Full Circle Real Estate Group: Athens Real Estate, Sustainable Real Estate

After recently moving into an older home that I presume isn't very energy-efficient, I started investigating cheap ways to cut my bills and save on energy. With the thermometer only going up, here are the top 10 tips (mostly under $25) to beat the heat and save some cash this summer from www.greenandsave.com:

The Right Setting

Typical air-conditioning settings for a programmable thermostat at different times of day:

• 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. = 75 degrees
• 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. = 80 degrees
• 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. = 75 degrees
• 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. = 80 degrees

If you're planning to add any insulation to your attic crawl space this Fall to make your home more energy-efficient, here is some valuable information to make sure you use the safest and most effective product.

Several building experts recommend using blown-in cellulose or cotton batt. Both are nontoxic, no-VOC, and formaldehyde-free.  They also have good soundproofing qualities, contain a high amount of recycled material, and are easy to work with.

Blown-in cellulose is an excellent option for an attic because it will fill all the joist spaces completely with very few air gaps. It is also very easy to install a higher thickness for greater R-value.

    * Loose cellulose is made of 85-percent recycled material, mostly ground-up newspaper.
    * It resists rot and mildew, and is treated with boric acid as a fire retardant.Cotton batts are available in R-13, R-19, R-21, or R-30 insulation values, in either 16- or 24-inch widths.

As the weather cools down and the leaves begin to change (hopefully sooner rather than later), now is the time to get a professional residential energy audit or follow some do-it-yourself checkpoints to ensure your HVAC system does not leave you out in the cold this winter.  Since about half of the energy used in your home goes towards heating and cooling, evaluating your system prior to the winter months could save you money in the long run.

Top 3 tips to save money on your HVAC system:
Change your air filter regularly
Air filters need to be changed more frequently during winter and summer when the HVAC system is working the hardest.  At a minimum filters should be changed every 3 months. However, if it looks dirty then change it.  Dirty filters slow down air flow and waste energy as the system works harder to get air through the filter.
Install a programmable thermostat
Using a programmable thermostat can save about $180 per year in energy costs.  With various types of programmable thermostats on the market be sure tofind out which one is right for your home.

     It certainly doesn't look like the thermometer is going to drop around here anytime soon. If you're like me, you're thinking about how this early heat wave is going to affect your electric bill. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program offers low to no-cost energy-efficient cooling tips to beat the heat. A typical household spends almost 20 percent of its utility bill on cooling, and by taking steps this summer to improve energy efficiency, you can save energy, save money and help fight climate change.

Try these simple tips to start saving today:

No-Cost

•  Program your thermostat to work around your family’s summer schedule—set it a few degrees higher (such as 78 degrees) when no one is home, so your cooling system isn’t cooling an empty house. With proper use, programmable thermostats can save you about $180 a year in energy costs.

• Check your HVAC system’s air filter every month. If the filter looks dirty, change it, but change the filter at least every three months. A dirty filter will slow air flow and make the system work harder to keep you cool, wasting energy.

• Run your ceiling fan to create a cool breeze. If you raise your thermostat by only two degrees and use your ceiling fan, you can lower cooling costs by up to 14 percent. Remember that ceiling fans cool you, not the room, so when you leave the room make sure to turn off the fan.

•  Pull the curtains and shades closed before you leave your home to keep the sun’s rays from overheating the interior of your home. If you can, move container trees and plants in front of sun-exposed windows to serve as shade.

President Obama stopped by Savannah Technical College yesterday and talked about the proposed Home Star program, aka Cash for Caulkers, created to incentivize home owners to cut energy consumption.

The Home Star proposal would provide rebates that would go to consumers making improvements when they are purchasing efficient products and efficiency services. The program has two types of rebates: Silver Star and Gold Star. The Silver Star rebates would provide $1,000 to $1,500 to consumers for each straightforward upgrade, like adding insulation, duct sealing, or purchasing new efficient water heaters, HVAC units, roofing and doors. Consumers may get up to $3,000 in Silver Star rebates.

The Gold Star Rebates are where consumers get the best bang for the buck. Gold Star would offer a $3,000 rebate for a retrofit based on a home energy audit that will save at least 20 percent on energy consumption.

Of course, Congress has the final say on this plan, so expect some changes. Click HERE to get the full scoop thanks to www.greenandsave.com.

Georgia residents who are thinking of buying a new appliance should mark their calendars for Feb. 12. That's the date when the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority will begin offering rebates of $25 to $200 to people who buy energy-efficient refrigerators, freezers, water heaters, air conditioners, furnaces, clothes washers, dishwashers and boilers, GEFA Executive Director Phil Foil announced.

Rebates are available to Georgia residents who buy qualifying appliances in Georgia. Online purchases are exempt. The appliances must carry a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star rating.

Article courtesy of The Athens Banner-Herald. Click HERE for more info and a list of appliances that qualify.

Through the years American’s way of lighting the Christmas tree has changed; initially with candles, followed by the bulky incandescent bulbs and then the mini bulb version. Now, there is a new and more efficient way to give the Christmas tree some shine, light emitting diodes, better known as LED lights.

