Featured Blog Posts – February 2012 Archive (12)

On March 8, 2012, Metrolist, Denver’s real estate colossus, will finally unveil its “green-field addendum.”  And it’s been a long time coming, says Jamil Dillon.

Dillon would know because he helped hatch the idea.  He was the Residential Program Senior Associate at the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) in 2010 when he and green home builder Sean Smith began conversations with some Colorado MLSes, including Metrolist, to provide “green” and energy-efficient home-listing info. …

It looks like the time has come to pay the piper for over the top promises of savings from replacement windows. Last week the Federal Trade Commission settled with five window companies that have been making exagerated and unsubstantiated claims of energy savings regarding their products. According to Window & Door, "the cases are part of a broad FTC effort to ensure that environmental marketing is truthful and based on solid scientific evidence, government officials…

It's inexplicable as to why people are sluggish or fearful in regards to getting a better rate on their electric supply rate! 

Only 2% of people were thinking of changing their electricity or gas supplier, down from a third who were interested before the market was opened up statewide in 2006.

The study and recent survey also looked at how many people had already changed suppliers – just 2% for gas and 3% for electricity. You might almost call…

Hot Tub's Ready to Go, Using Power All Winter

by Don Ames,   www.detectenergy.com

Finding a new address can be a little rough out here in the country. It doesn't help when the Google Map misses the important fact that a road is actually a dead end and it doesn't connect with another road like Google thinks. So I find two dead end roads instead of a nice continuous loop. And, as is always the case, I am on the wrong dead end. Oh well,…

President Obama’s 2013 budget caused a lot of smiles this week among energy efficiency advocates – even if it is more of a wish list than anything else. Obama calls for about $1.2 billion in spending for energy efficiency.

What’s this mean to the energy efficiency industry?

Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, says that…

Many pros already know that a standard upgrade is to install a Honeywell IAQ thermostat! That's why you simply must take a look at this analysis on the Thermostat Wars, Honeywell versus Nest, which now threaten to pre-empt even the infamous browser wars, and cause consternation within the industry:…

Energy Code Gap Analyses are reports that document a particular state’s energy code infrastructure to assess current gaps, identify best practices, and give recommendations for how these practices can be improved. The Building Codes Assistance Project (BCAP) has conducted several Gap Analyses over the course of the past year and these analyses can be a major step towards informing the state on how to reduce energy use by improving energy codes in those states. The gap analyses are part of…

One aspect of the HVAC industry that I believe many contractors are yet to embrace is that of utilizing comfort as a selling point. And by not doing so, they are missing out on potential business and falling farther behind the leaders of the industry. What I mean by this is that, over the past two decades, understanding of the indoor environment, indoor air quality and the interrelation of building systems has increased dramatically. Think AHRAE 55-2010, and the factors effecting human…

We celebrated Groundhog Day earlier this month. Naturally, that means we held our annual juggling festival here in Atlanta, but some people associate groundhogs with their weather forecasting ability. My question this year was, How can Punxatawney Phil (the weather predicting…

On Friday, The New York Times published an article titled "In Fuel Oil Country, Cold That Cuts to the Heart." The article, about the Hartford's, an elderly couple in Maine who can't afford to pay for the oil needed to heat their (rather leaky) home, is both heart-wrenching…

This is cross posted from the Energy Circle PRO Blog.

Everyone wants more and better leads, and a lot of people have been asking me recently about Lead Generation Services, particularly since I open sourced the Cost per Acquisition Model for Home Performance Businesses.

What is…

What does it mean if the furnace filter collects lots of lint just like what the dryer makes???...Perhaps the dryer is venting inside and the filter is askew and leaks in the return air or filter gap are pulling it into the furnace. Check 'em.

What does it mean if the filter has three-dozen oak leaves pressed onto it?? Today I found an unusually high bill and a handful of foliage fallen from the neighboring trees. In the attic I found a donut of leaves under the vent where the screen…