Monthly Archives: April 2011

LED Bulb under $10 at Lowes!

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A friend just turned me on to this special deal at Lowes in Pennsylvania. The bulb, which he noted is manufactured by Feit (a highly reputable brand) is currently available for $9.98 at this link.

I just bought five more of the $20 Feit bulbs, so I was a bit chagrined to learn about this. But I’m happy for the rest of you. At under $10, there’s really little reason not to try a few of these around your home.

Keep in mind, this is a 40 Watt equivalent, so it’s not the brightest bulb around. However, it’s directional, so it’s good for those areas where you have downlights or other areas where the light output pattern doesn’t have to be totally uniform.

If you get one, please post your comments here. I’ll pick one up myself when I get a chance, but I’d love to hear your feedback.

update: I just looked at the ad more closely – it’s 50% off until 5/9/2011 so buy now!

How to Increase the Energy Efficiency of Your Existing Home

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This post by an energy auditor in central PA summarizes a lot of the information required to make your home more energy efficient, all in one spot. It’s like you took all my posts to date and wrapped it up into a single article! Definitely worth a skim.

For those of your unfamiliar with ChrisMartenson.com, Chris is a scientist who, several years ago, started investigating peak-oil – the fact that at some point, you can’t extract oil from the Earth any faster, and from there, it’s downhill. As he investigated it, he got more and more worried, because pretty much everything we do depends upon having essentially an unlimited supply of oil.

Chris is passionate about this cause. So passionate that he produced a series of videos and is traveling the world giving lectures about how to prepare. At first it seems nutty, especially if you’re of the mindset that “technology will always find a solution”, but if you listen carefully and do your own research, you may find yourself buying in to what he says.

I started following him a few years ago, and combined what he said with what I learned from various investment newsletters and other sources. That gave me an advanced warning to shift from classical stocks into metals and mining a few years ago, before the market tanked and mining stocks skyrocketed.

Whether you agree with him or not, his “Crash Course” is well worth viewing as it provides additional insights that you can use to better understand the complex, resource limited world in which we’re now living.

Tip of the day: pre-rinse in cold water

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In this day and age, most of us have dishwashers, and yet there’s still quite a bit of controversy over how to wash dishes. Some wash every dish by hand. Some just throw them in the washer. Others wash the dishes by hand then put them in the dishwasher to make sure they get really clean?

This is an energy efficiency blog, so I’m going to look at this from an energy standpoint. If you live in New Mexico or elsewhere where water is in extremely short supply, you’ll probably have methods that are more water efficient.

You might have noticed that things just aren’t washing as well as they used to. You’re not imagining things! In fact, new soaps are “phosphate free” and people all over are complaining that dishes no longer come out clean. I certainly have. Here’s one article about the topic.

Because of this, more people than ever are hand-washing dishes. Either as a pre-rinse or giving up on dishwashers. So energy efficient rinsing is becoming even more relevant.

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The Sustainable Building Advisor Institute

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It’s been a busy week for me with my startup, OurKudos.com, so I haven’t had much time to contribute to Ted’s Tips. But now on a rainy Friday night, I feel the need to decompress and talk about energy efficiency and sustainable building again!

I got an announcement today from the Sustainable Building Advisor Program, an organization dear to my heart. They have changed their name to the Sustainable Building Advisor Institute and launched a new website.

Why is this so exciting? The SBA program is a wonderful organization dedicated to training people in the world of sustainable building. Unlike so many organizations that have sprung up in the last few years simply to make a buck on the “green” excitement, the SBAi is truly about the teaching. It’s a very small organization of dedicated individuals, passionate about what they do.  Continue reading →

Ultimate attic insulation

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Icy roof deck, not a good sign!

In the first two posts of this overly wordy series, we saw a few ways to insulate an attic while avoiding some of the worst problems that can lead to moldy, rotten attics and roofs.

If you recall, the big problem is that moisture from the house rises up through the walls and all the little cracks around light fixtures, hatches, wiring, and the moisture condenses on cool surfaces. Over time, this will lead to mold growth and potentially, rotten roofs.

How do you know if you’ve got a problem? I’ll give you a hint – if you have ice forming under your roof like in this picture, you had better do something before you have to replace your roof!

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Building Science vs. B.S.: Radiant barriers – the perfect insulation?

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An attic radiant barrier application

Before I dive into another couple thousand words on attic insulation, I thought we’d take a break and talk about an energy saving miracle product!

What if there was an insulation product that was light, cheap, easy to install, and gave an incredible R-value?

If you believe the advertising, then radiant-barrier bubble wrap insulation is this ‘miracle’ insulation. In that advert, they claim an R-value of 15.67 for a quarter inch thick piece of aluminum coated bubble wrap! Wow, that’s over R-60 per inch! All our insulation problems are solved!

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