FOR “DO-IT-YOURSELFERS”
I belong to a group called “Solar Sonoma County”, which may sound confusing until you realize we have an office in Santa Rosa and we work with solar contractors in Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma Counties. They are an informed bunch who keep everyone up-to-date regarding the current status of the energy conservation programs happening in Northern California. And they don’t seem to get overly upset if someone should happen to fall asleep during one of their evening meetings.
A local building supply store with three outlets, two in Sonoma County and one in Ukiah, wanted to have a member of Solar Sonoma speak for half an hour about simple things that homeowners could do to their homes to save energy, using items found right there in that very store. I was asked, and as penance for the aforementioned sleep issue, gladly accepted. At first I was slated for the Sonoma store and someone from somewhere in Sonoma County was penciled in for the Ukiah branch. We did a little horse trading and I ended up with my 1/2 hour of fame being last Saturday at 11:00 in Ukiah.
To make a long story short, people in Ukiah had other things to do last Saturday at 11:00, or maybe someone forgot to tell someone or who knows, but anyway no one showed up, except one customer who I grabbed 10 minutes in and we talked for the rest of the 30 minutes.
So, since I did do some preparation, I hate to see that kind of thing go to waste so I thought I’d just go ahead and put the 20 minute “do-it-yourself” lecture in writing here.
So here goes:
THE NEW CFL’S
I don’t know if you have noticed yet but you can no longer buy a 100 watt incandescent light bulb. Really!. This is the result of a Mandate passed in 2007 and signed by President Bush called the “Energy Independence and Security Act”, and is actually due to take effect on a Federal level next year. California decided to start a year early. It effectively bans any bulb over 72 watts, and by 2014 will apply to the 75, 60 and even 40 watt incandescent bulbs. Incandescent bulbs are highly inefficient, turning 90% of the consumed energy into heat while only 10% goes to light. In place of the incandescent will be the CFL or Compact Fluorescent Lamp. When first commercially produced about 25 years ago, they were great. I can show you bulbs I installed 25 years ago that are still burning. The downfall was price. They were in the $15.00/$20.00 range. So the makers started working on cheaper bulbs and by about 15 years ago we had CFL’s that were in the $1-$2 range. But they had a 25% failure rate out of the box and the other 75% you couldn’t see to read by. So people hated them. Now, more research and development, and we again have great CFL’s, this time affordable. IF you get the right one. Something the early makers did was to only make the bulbs in the 2000-3000 Kelvin range. Kelvin is a way to measure the color or brightness of the light and in the 2100K range the light tends to look brownish. If you look at this 13 watt CFL in 2100K (at this point I happen to have a little clamp-on light fixture with the appropriate CFL) and then compare the same 13 watt but in 6500K, you’ll see a world of difference. 6500 Kelvin is really close to natural sunlight. If you go right over there to the light isle and buy CFLs and make sure you are getting them in the higher Kelvin ranges (at least 4500) I can just about guarantee you’ll like them. I can’t tell the difference myself between them and incandescent. And they make them in 3 way, in floodlights, in candle shape, and even dimmable CFL’s now. And I have seen them as cheap as $.99. Get used to them, you have until 2014 to really like them.
. MOVING ON TO DUCT SEALING
O.K., now we’re going to look at how you can seal your own heat ducts. I have here a heat register like you find on your floor or on your ceiling. This is where the heated or cooled air comes out after it leaves your furnace or A/C. Studies have been done by PG&E that show a large percentage, 28%-40%, of your conditioned air is simply not making it to your home. It’s running out under your home or into your attic. That’s huge! Somewhere between one quarter and almost one half (or average one third) of the air you paid to change the temperature is being wasted. But you can do something about it. Pull up the register, even though there are screw holes there are never any screws, unless your ducts are in the ceiling, in which case take the screws out first. If you have floor registers, take a few minutes at this point and get the vacuum out and get a flashlight and vacuum out the duct. You’ll be amazed at what you find. There are always a couple of petrified lizards, I don’t know how they can possibly get in there, whether they crawl in from the house, or from a gap under the house, or maybe they’re installed at the factory, but they are always there. There always seems to be an apple core, and it’s always bigger than the openings in the register, and money. Yes, there’s always lots of money down in the vents. So remember that when you’re looking for parking meter change.
Vacuum them out good and try to do it a couple times a year. Now, what you want to do is take this special tape (available over on the tape isle) that says “181” on it, and tape the metal duct that the register fits into to the plywood sub-floor (or to the drywall if you have ceiling registers). The idea is for the air to come up the duct and straight out the register, without any other avenues of escape possible. You don’t want the air to be able to double back and go down the gap between the backside of the sheet metal “boot” and the plywood or drywall (at this point I hold up my sheet metal boot and register and my piece of cardboard I was using for the floor or drywall). BTW- you can not use duct tape. You can not use cloth backed duct tape on heat ducts in California. You will go to duct prison. Not really but it is strictly forbidden. It’s been found that after just two or three years of the hot & cold cycles the mastic looses sticking ability and whatever you have taped is no longer. One more thing, beware the carpet tack strip. If you have floor registers and carpet, and you pull the register up, the carpet guy has probably lined the register hole with pieces of wood with tacks in them, and they are sticking in your direction. They not only have barbs on them but a special chemical designed to hurt like the dickens. If you should place your palm or kneecap on a tack strip and bear down, it is a feeling you will never forget, and your family will see a new side of you.
So, that concludes my presentation to the multitudes at the building supply house and the small crowed has grown to several hundred and thunderous applause. And then I wake up in a Solar Sonoma County meeting.
