Posts Tagged ‘buildings’

You’ve air-sealed, insulated, and swapped all those incandescents for CFLs. Now what?

You’ve spilled some food, and don’t know whether it’s better to clean the mess with paper towels or a kitchen sponge. The embodied energy of simple decisions may surprise you.

TweetHere’s a sample of some of the recent research on building design and energy efficiency. A performance comparison of passive and low-energy buildings Ardeshir Mahdavi, Eva-Maria Doppelbauer Energy and Buildings, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 4 March 2010, ISSN 0378-7788, DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.02.025. Abstract: This paper compares apartments in two residential blocks in Vienna; one [...]

TweetStop and think: how many Walmarts are within 30 minutes of your house?  Two? Three?  More?  How about Sam’s Club? Whether you love, hate, or simply tolerate America’s favorite department store, you’ll find the following video fascinating.  It’s an animated time-series showing Walmart’s evolution since it was founded in 1962.  This graphic has made the [...]

TweetHave you ever wondered whether Mother Nature is trying to teach you a lesson? Neither have I, until I got my electric bill this month. If you’ve been following this blog awhile, you’ll know that I always track my electricity consumption versus the average monthly temperature.  That helps me sort out the effects of weather [...]

TweetIt’s an age old dilemma for efficiency advocates: how do you calculate how much energy you didn’t use or how much money you didn’t spend? You can’t put a yardstick up against something that doesn’t exist. We tend to rely on models and predictions of what might have happened, and calculate the savings based on [...]

TweetI don’t know many other people who get excited about receiving their utility bills, but this month I couldn’t even wait for the email reminder from the power company.  I preemptively checked their website to see if I had saved some energy. For those of you keeping track, I added piles of pink insulation to [...]

TweetI’m reading a historical mystery novel based in ancient Rome, and I’m surprised by the parallels between that society and ours.  Aside from the madness of power hungry politicians (some things truly never change) I was intrigued by the description of Roman Augurs, a class of priests who interpreted the the will of the gods [...]

TweetWhat do you get when you combine free 3D drawing software with free energy modeling capabilities?  Free building energy modeling, of course. Software engineers at NREL have updated their Google Sketchup plugin to integrate with the EnergyPlus modeling platform. In its simplest form, this lets architects and planners design buildings with sense of place – [...]

TweetI’m happy to be the proud parent of a new TED 5000 home electricity monitor!  A friend of mine happens to be an electrician, so he helped me install the meter inside my circuit breaker panel last night.  I’ll have a full report as soon as I get some time to play with the data. [...]