings, D.C. Contact: Peg Hamil, American Institute of Architects. Tel: (202)626-7317; E-mail: phamil@aia.org; Web site:...