Blog

Click here for more info: http://bit.ly/b9fHys

Winds of Chnage Part Two, playing again Sunday the 21st at 5:00 on MPBN.

This new timber frame construction home is in an absolutely picturesque setting in down east Maine. The home itself, is beautiful and super energy efficient. It has been really interesting to watch the whole home come together. The Solar Thermal System for this home is a 90 evacuated tube system, which is certainly oversized for domestic hot water heating. Why? This system was designed to aid in space heating too! This new home has radiant in floor heat and is extremely well insulated, so the solar thermal heating system will do some heavy lifting in the area of space heating for this home.

This project, done for a municipality in down east Maine, consisted of a solar hot water system for the town office and a 10kW Bergey turbine. It was a great project, and it was a great time of year to be in down east Maine. A video of the turbine going up can also be found here: Click Here

This has been a great month here at Evolo, we wrapped up projects all over Maine and I can't wait to share photos and stories. In the mean time, here is a photo of the wind farm in Mars Hill. While these turbines are a totally different scale than what we do here at Evolo (much, much, much, much larger), folks often have questions about this and similar projects. I finally got to see this one first hand this summer. I have to say it was impressive and beautiful, at least to me.

Maine Ranked #10 in the nation for its energy efficiency efforts. Read more here: http://bit.ly/cc6rEc

This past weekend, the Common Ground Country Fair, a tried and true central Maine tradition, took place at the MOFGA (http://www.mofga.org/) grounds in Unity. As always, it was a wonderful combination of beautifully spun fibers and other Maine wares, gorgeous vegetables, amazing animals (I saw a goat that was better trained than my dog, a LOT more), incredible food (wheat doughboys with homemade apple topping, Maine crab rolls, organic and local chai tea, and 3 different types of french fries all were favorites on my list), and OH the people (all 59,000+ of them)! On Sunday alone, we had the pleasure talking renewable energy with the Humble Farmer, gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler, and the TV spokes person who says 'no line is safe to touch, ever' (if you live in Maine, you know what I am talking about) - such fun!

This year Evolo added a Solar PV array to our display in addition to the wind turbine and solar thermal products. We had a great time talking to folks about each of these technologies and their applications and over the next few weeks I plan to address the most commonly asked questions here on our blog. But for today, a few photos from the Common Ground Country Fair 2010.

Some of the federal energy tax credits are expiring on December 31, 2010 - but not the Residential Renewable Tax Credits! Residential Renewable Energy tax credits for wind and solar, which are 30% of the project cost, are available until 12-31-2016. Fantastic right?!?! We think so. The tax credit for things like windows, doors and insulation are expiring at the end of this year. For more information visit www.energystar.gov or http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-09-41.pdf

legal stuff: we are not accountants and you should always work with your tax professional when determining what tax credits are available to you.

Increasing Home Efficiency While Maintaining Air quality

Recently, I was asked about environmentally friendly insulating products for homes and if there was an insulating product that I could recommend. Unfortunately the answer is both 'yes' and 'no'.

These days we are still almost exclusively using fiberglass (batts or blown), foam, and rigid code board insulation in our construction and weatherization projects.

There are some 'greener' products on the market that are made of recycled clothing and newspapers, but to the best of my knowledge, these are not accessible yet here in small town Maine.

In any case, insulating, and caulking, are critical first steps to reducing ones energy requirements. These common sealing practices , referred to as Level 1 weatherization, include simplel steps like insulating rim joists (the space between the sub floor and the concrete wall in your basement), insulating between the trim around windows and doors, and increasing the amount of insulation in the ceiling/attic of your home. Actions like these help to better retain the heat that a home heating system is creating.

While these are seen as low-hanging fruit in the weatherization world, there is one item to be aware of before undertaking a project in your home: air quality. New homes today are constructed with a means of ventilation, at least bath fans and often whole house ventilation systems, also known as Heat Recovery and Ventilation, that help mitigate moisture and maintain the air quality in a home with a 'tight' energy envelope. Simply as a result of their build age, older homes that are being retrofitted may not have a mechanical means of ventilation. While it is unlikely that Level 1 weatherization efforts would generate an issue with air quality, it is certainly something to consider and be aware of.

If you have any questions regarding home weatherization or air quality, please don't hesitiate to give us a call and we'll walk you through what you need to know.

While this post is not specifically about renewable energy, I hope you will indulge me while I cross-pollinate a bit from our construction business, Evolo Home Center, LLC. We are currently working on a new home project that includes the use of ICF, or insulated concrete forms, for the basement. The benefits, beyond the obvious increased insulation values, include noise reduction, three hour fire protection and mold resistance. ICF basement construction also makes finishing a basement space much easier down the road. Unlike traditional concrete foundations where studding up walls can be quite a project, with ICF construction strapping is easily attached right to the interior insulation.

The construction of this type of foundation is made up of foam blocks that go together in a way that reminds me of Legos (™). Inside the blocks are structural supports and areas for rebar to be installed during the building process. Concrete is poured inside, and voila, foundation! Ok (maybe not quite that easy, but it is fairly straight forward).

For more information, Click Here

Here are photos from Evolo’s recent ICF installation.

This past Saturday my family observed 'earth hour'. This meant turning off the lights and TV's from 8:30-9:30 on Saturday night. What did we do? Had our first campfire of the year. It was a chilly here in Maine, but we bundled up and spent the time together arond the flames. How did you observe 'earth hour'?