Greenberg Energy Services

Learn Solar Now in Round Rock

Joel Greenberg — Wed, 30 May 2012 16:13:05 +0000

I had my first intro to solar class last night at the Austin Community College Round Rock Campus. It’s a great group of adult learners. Join us, won’t you? Now’s your chance to learn the basics of solar electricity. Spend Tuesday evenings this summer expanding your knowledge about one of the greatest challenges of our time: energy. HART 1071, Solar Electric Systems, Entry Level is great overview of solar electricity. We’ve held one class, but there are still openings. It’s not too late! Sign up now before slots are filled. Enroll Now Take what you learn in this class to: - Be a well informed consumer when comparing bids from solar installers. - Talk intelligently about solar and electricity in your job. - Sit for the NABCEP Entry Level Exam. - Make solar power for your laptop, outdoor lights, etc. When: Tuesday evenings through 8/14/12, 6:00pm to 9:30pm Where: Austin Community College, Round Rock Campus Who: Joel Greenberg, Instructor. Owner of Greenberg Energy Services, LLC. Enroll Now

More, Better For the New Year

Joel Greenberg — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:45:36 +0000

Hello and Happy New Year! I hope this coming year becomes everything you want it to be. 2011 was great and I’m excited about 2012. 2011 was my first full year in business. In the spring, I began teaching Weatherization as an adjunct instructor at Austin Community College. In the summer of 2011, I began teaching Solar Electric Systems as well. I found I loved teaching. I like making demonstration devices and letting students run them so that they quickly get that “Aha!” moment. You put a smoke stick in a student’s hand and ask them what will happen to the air in a stack effect simulator and they’ll never forget what it means to energy use that hot air rises. It’s not obvious at first blush that rising air can waste energy, but no one ever forgets that lesson. As for other lessons, there was that time that the sulfuric acid for the lead acid battery I had made spilled onto the rug, chewing through it…but my Solar students will never forget battery safety! This coming year, I’ll also be publishing interviews with interesting people in energy as Kindle shorts. I have a few interviews I never got around to putting on my Tech2Energy podcast, so they’ll see the life of day on the Kindle. There will be interviews with Bruce Sterling, Robert Bryce, and others. In addition to energy auditing, writing, and interviewing, I’m adding solar system design services for on grid or off grid systems. I can put together install teams that include roofers (residential & commercial), master electricians, and crew. The photo to the left is a solar crew I worked on, installing panels on a metal roof. To do the job, the crew leader graciously put me through OSHA fall protection training. As a result I’m now a “competent person” in fall protection. I’m in this energy business because I want to participate in solving one of the biggest problems facing our society: energy. If we nail it, we leave a better world for our children. I think you can argue there’s more innovation in energy today than there has been in the last 100 years. I think we can begin to nail it.

Your Trusted Advisor

My goal is to become your trusted advisor on energy issues and provide you the very best advice on how to make your home or business more energy efficient, how to add appropriate energy generation to your home or commercial building, or provide you guidance on making the best decisions based upon science and reasonable ROI expectations. Here’s a quick freebie: if you’re air filter looks like the one on the right, you’ve not only developed an eco system for all kinds of nasties to get distributed throughout your home, you’re making your HVAC system work harder than it needs to because it can’t “breathe.” Change your filters every month, it’s cheap, healthy, and energy efficient.

An Offer For You

To celebrate the new year, I’m offering a “buy one hour of consulting services at $125/hr, get one hour free” (up to three free hours) for existing customers. Just think how much you can get out of a discussion. I promise to be informative, interesting, and a good listener. With consulting, you could:

get all your questions on solar or weatherization answered.
get smarter about that new solar system you want installed.
get expert advice on those proposals you’ve collected from different companies.
understand how to bring your energy costs down in your business.
understand new options for more efficient HVAC systems, like pool geothermal.

…or any number of ways to for you to get smarter, save money, and get things done. Call 512-814-6735 or email me at joel [at] greenbergenergyservices.com to schedule a meeting. If we can meet within three miles of the UT Tower, we can meet in person. If not, we can speak on the phone, on Skype, or “anywhere” virtually. Happy New Year! Let’s solve energy together. Best, Joel Greenberg Owner Greenberg Energy Services, LLC

Knowledge and a Little Work Equals Comfort

Joel Greenberg — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:28:57 +0000

