Tag Archives: HVAC

A “green home” starts with a “green design”

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Greenlanta

I once heard that ‘bad architecture is leading to climate change.’ I am not sure if I would blame the design community, however we all need to start with a good design is we are going to build smarter.

You can have a bad design and add lots of energy savings components to that design to help save on energy. OR you can start with a good design and save 20-50% on utility costs, then add energy saving materials to the better designed house.

So what’s the big deal about Southfacing houses? Check out this interview with Prof Lechner who demonstrates with his heliodon on how a smart orientation of the house can save up to 50% on your energy bills.

Bad design orientation has higher upfront and long term costs:

  1. More direct sun on the East and West facing windows causes the heating and or cooling loads to be increased.  This means you have to pay more upfront for a larger HVAC system and you will end up paying more for utilities as well.
  2. A good design allows natural light into you house without increasing the cooling load.  You don’t have to use as much “artificial lighting” if you can get some free sunlight during the day.
  3. Too much direct sunlight is annoying and will be eventually blocked with window shades.   If this happens, artificial lights will have to be turned on increasing the lighting bill and the cooling bill since they put off heat.

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Energy Rebates through Shine Program in Atlanta

Posted on October 19, 2010 by Greenlanta

When the Shine program was first announced, I did not pay that much attention to it since there was going to be a lot of paperwork and little rebates for my clients.  However, since then, the city has launched a pilot phase for the program increasing the rebates to 25% of the cost of the work up to $2,000.  This is an addition to the GA Power rebates up to $1900.

If you are counting on the federal tax credit still, then you need to act fast.  The credit expires at the end of this year.  That is $1500 that you could loose in rebates if you do not get the improvements before the 31st of December, 2010.

Sample rebate:

Energy Improvement      $8000

Atlanta rebates                   $2000

Federal Rebate                    $1500

GA Power (up to)                $1900

If you add solar or geothermal HVAC you may qualify for even more federal and state tax credits as well.

Here is Mandy Mahoney talking about the Shine Program a few months ago:


About the author

Matt Hoots is president of SawHorse- Atlanta’s leading design/ build firm since 1978.  He also is co chair of the GAHBA Green Building Council, frequently blogs and writes a monthly green Q&A for Atlanta Home Improvement Magazine.  Contact SawHorse for more information.

Contact Me LinkedIn Facebook

Twitter Latest tweet: Leaky Houses in Atlanta http://networkedblogs.com/9wuLe

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Home Performance in Atlanta- Paper/ Scissors/ Rock style

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Greenlanta

As a home performance contractor, it is great to see the concept become more popular and almost to the point of becoming a commodity.  When we first started offering Home Performance with Energy Star services over 6 years ago, we had to explain what home performance meant, not everyone else is doing that for us.  We were the first remodelor in the program and the market was very young.

While I am happy to see it becoming more popular, I am worried that many companies are offering this as an add on to the services instead of making it standard.  The other issue that I see is HVAC, insulation and general contracting companies selling home performance ONLY from the point of view of the product they sell.

That’s is how I came up with the paper scissors rock approach to Home Performance.  As a kid, the game “Paper/ Scissors/ Rock” was played to see if you could guess which item that you opponent would select and hopefully, you would select the item that would trump theirs.

Scissors- would cut paper- would beat rock- which would crush scissors- which would cut paper…

So how does this apply to Home Performance?

Insulation- has a faster ROI than HVAC- which should be sized based on insulation- which cannot be installed with certain types of HVAC- which must be altered for better insulation- which should be installed before adding solar power- which is a great option for heating water- which is the 2nd leading use of power in the house- which can be reduced if you use less hot water…

As you can see, nobody really wins in home performance if not installed properly, they all must be designed to work together.

Keep in mind:

An HVAC guy makes money based on equipment sales

An insulation guy makes money selling and installing insulation

A solar installer make money by creating power for you

However a home performance contractor gets satisfaction out of a finely tuned house that they designed so you can have insulation and HVAC engineered to work with each other and other options that are designed to make your home more comfortable and energy efficient.  You will also tells your friends more often about a home performance contractor verse a single product installer.

Bottom line.

It’s not paper/ scissors OR rock it’s: HVAC, insulation, AND moisture management- The complete Home Performance package.

Fresh World the performance division of The Hoots Group is Atlanta’s leading home performance contractor with hundreds of improvement and thousand of assessments to date.

Find out more about us here, check out our videos, and become a fan of us on Facebook!

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