Saving money and energy by only changing your lighting? Sounds like a bright idea to me! Energy efficient lighting is one of the easiest ways to save money on your energy bills. Here are some ideas to save money more than just changing out incandescent  bulbs to CFL or LED bulbs.

You might think that something so small in your home, which uses so much less energy than, say, your AC unit, might not make a difference. If that’s your thought, let me illuminate you: lighting is one of the easiest ways to save energy, with the most immediate results. Even if you’re not paying much just to light your home, waste is waste, so let me bring a few ideas out of the shadows and into the light:

Firstly, keep your lamps (and even your other appliances!) away from the thermostat. Every thermostat has a sensor so that it can tell how warm the room is, and whether it needs to be running the air conditioning. If the sensor is too close to a warm lamp, the sensor will pick up on its warmth and run the AC longer than necessary. 

Lamp placement can help save energy in other ways, too. For instance, try putting a lamp in the corner of the room. A lamp placed against a single wall only has one surface to reflect light off of, but placed against two walls, your lamp reflects twice the amount of light. This makes your lamp appear even brighter than normal, and offers an opportunity to use a lower wattage bulb for the same amount of light.

Speaking of lower wattage bulbs, another idea is to replace your lesser-used light bulbs with a lower wattage. While you do this, you can also upgrade your most used lights with an energy efficient bulb. 

Keeping your lights on a timer helps you keep your energy use on a regular schedule, while a motion sensor attached to your lights allows you to make sure you are only keeping lights on when you need them, instead of when you forget about them.

Who would've thought you could do so many different things to save energy from just your lights? At Green ID, we can help your energy efficiency shine bright with a home energy audit. Don't be in the dark about your home's energy waste, call us at (602) 926-1650 today! 

Whether you spend every night in the kitchen making dinner or its main use is warming up left overs, these tips can help you cut down your spending and energy use in the kitchen.

Pots, Pans, and dishes
Using a warped pan to cook can be an energy sucker. Using a warped pot to boil water can take longer and use 50% more energy! Not only does the state of the cookware matter but the material matters as well. Using a copper bottomed pan will cut the time of cooking down; they heat up much faster than some of the other options. Also, when using the oven it’s better to use glass or ceramic dishes rather than metal. If you use a metal dish you’ll need to turn your oven at least 25 degrees up to be finished cooking in the same about of time as you would with a glass dish.

Make leftovers
If you can, make double portions! You can freeze the extras and save them for later. It takes a lot less energy to reheat than it does to cook a meal twice.

Appliances
Trust me, when it comes to energy use, not all appliances are equal. Upgrading your appliances would be a great first step to lower your long term spending in the kitchen. Although the initial cost may be high, this change will make the biggest impact on your energy bills and has the potential to slash your spending. Aim for investing in energy star appliances because you’re guaranteed that they are the most energy efficient.

 clean​A convention is always preferred over a standard oven. Because the heated air is constantly circulating the temperature and cook time can both decrease. Making the switch to a convention oven, on average, will lower your ovens energy use by 20%.

Self-cleaning ovens are ideal because they’re built with better insulation.

Your burner pans
You know the metal bowl underneath the coil stove burners that catch water and crumbs while you’re cooking? Those are burner pans. Keeping your burner pans clean is crucial and so easy. Those pans are not meant just to catch whatever is overflowing your pots; they’re supposed to be a reflective surface!  That surface reflects heat up to the cookware and helps your stove work more efficiently.

Fix that leaky faucet
A leaky faucet, though it seems only small and annoying, can really add up! A faucet that drips once a second can waste up to 1,661 gallons of water each year! Not only is that a complete waste of water, it can cost you up to $35 in electricity and gas. ​

You might think that choosing a new AC unit is as easy as pie (er, porridge?) when an HVAC contractor tells you their size suggestion, but getting a correctly sized AC unit is not as easy as it may seem- HVAC contractors will frequently take shortcuts by trying to use “rules of thumb”, or calculations based on limited information like the square footage of your home, which very often force you, the homeowner, to end up with an incorrectly sized unit. 

Most units sized wrong end up being too large for the home, but units that are too small happen too. People (sometimes even HVAC contractors!) can often make the assumption that “bigger is better”, meaning a larger unit will be more efficient and save more energy, but this is far from the truth. Whether it’s too big or too small, an AC unit that’s the wrong size wastes energy and raises your bills.

Too big, too small, or just right… Looking at AC units can have you feeling a bit like Goldilocks. And if you have the wrong size AC unit, the sight of your frightening electricity bills might just get you to run screaming. 