I belong to a group called “Solar Sonoma County”, which may sound confusing until you realize we have an office in Santa Rosa and we work with solar contractors in Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma Counties. They are an informed bunch who keep everyone up-to-date regarding the current status of the energy conservation programs happening in Northern California. And they don’t seem to get overly upset if someone should happen to fall asleep during one of their evening meetings.
A local building supply store with three outlets, two in Sonoma County and one in Ukiah, wanted to have a member of Solar Sonoma speak for half an hour about simple things that homeowners could do to their homes to save energy, using items found right there in that very store. I was asked, and as penance for the aforementioned sleep issue, gladly accepted. At first I was slated for the Sonoma store and someone from somewhere in Sonoma County was penciled in for the Ukiah branch. We did a little horse trading and I ended up with my 1/2 hour of fame being last Saturday at 11:00 in Ukiah.
To make a long story short, people in Ukiah had other things to do last Saturday at 11:00, or maybe someone forgot to tell someone or who knows, but anyway no one showed up, except one customer who I grabbed 10 minutes in and we talked for the rest of the 30 minutes.
So, since I did do some preparation, I hate to see that kind of thing go to waste so I thought I’d just go ahead and put the 20 minute “do-it-yourself” lecture in writing here.
So here goes:
THE NEW CFL’S
I don’t know if you have noticed yet but you can no longer buy a 100 watt incandescent light bulb. Really!. This is the result of a Mandate passed in 2007 and signed by President Bush called the “Energy Independence and Security Act”, and is actually due to take effect on a Federal level next year. California decided to start a year early. It effectively bans any bulb over 72 watts, and by 2014 will apply to the 75, 60 and even 40 watt incandescent bulbs. Incandescent bulbs are highly inefficient, turning 90% of the consumed energy into heat while only 10% goes to light. In place of the incandescent will be the CFL or Compact Fluorescent Lamp. When first commercially produced about 25 years ago, they were great. I can show you bulbs I installed 25 years ago that are still burning. The downfall was price. They were in the $15.00/$20.00 range. So the makers started working on cheaper bulbs and by about 15 years ago we had CFL’s that were in the $1-$2 range. But they had a 25% failure rate out of the box and the other 75% you couldn’t see to read by. So people hated them. Now, more research and development, and we again have great CFL’s, this time affordable. IF you get the right one. Something the early makers did was to only make the bulbs in the 2000-3000 Kelvin range. Kelvin is a way to measure the color or brightness of the light and in the 2100K range the light tends to look brownish. If you look at this 13 watt CFL in 2100K (at this point I happen to have a little clamp-on light fixture with the appropriate CFL) and then compare the same 13 watt but in 6500K, you’ll see a world of difference. 6500 Kelvin is really close to natural sunlight. If you go right over there to the light isle and buy CFLs and make sure you are getting them in the higher Kelvin ranges (at least 4500) I can just about guarantee you’ll like them. I can’t tell the difference myself between them and incandescent. And they make them in 3 way, in floodlights, in candle shape, and even dimmable CFL’s now. And I have seen them as cheap as $.99. Get used to them, you have until 2014 to really like them.
. MOVING ON TO DUCT SEALING
O.K., now we’re going to look at how you can seal your own heat ducts. I have here a heat register like you find on your floor or on your ceiling. This is where the heated or cooled air comes out after it leaves your furnace or A/C. Studies have been done by PG&E that show a large percentage, 28%-40%, of your conditioned air is simply not making it to your home. It’s running out under your home or into your attic. That’s huge! Somewhere between one quarter and almost one half (or average one third) of the air you paid to change the temperature is being wasted. But you can do something about it. Pull up the register, even though there are screw holes there are never any screws, unless your ducts are in the ceiling, in which case take the screws out first. If you have floor registers, take a few minutes at this point and get the vacuum out and get a flashlight and vacuum out the duct. You’ll be amazed at what you find. There are always a couple of petrified lizards, I don’t know how they can possibly get in there, whether they crawl in from the house, or from a gap under the house, or maybe they’re installed at the factory, but they are always there. There always seems to be an apple core, and it’s always bigger than the openings in the register, and money. Yes, there’s always lots of money down in the vents. So remember that when you’re looking for parking meter change.
Vacuum them out good and try to do it a couple times a year. Now, what you want to do is take this special tape (available over on the tape isle) that says “181” on it, and tape the metal duct that the register fits into to the plywood sub-floor (or to the drywall if you have ceiling registers). The idea is for the air to come up the duct and straight out the register, without any other avenues of escape possible. You don’t want the air to be able to double back and go down the gap between the backside of the sheet metal “boot” and the plywood or drywall (at this point I hold up my sheet metal boot and register and my piece of cardboard I was using for the floor or drywall). BTW- you can not use duct tape. You can not use cloth backed duct tape on heat ducts in California. You will go to duct prison. Not really but it is strictly forbidden. It’s been found that after just two or three years of the hot & cold cycles the mastic looses sticking ability and whatever you have taped is no longer. One more thing, beware the carpet tack strip. If you have floor registers and carpet, and you pull the register up, the carpet guy has probably lined the register hole with pieces of wood with tacks in them, and they are sticking in your direction. They not only have barbs on them but a special chemical designed to hurt like the dickens. If you should place your palm or kneecap on a tack strip and bear down, it is a feeling you will never forget, and your family will see a new side of you.
So, that concludes my presentation to the multitudes at the building supply house and the small crowed has grown to several hundred and thunderous applause. And then I wake up in a Solar Sonoma County meeting.
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