The truth about the AC, cut those bills in half!
News Room | 
Jul 15th, 2008 | 
The Department of Energy calculates that hearing and cooling account for nearly half of the energy used in a typical home. That’s more than the all the light bulbs, the dishwasher, the refrigerator, the water heater and the washer dryer- combined.
Replacing a standard air conditioner set at 72 degrees with an energy efficienct model set at 78 can cut your cooling costs in HALF, according to Xcel Energy, a regional utility, similar to Com-Ed. A programable thermostat can save as much as 12%. A ceiling fan can lower a room’s temperature by several degrees. Even something as switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs can make a big difference in electricity bills. (source WSJ)
GreenWerks specializes in helping you evaluate your energy consumption, how you can reduce it and improve indoor comfort. Our energy auditors will come into your home or business and pinpoint the exact changes that you can make to improve the efficency of your building.
Many people ask what are the easiest improvements that can be done with quick payback- Windows and doors are a big weak point in building construction. You would be amazed at the number of homes we visited when the builder neglected to put insulation around the windows creating an exchange of air all year round. Second up would be the appliance and mechanical systems. Upgrading your water heater, furnace and AC unit to 93% or better will make drastically reduce your energy bills (compared to the industry standard of about 80% efficiency)
Green Construction
This seems to be the second most popular question about GreenWerks. As we mentioned about the post on how we are green as a company, we focus on three areas for eco-friendly remodeling.
Energy Efficiency of the home is first. We begin by assessing how we can reduce the consumption of the house. We achieve this through energy audits, blower door tests, better insulating around windows and doors, these fix the envelope of the home. The building envelope refers to the four walls on the outside of the building. These are the barriers to entry for the cold winter air and hot humid air that we have in Chicago. Then we analyze the inside of the home to see how we can increase the efficiency of appliances and the heating and cooling systems. You would be amazed of the difference in a home’s energy savings by switching to LED lights or CFL light builds if the LED is cost prohibitive.
Health interiors is the second pillar that we use when analyzing a potential project. We look at all the products that will be used in the remodeling project. We want to ensure that the finishes, stains, paints and dyes are toxic free. The top products in a home, that off-gas toxins like formaldehyde and VOC’s is carpet, paint and cabinets. All of these products have healthy alternatives. For paint you can visit GreenMaker Supply (2500 N Pulaski), Colori (2243 W North Ave) and Green Home Chicago (224 N Morgan). They have competitively priced eco-friendly paint. For carpet you have a lot of options for alternatives from most of the major manufactures, they should be available at any carpet supplier. For green cabinets and eco-friendly cabinetry you can visit GreenMaker or Whitney Wood Works (445 N Sacramento).
Sustainability is the third and final pillar we look at when choosing products for a project. We look at how a product is produced, where is comes from, the life cycle of the product and what is it made out of. An example would be bamboo floors, we look at the life of the product which is usually a hundred years or longer, it has a non-toxic finish and is made out of a renewable resource. The product comes from China, which is the only place it can be produced sustainable because in other parts of the world it would be considered an invasive species. You can make the floor a little greener by purchasing a carbon neutral floor. That means that the carbon produced in the production and transportation is off-set by investing in renewable energy and planting trees. This is some of the ways we look at every project GreenWerks works on, want to learn more on how to green your project, give us a call!
