Items in the General Category
Re-Post: “It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where…”
Posted in Energy Efficiency, General - 3 October 2011
Think about the real cost of your spoon, take a minute and really think about it.
A good friend forwarded this to me and I felt it was worth re-posting. It so simply and clearly illustrates how our society has decoupled the true cost of a product from our experiences with it. If we saw first hand what goes into making the stuff we use, we would be more reluctant to dispose of things so casually.The text reads: “It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the groud, ship it to a refinery, turn it into plastic, shape it appropriately, truck it to a store, buy it, and bring it home is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re done with it.”
350.ORG Despite Some Rain, A Resounding Success
Posted in Community, General - 27 September 2011We had a great time and met lots of interesting people at the recent 350.org event in Durham NC. It’s always nice to get a chance to talk to people about what we do, who we are and answer questions. The thing that excites me most is when we get the younger generation sidling up to the table to ask us about renewable energy like solar thermal and photovoltaics, or even green building.
350.org in Durham
More and more people are becoming aware that the way of the past is no longer sustainable. Even with a global recession, energy prices are still sky high. It wasn’t that long ago that fuel was pushing $4.00 / gallon and the country was aghast. Despite the slow economy, we’re still hovering near that and now we aren’t phased. Once the global economy starts picking up and demand for our precious energy resources gets into high gear, we will no doubt be facing even steeper prices.
The good news is, there are solutions available today in the form of solar, energy efficiency, building sciences, hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles and even cheaper and better technology on the way. The future is bright if we choose to face it with courage and conviction rather than choosing to remain in the dark and hope someone else fixes things for us.
Building It Right From The Start.
Posted in General, Green Building - 15 September 2011Since we founded Sundogs Solutions about two years ago, we’ve had the opportunity to work on over one hundred houses in the greater Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Raleigh area and have seen it all, from well intentioned, though misguided efforts at construction and energy efficiency, to downright fraud, abuse and dangerous practices. No matter what we’ve faced when working on a building, we’ve approached our energy efficiency retrofit work with an eye to understanding our client’s objectives first and then designing a plan using building sciences to best achieve this goal. At times, this has proven extremely challenging, having to work in areas that are difficult to access, are sealed off and completely inaccessible, or sometimes simply not cost-effective to modify.
So it has been a real pleasure to have the opportunity to build something right from scratch. Last year Lori and Mark called us after seeing our ad in the local “Independent”, and asked us if we would be interested in building an energy efficient (more…)
Why Changing Your Air Filter Regularly Is Important!
Posted in General, Healthy Home - 4 August 2011Last night on my drive home, a friend called me to ask my opinion on his upstairs A/C unit which was no longer blowing cold air, in fact there was very little air movement at all. My first questions was “have you changed your air filter recently?”
This is a common summer problem for residents in the humid south. When your air conditioner is working properly, a refrigerant is sent to a small “radiator” by the air handler (fan) very similar to the one on cars. This refrigerant is very cold and as a result performs two functions: (more…)
Choosing An Energy Auditor (re-post)
Posted in Energy Efficiency, General, Healthy Home - 15 June 2011We don’t often re-post others work, however I have a lot of respect for the folks over at Energy Vanguard and I figured in the spirit of “reuse” we would link to an excellent post on a popular topic.
Here is an article an instructor of mine wrote on the topic of “choosing a company to do an energy audit“
Air Sealing Overview
Posted in General - 25 June 2010A great view of a typical home’s points of air leakage.
Increase your Home's Value
Posted in General - 22 March 2010As the trend continues towards “Certified Green Homes” more and more buyers are looking for homes with demonstrated “Green” or “Energy Efficient” accreditations. In the past, homeowners and builders received little to no credit for energy efficient upgrades or certifications. This is now starting to change as consumers begin to recognize the value of these features in the long term. In some areas, appraisers are starting to be trained on assigning value to Green building features and Renewable Energy systems and there are now special mortgages called “Energy Efficient Mortgages” which add the projected operational cost savings of an energy efficient home to an applicant’s income when determining the amount of loan he or she qualifies for. But most importantly, consumers are starting to recognize that healthy and energy efficient homes provide higher long term value and enjoyment to them and are asking for these features when shopping around.