What can happen when your AC is not sized correctly:

TOO BIG:
• Shortened lifespan
• Cycles on/off more frequently than right size unit
• Can cause humidity indoors –  which can lead to mold!!
• More expensive to buy, maintain, and use
• Large temperature swings

TOO SMALL:
• Continuously runs
• Possibly not enough to fully cool house
• Warmer indoor temps overall
• Often overworked system

PROBLEMS OF BOTH:
• Longer run times
• Higher electricity costs
• Higher maintenance costs
• Excess noise
• Higher chance of system breaking

Before installing any new AC Units, you should be absolutely sure that your HVAC contractor did their calculations with a Manual J Load calculation.

​At Green ID, our job is to make sure your AC unit is up to par. With our help, your air conditioning could feel juuust right. Call us today at (602) 926-1650.

The main purpose of roof ventilation is to keep the air space above the roof insulation at the same temperature as the outside air. In an unoccupied attic with the insulation on the floor, the air space between the floor and the roof requires air changes to achieve this. Local residential building codes specify appropriate roof ventilation methods depending on where a home is located. 

Benefits of Roof Ventilation

When damp air enters an attic, it can lead to condensation on surfaces inside the attic and shorten the life of building materials. When cooling a house, a hot attic can increase the load on an air conditioning system. Roof ventilation can help keep spaced adjacent to the conditioned space at regulated temperatures.

Roof and attic ventilation can also increase the durability of building materials and reduce heating and cooling costs. It is important that the roof ventilation is designed in a ways that does not diminish the integrity of the insulation and matches the size of the space being ventilated. Air sealing is also key to the appropriate performance of roof ventilation. It ensures there is a barrier keeping unwanted moisture and temperature changes from entering unconditioned spaces.

Why You Should Keep Unconditioned Spaces Separated

Insulation is the thermal barrier of a home which reduces the temperature changes between the interior conditioned spaces and the exterior/outside unconditioned spaces. Air sealing is the work that closes holes between the conditioned and unconditioned spaces. If there are holes from the conditioned space that allow air into the insulation, this will affect how several systems in a building function. Roof ventilation is one of the systems that performs best when air sealing has been properly completed. 

A passive roof ventilation system, which has openings low and high, is designed to move air in an unconditioned space using the natural flow of air called stack effect. Air moves naturally as it does in a chimney, entering at low points and exiting out openings at higher levels. IF there are openings from the conditioned space into the ventilated, unconditioned space, then roof ventilation can pull air from the home and not function as intended. This can cause problems during both the heating and cooling seasons.

How to Know if a Roof is Properly Ventilated

There are contractors that can complete a visual and diagnostic inspection to ensure that your home’s attic is ventilated according to local codes and BPI standards. During an energy audit, the contractor will measure the ventilation openings and ensure that the path is setup to perform in a way that does not reduce the effectiveness of insulation. A blower door test will be completed to discover any air sealing improvements that can benefit a home’s durability, comfort, and whole-house performance. 

Contact an experienced contractor like Green ID to inspect your attic and perform an energy audit on your home to determine which technique would be most cost efficient and effective for your home. 

It’s summertime! That means backyard BBQs and pool parties. Well, assuming you’ve got a working pool. If your pool pump needs to be replaced, it can unfortunately mean more summertime sadness than fun in the sun.  

Let’s be honest, as nice as they can be, swimming pools are expensive to maintain. Especially if your pool pump is lacking in efficiency, it can quickly become your most expensive appliance by far. There are three types of pool pumps: single-speed, two-speed, and variable-speed. 

I’m sure you can guess just by the name how they mainly differ from each other, but the single-speed runs at a single, consistent speed, while the two-speed runs at either a high speed or a low speed, and the variable-speed has several speed settings to choose from. 

But they have way more differences than just that. A single-speed, for instance, is extremely common in many homes, and is the cheapest type of pool pump, but it is loud, inefficient (which means higher bills every month), and has a shorter lifespan. 

The two-speed pump is very similar to the single-speed. In fact, they’re nearly the same, but the two-speed has the addition of a low speed, which adds some efficiency by not running at its highest power setting all the time. The problem is, with only two options, many of your pools functions will be too much for the low setting to properly work, requiring you to change the setting to high. This is certainly a better option than running it on high 24/7 like you must using a single-speed pump, but if your required pool function requires less energy than the amount high setting your two-speed is using, you are still absolutely wasting energy AND money.

We recommend the variable-speed pool pump. It is, by far, the most efficient and technologically advanced pool pump on the market. It’s quiet, long-lasting, and often includes convenient features like a touch screen and easy adjustment. It leads to a cleaner pool, with better chemical mixing and reduced temperature stagnation. It is also the most expensive option, but after the initial purchase, you can expect an average annual savings amount of $200-$450!
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There’s no feeling like jumping into a cool, clean pool in the hot summer months. Except maybe watching your summer energy bills go down. With the right pool pump, you can do both! Step aside, inefficient pool pumps, summertime fun is here to stay.