These are seen to use 80 percent less electricity then the average mini lights. One can link up to 87 strands of lights off one outlet without having to worry about blowing a circuit. These lights will also last 10 times longer than the past incandescent bulb.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, ten incandescent Christmas lights will produce 300 pounds of CO2 compared to the 30 that LED lights would produce from running all night. Even further, if every American home switched to LED as a whole we could save $160 million in energy costs.

Click HERE to see the LED Christmas light selection at Lowe's.                   SOURCE: www.greenandsave.com

Rainy autumn days and blustery winds have many people switching their thermostats from “cool” to “heat.” However, since heating equipment accounts for 49 percent of the energy used in residential buildings in the United States, it’s important to remember that heating your home efficiently not only saves energy but can leave you with money to burn.

An easy first step for energy efficient heating is setting the thermostat as low as is comfortable during cool months. The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers recommends 68°F (20°C) when the house is occupied during the day and 60°F (15°C) at night. The Department of Energy estimates that five to 15 percent can be saved on energy bills simply by reducing the thermostat by 10-15 degrees for eight hours a day. Programmable thermostats can do this automatically and easily. They are inexpensive, reliable and easy to install.

Click HERE for other tips from ASHRAE or click on Read More below for full article from our source: www.greenandsave.com.

Today’s nontoxic caulks, adhesives and sealants are safer for DIYers.

Not long ago, our choice of caulks, sealants and adhesives was pretty limited—and pretty toxic. Today, increased interest in tighter structures, better indoor air quality and energy conservation has led to the development of less-hazardous versions of these products. Manufacturers are finding ways to reduce and eliminate the harmful chemicals that caulks, sealants and adhesives once contained—without reducing performance.
 
Typically, these newer, greener products cost roughly the same as the premium versions of their traditional counterparts. The products are relatively free from harmful chemicals and easy for anyone to use—and they can help make your home quieter, more efficient and less toxic. Check out these products before you get ready to winterize your home. READ MORE HERE!

Here is a list of these greener products:

AFM Safecoat
(619) 239-0321

Greenguard Environmental Institute
(800) 427-9681

OSI GreenSeries
(800) 321-3578

Titebond GREENchoice
(888) 533-9043

SOURCE: Natural Home Magazine

Starting today, Georgia shoppers can take advantage of tax savings on energy- and water-efficient appliances through the 2009 Energy and Water Efficient Products Sales Tax Holiday.

Customers can purchase energy-efficient products such as dishwashers, refrigerators and clothes washers tax-free through Sunday. They are exempt from paying Georgia and local sales tax on designated items with a price of $1,500 or less per product, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue. For a list of products, click HERE.

The items must meet requirements established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy "Energy Star" programs.

The sales tax exemptions are eligible for items purchased for noncommercial or personal use, according to the state. They do not apply to products with a purchase price more than $1,500, products purchased for use in a trade or business, or items that are rented or leased.

     I had no idea that you could check out a Kill A Watt Dectector from our local library until I read about it this morning in The Athens Banner-Herald. What a cool idea. Apparently, libraries across the state now allow patrons to check out the Kill A Watt Energy Detector Toolkit and calculate the annual costs of running home appliances.

     The hand-sized gadget is plugged in between the outlet and any appliance or power cord and measures how much energy the machine uses. Officials with the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority and the library system hope curious people will visit their local libraries to take advantage of the detector, which may encourage Georgians to decrease their energy use.

    Electronic devices suck power from the outlet even when the machine is turned off, and energy experts are starting to point to that so-called "vampire load" as the next place to save energy, the article points out.

"Anything that lights up or has a clock on it - like a VCR - is drawing power," said Bonnie Jones, public relations director for Jackson Electric Membership Corp. "Even though your computer is in sleep mode, it's costing you money."

Read more about this free device HERE and go grab one at The ACC Library and give it a try!

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Monday that it will allocate $454 million to a new program to make energy efficiency retrofits happen in homes and businesses. New construction is increasingly incorporating ways to conserve energy and water use, but existing buildings continue to gobble up energy in wasteful and detrimental ways. The “Retrofit Ramp-Up” initiative will save $100 million per year in utility bills, DOE says.

The funding comes out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is intended to fuel projects on the community or regional level that, when applied nationally, will save billions of dollars on Americans’ energy bills and make savings from energy efficiency widely accessible. We'll keep you posted on any local Athens' projects that take advantage of this initiative.

The program is structured to select local energy efficiency retrofit projects that make large enough impacts on energy use in residential, commercial, and public buildings that they can be scaled up to national projects. The Program provides funds to states, U.S. territories, counties, cities and Indian tribes to reduce their energy use and fossil fuel emissions and improve energy efficiency in the transportation, buildings and other appropriate sectors.

SOURCE: GREENANDSAVE.COM

The miles-per-gallon metric has gone a long way toward marketing the Prius and other fuel-efficient cars, and some are hoping a new, more detailed energy label than is currently available could do the same for buildings. That’s the idea behind a program set to be unveiled this fall by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, or ASHRAE, that would provide buildings with a sort of report card, or label, of their energy use.

