Category Archives: energy retrofitting

Green Remodeling: Make Your Home More Energy Efficient

Posted on June 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

Imagine you live in your green dream home. It’s extremely energy-efficient, but also beautiful, comfortable and perfectly suited to your needs. Are you picturing a brand new house? Think again — you can likely turn your current house into your dream home with smart green remodeling.

Will energy efficiency add value to your home? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

Plus, the amount of money you can save with energy upgrades is often more than you might think. Russ Rudy, a builder and energy-efficiency expert who has done numerous gut rehabs of homes in the Midwest, says he helps homeowners get energy savings of up to 75 percent when he’s able to rework a house from top to bottom. Even with less intensive work, significantly cheaper energy bills are possible. The nonprofit organization Historic Green, based in Kansas City, Mo., has been doing a series of energy retrofits in one of the city’s neighborhoods. The organization reports it has been able to cut some homes’ energy use in half, resulting in an average cost savings of $100 per month on energy bills.

Those are substantial energy savings, but why stop there? If you’re doing a major home overhaul, you can go one step further and add passive solar design features to optimize your home’s natural heating, cooling and daylighting. And you can just as easily add renewable energy features — such as solar electric panels or a solar water heater — to an old home as you can to a new one. Many green remodeling projects can be done on a tight budget — you just have to start thinking through what’s possible.

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Tightly Sealed Homes Are Coming Our Way – Passive, Yet Powerful Houses

Posted on June 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

The idea of passive house design isn’t new. It was first promoted in the early 1990s.

But the concept — virtually airtight buildings, heavily insulated and using triple-glazed windows, requiring little energy for heating or cooling — has yet to capture the public’s imagination. Part of the problem may be people’s lack of exposure to a passive house. There just aren’t that many to visit.

Does this add value to your home? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

“Unless you can show the public the projects under construction, then stand in it when it’s finished, I think it’s hard to understand the passive house,” says Julie Torres Moskovitz, the founding principal at Fabrica718, an award-winning Brooklyn design firm.

Torres Moskovitz estimates there may be 40,000 certified passive house buildings in the world, but probably fewer than 50 projects in the United States.

“There are also a lot of houses being built with the passive house (concept) in mind that don’t quite reach the (certification) level,” she says.

The stringent passive house — or Passivhaus — standards and the Passive House Planning Package software were developed by the Passive House Institute in Germany. The U.S.-based Passive House Institute is currently formulating its own standards. The PHPP software incorporates a designer’s calculations and helps design a passive house.

A passive house saves up to 90 percent of space heating costs and 75 percent of overall energy costs, though some European studies indicate the numbers may be even higher.

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Rebates and Efficiencies Help Residents Save Energy and Cash

Posted on May 9, 2013 | 1 comment

Save Energy

Mary Morris was wary when she had to pay for an energy audit of her single-family home in the North Park Hill to qualify for an Xcel rebate.

Twelve months later, she’s a convert. Since contractor Casey Staley from REenergizeCO completed an energy audit on her home, which was built in 1948, and performed subsequent improvements last spring, Morris has saved $438 on her energy bill. That’s in addition to Staley finding $1,100 in rebates for a $3,800 project.

Will energy efficiency add value to your home? Contact the appraiser at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

“For $2,700, we got the audit, our duct work in the attic sealed with flexible mastic, and I could sense an improvement in the air quality within 24 hours,” she says.

With that money Morris also insulated the attic as well as a 1,700-square-foot main floor that included a large sun room, and weatherized a nearly 1,500-square-foot “bomb bunker” basement, where Staley added a threshold to her energy-sucking boiler room. The money also went toward purchasing an energy-efficient dishwasher.

Staley, who’s a vetted contractor through Xcel and Denver Energy Challenge, works to make sure his clients receive all rebates possible. He says residents are often unaware of how much money they can save on up-front costs. He added that residents who performed home improvements saw additional savings in their tax returns this year through a federal credit.

“That tax credit is 10 percent,” he said. “If the work is $4,000, you’re getting $400 back from the (feds).”

Morris, who received around $300 back from the tax credit this year, looks forward to a summer where her air conditioner will keep her home at a comfortable 71 degrees. “My husband says the sign of a civilized life is when you’re warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” she says. “And I agree.”

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