HERS (Home Energy Rating System) is a rating system developed by RESNET in order to measure how efficient a home performs. From the RESNET About Us page:
In April 1995, the National Association of State Energy Officials and Energy Rated Homes of America founded the Residential Energy Services...
If you live in a home that has central heat/AC or if you have a car, then you have air filters. And if you haven't changed them for awhile, then chances are your systems are using more energy than they need to and hurting their performance. For most homes and cars, changing your air filters...
I like writing about free energy because the idea of it is thrilling. It's like a money tree, fountain of youth, or a fridge that never runs out of beer. But I'm not the only one who would love to see a free energy products, everyone in the world wants to see one. The problem is that I know...
Whether you're on a long camping trip or a storm has knocked you off-grid, you are going to need a consistent supply of clean water to drink. We've written a few posts on how to live-off grid from an energy standpoint, but we all know water is a little more vital to our survival. Fortunately, if...
Everyone wants cheap, clean energy. This means that there are many unscrupulous individuals out there who want to sell everyone products that claim to "save 40% on your energy bill" or "produce energy for free!". The biggest energy scam out there is the Magniwork free energy scam, but there...
If the Sunfish solar panels are the real deal, then the residential solar industry is in for a nice surprise. The Sunfish is a solar panel that plugs right in to an existing electrical outlet, eliminating need for an expensive inverter or battery system! The product is slated for released in...
Solar Screens: Before and After
There are three main ways to lower your energy usage due to air conditioning in the summer:
Insulate your home so cool air doesn't leak out
Program your thermostat so the AC doesn't have to come on as much or stay on as long
Keep solar heat out in the first place...
Learn how to save energy! How would you like a free guide to energy conservation techniques? Following the steps in this energy saving guide will save you thousands on your energy bills and make you a millionaire billionaire little richer. You're wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars in...
Below are some screen shots of the Mapawatt map tool that we are almost finished developing.
The house icons indicate registered users. Different color houses represent different types of homes - i.e. blue for townhome, red for single family, light blue for apartment, etc. My home is represented...
The intro of the GE Ecomagination challenge states "Welcome to the GE Ecomagination Challenge, a $200 million innovation experiment where businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and students share their best ideas on how to build the next-generation power grid – and just might get funded." There...
Phone Energy Apps
Below is a list of apps for smart phones that could help you control and save energy used in your home. Let us know if you've found some that are worthy of adding to the list. I'm staying away from apps that require too much manual entry, as I've found from personal...
Microsoft has been making some moves in the residential energy monitoring space since the time we first covered them in our post, "Energy Monitoring and the Big Three: Google, Microsoft, Apple" back in January 2010. When they first released Microsoft Hohm, I wasn't that impressed. It basically...
I'm very happy to host the following article written by one of Mapawatt's Sustainable Dream Team, Paul Scheckel. Paul is a home energy expert and runs the website www.nrgrev.com. I featured his book, The Home Energy Diet on our Sustainable Books page and it's one of the best places to begin if...
CFL Bulb for Recessed Lighting
I think one of the best ways I can help you know which brand of CFL bulb to buy is to share with you my experience with buying CFLs at the lowest price. I made this mistake in a very large way and hope that this will help others avoid a similar mistake...
Let's get one thing straight: I think the Plug and Save is a waste of money! That's why I was so surprised when I Googled "Save Electricity" and it turned out to be the second hit. I question the validity of a search engine if a company can simply "game" their search ranking to get high on the...
Find your Power Zones with Circuit Detective
As we strive for more knowledge of how we use energy in our home, at some point we begin to wonder how different zones of power are organized in our home. I encountered this issue when I worked on installing my TED 5000 Power Monitor into my dual...
Portable Power
When the next big asteroid or terrorist attack brings down the electric grid....wait...let me start this on a slightly more positive note: When a little winter snowstorm occurs and you lose your power or you go camping and you don't have access to the electricity grid (ahhh, much...
It seems that once a company (this one being Fridge Electric) gets a "Don't Buy!" rating from Consumer Reports (for their Cool Surge evaporative cooler) they just figure they have to wait a summer and release it under a new name: Mira-Cool. The Consumer Reports article on the air...
Zero Energy Homes
After working through several projects to retrofit an existing home to make it more energy efficient, it's hard not to think about what could be done by starting from scratch. A clean slate isn't something that everyone will get when it comes to living in an energy...
Fannie/Freddie VS. PACE
PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) financing has run into some trouble over the last few weeks. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (big players in the whole mortgage meltdown mess) have decided that they don't necessarily want to help out clean energy and have thrown up a...