The program would give buildings a rating from A+ to F, with the former reserved for facilities that are net zero –- meaning they produce as much energy on site as they consume –- and the latter meant for those that are “unsatisfactory.” The labels would provide an easy-to-understand metric for owners and tenants to compare with other, similar buildings, such as office buildings in downtown San Francisco, for example. ASHRAE hopes the labels will help spur more energy-efficient design by making energy use a more visible characteristic of buildings, said Bruce Hunn, director of strategic technical programs for ASHRAE, a research and standards writing organization.

To continue reading, click HERE.

Times are tough, and as the recession rolls on for the foreseeable future, it is important to consider what you can do to save yourself those hard-earned dollars. The good news is that saving money at home is ridiculously easy, thanks to poor environmental standards for homes and appliances. The twelve tactics listed HERE  can all be completed in about an hour and are free of any outside costs. They have the potential to immediately save a homeowner $500, and $5,000 over the next decade.

Source: www.greenandsave.com

One quarter billion dollars is a lot. An awful lot. Most people will never even come near that amount of money, but that’s what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Americans saved this past year by switching over to energy efficient homes.

In the EPA’s announcement on July 3, it was reported that 17 percent of all single family homes built across the nation in the year 2008 received the EPA’s Energy Star approval rating, which means that homes are at least 15 percent more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Code (IRC), and include additional energy-saving features that typically make them 20–30 percent more efficient than standard homes. The percentage of Energy Star homes was up from 12 percent in 2007.

Click HERE for more info.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) signed into law by President Obama in February of 2009 provides some tremendous opportunities for homeowners. In the short run, it creates jobs; in the long term, homes that use less energy will save consumers money.

But what exactly does weatherization mean? How much will it cost the average family, and what exactly can homeowners do to reap the rewards? Green building efficiency expert Charlie Szoradi and his team spent the past several months reading and deciphering this 400-page piece of legislation to create a free resource for homeowners that decodes the Act. The free Federal Tax Incentive Decoder is now available for all individuals to download.

Source: www.greenandsave.com

The Federal Government continues to provide incentives to homeowners to help encourage improvements in energy efficiency. Credit opportunities exist for everything from cars and appliances to homes and buildings. With more available options for energy-efficient appliances and products, a tax incentive is a wonderful way for the public to become more aware of green alternatives.

Credits are available for both residential and commercial buildings. Many credits are based on standards for the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) or Energy Star, and must meet International Energy Conservation Code (IECC).

Tax credit details for home improvements:

• Improvements must be installed between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010.
• They must be for your principal residence, except for geothermal heat pumps, solar water heaters, solar panels, and small wind energy systems, where second homes and rentals qualify. Each must have a Manufacturer Certification Statement to qualify.

If you’ve heard only one thing about the green movement, it was undoubtedly the benefits of Compact Fluroescent Lamps in comparison to their more popular brother, the incandescent bulb. And just for the completely uninitiated, the CFL uses 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs, and, as it lasts longer as well, it will save you about $30 over the course of its use.

There are some lingering suspicions related to CFLs that may have caused some to take pause when considering the switch to CFLs, such as the supposedly high mercury content, the idea that they have higher “embodied energy”, or that moving away from incandescent bulbs will negatively impact your heating bill. These are all very silly reasons to avoid a product that is guaranteed to work better, for longer, and cost you less money. Here’s why:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is making tax credits available for various home improvements, and allows 30% of all your certified installations up to $1,500. With that in mind, it could be helpful to get in depth on what to look for when considering windows. Click HERE for tons of important information that can help you save money!

"I don't like the twisty shape of compact fluorescent bulbs; that's why I don't use them." We've come across this excuse as one of the reasons people don't use CFLs.

GE now has an answer for that. The new GE Energy Smart CFL places a much smaller electronics package inside the neck of the bulb, and puts the familiar twisted fluorescent tubes underneath a cover, so that the entire bulb has the same size and shape as a conventional incandescent bulb.

The new bulbs started to arrive in some stores around the beginning of this year, but will start to be more broadly available (including being in the inventory of some big box chains) around Earth Day later this month (April 22). In addition to the 15-watt bulb, the line will eventually include 9-watt and 20-watt versions to be available by the middle of the year.

So, if there's a fixture where the the bulb is visible and you can't stand the idea of a visible CFL spiral, or if you have that beloved lamp with the shade that clamps directly onto the bulb, now you can fit it with a more responsible and energy-saving bulb that offers the appearance of an incandescent profile.

Source: www.green.yahoo.com/blog

When Congress passed the financial bailout bill late last year, it included a range of federal tax credits and cash gifts for businesses — but also a suite of new and renewed tax credits for individuals who want to make energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements to their home or cars.

When President Obama signed the economic stimulus bill in February, the federal government expanded and extended some of those credits.

So what's in it for homeowners and other regular taxpayers? Click HERE for a list of credits that can save you money, including a $1500 Home Tax Credit for Energy Efficiency!

THIS IS THE WORLD’S FIRST GLOBAL ELECTION, BETWEEN EARTH AND GLOBAL WARMING.

Click here to read an article recently published in the Athens Banner-Herald regarding incentives for renewable energy.