Article for Appalachian Voices from December 2015/ January 2016 Issue

Dec 2015 / Jan 2016

Modern High Efficiency Heat Pumps Deliver “Free Heat”

The biggest user of energy in most homes is the heating and cooling system. There are three basic ways to reduce the energy consumed by your heating and cooling system.

• Produce the heating and cooling more efficiently

• Reduce the load by tightening the home’s thermal envelope

• Obtain energy from clean and renewable sources

In this article we will focus on the first item, specifically how a heat pump can help heat and cool a home more efficiently.

In a word, super-efficient heat pumps ROCK in the mountains where the weather can be so variable from one day to the next. An average heat pump is able to get about two and a half times more heat from a kilowatt-hour of electricity than a conventional heat source, such as an electric baseboard. For example, a home that uses 10 kilowatt hours of electricity on heat will get 34,120 BTUs of heat with an electric baseboard system, but would get 85,300 BTUs from a heat pump.

In the past, one concern with heat pumps was that they required supplemental heat during very cold weather. Modern, super-efficient heat pumps, however, can perform at 100% efficiency down to much colder temperatures. A mini split is one such type of efficient heat pump system.

Some models of the Mitsubishi Mini Splits are 100% efficient down to -13˚F. A mini-split system can also be set up with multiple zones, which means that if you have an in-law suite, for instance, you can set that area to a different setting than the rest of your home.

Because heat pumps are 2.5 times more efficient than electric baseboards, you will be paying much less money for what you actually get. And getting more heat from the same amount of electricity equals fewer carbon emissions, which is great for the planet!

• Install renewable energy systems to produce emission-free lean energy

Article for Appalachian voices from October/November 2015 Issue

A Resource for Responsible Home Ownership

Homes consume a great deal of energy and natural resources during construction, and even more when in operation. This energy is often extracted in ways that are detrimental to the planet, and the pollution from electricity generation is contributing to an increasingly volatile climate with potentially unfortunate consequences for everyone.

By understanding how a home is constructed and where the resources come from, homeowners and building professionals can make careful choices to lessen the impact of the construction project.

Homeowners know that they are using energy to heat and cool their home, run their appliances and heat their water. But what is not as obvious is that the combined impact of all these homes is a very large contributor to global greenhouse emissions. Reduced energy consumption from the building sector begins with an informed customer asking for more energy-efficient, healthier homes to live in and raise their kids.

The basic formula is very simple:

• Reduce your home’s energy consumption by eliminating wasted energy due to leaks and poor insulation while improving the efficiency of the appliances and equipment

In this column, we hope to help you see where your home fits into the sometimes daunting quest to reduce your overall energy consumption. Feel free to send questions about how to improve your home’s energy consumption or topics you’d like to see addressed in future.

New Website!

We have a new website, www.sunnydayhomesinc.com, that we hope folks will check out. We will also be posting all of our past Appalachian Voices Articles on this blog. Stay tuned!

Welcome to Sunny Day Homes!

If you are thinking about a custom-designed home, remodeling or a new addition, we would welcome the opportunity to work with you. We can assist in designing and building a healthy, energy-efficient, beautiful, satisfying home for you and yours that will be a part of a more sustainable approach to building and living.