I teach a weatherization class at Austin Community College. My students sit for the BPI Building Analyst exam so that they can become energy auditors. They also learn how to fix things. To gain practical experience, I take my students into homes to run tests and work through real problems. A few of the students volunteer their relative’s homes. Last week, we were in R’s aunt’s home. It’s a modest one story slab home, less than 900 square feet. We were concentrating on combustion safety testing and duct leakage testing, so we didn’t run tests to measure the building’s air leakage. We did, however, do a walk through. R said the living room was always hot. They have a 2 ton system, which should be plenty for the home. (Indeed, if the home were reasonably “tight”, it’s too big.) We listed out a number of measures, including adding insulation (there was only 3.5 inches of fiberglass batt over the living room). The next class period, R came in all excited. He said after the class left, he instituted some of the suggestions we made. As a result, the living room is now much cooler. It was a dramatic change, which brought a smile to R’s face (and I’m assuming his Aunt’s as well). Here’s what we suggested: - fix the weatherstripping on the front door so that it actually did its job. You could see sunlight coming through the crack between the door and the frame–the tail tell sign that the weatherstripping is not flush up against the door. R purchased some foam weatherstripping and pressed it on so that it was flush against the door. Maybe not the robust solution, but a simple one. - fill the hole in the return plenum where the freon pipe goes into the wall. Doing so will prevent the A/C from sucking air from in between the wall…which is connected to the attic…which is connected to the outside. Residential HVAC should simply recirculate the air, not bring in air from the outside…unless it’s specifically designed to do so. - likewise, fill the holes in the sheetrock caused by the plumbing penetrations. - seal off the HVAC closet, which had louvres, and add “combustion air.” The furnace was essentially breathing the same air as the people. He weatherstripped the door to the HVAC closet and blocked the louvres. Because the ceiling of the HVAC closet was open to the attic, warm air came down into the HVAC closet, through the louvres, and into the living space. By air sealing the HVAC closet door, that hot air was no longer able to infiltrate into the living space. In all, about 45 minutes work. All these tasks are essentially air sealing, that is, preventing hot, outside air from coming inside. By doing so, R and his aunt can now sit comfortably in her living room, something she was never able to do before. Moral: when it comes to weatherization, you can get a lot of bang for your buck with simple measures. The trick is knowing which measures are meaningful. Knowledge is the key.

Multi-family Deep Energy Retrofits

Joel Greenberg — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:21:50 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of energy audits on apartments here in Austin due to the Energy Conservation and Disclosure’s (ECAD) requirement for every multi-family property in Austin older than 10 years old to have an energy audit. While the deadline was June 1st, 2011, there are still some properties who haven’t had the work performed. Because Austin’s energy usage is dominated by cooling, the heart of the ECAD audit is a Duct Blaster test, which measures air duct leakage. Surprise: not all the air you’re paying for makes it into the space where you live. Some leaks into the attic and the spaces between the walls. The Duct Blaster measures how much. However, the multi-family ECAD audit is a minimum audit. While it looks at duct leakage, attic insulation levels, and the existence of solar screens, it does no air infiltration testing. Still, it’s a start. Seeing as the vast majority of apartments in Austin are required to perform the audit, it represents an opportunity for renters to take energy usage into consideration. With the exception of those that use 150% more energy than the average property, property owners are not required to make energy efficiency upgrades. But if they, did, what could that look like for apartment owners? One example is a six story apartment building in Boston, MA called Castle Square. It’s performing what’s known as a Deep Energy Retrofit, which is a 50% or more reduction in energy use. In their case, they calculate a 72% reduction. Compare this to a 20% to 30% reduction in a typical “green building” retrofit. The main difference is insulation. While everyone knows to put insulation above the building (typically an attic) because hot air rises, not everyone has understood the implication of insulating the walls of a building. As long as there a temperature difference between the inside and the outside, heat will move, from hot to cold. What resists this heat movement is insulation. Castle Square’s big innovation is insulating from the outside by adding insulated panels to the outside of the building and replacing their windows with casement windows. Casement windows swing from a side and the locking mechanism typically assures a tight fit. With insulated cladding (R-40); a new, insulated roof (R-40), new casement windows (R-5), and extensive air sealing, the building will increase its insulation value by a factor of 10. They’ll also add appropriate ventilation to make sure each unit gets the air it needs. By super insulating and air sealing extensively, the building didn’t as big a heating and cooling system. The team describes the new HVAC systems as “tiny”. Castle Square has a great website which details their deep energy retrofit. It’s a great overview of how to make over an apartment building for energy efficiency. With a “how-to” guide, it makes for a good place to start thinking about how to upgrade an existing apartment building. The technology sections are a good overview on how to make a building more efficient. Construction oversight is crucial to reaching their goals. They’ve made available their Air Sealing Checklist and their Blower Door Inspection Checklist so others can learn what it takes to make sure the air sealing was complete.

The Hip Bone is Connected to the Knee Bone: Why Diagnosis Matters

Joel Greenberg — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 16:10:00 +0000

Done right, an energy audit is the proper diagnosis of a building to make it more energy efficient. As diagnosticians, energy auditors view the whole house as a system. Doing so solves the right problem, as this video illustrates. While shot in a different climate zone than Austin, it shows how problems are connected and solving the right problem saves money.

How to Seal A/C Ducts

Joel Greenberg — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:09:10 +0000

So many A/C ducts are leaky, especially in older buildings. It’s not a surprise. Take typical metal duct work. In older buildings, it’s usually connected by sliding two metal sleeves together and fastening with sheet metal screws. That’s it. Think that connection is air tight? Think again. The solution? Slather something called mastic around the joint. Mastic is a non-toxic goo developed to seal ducts. It’s cheap and relatively easy to apply. Don’t paint it on. Slather it on so it’s as thick as a nickle. Ducts typically leak from a few places:

the supply registers, especially where the supply register is connected to the wall (or floor).
elbows and other connections
connections at the supply plenum (the big box at the top of the furnace where all the ductwork is attached to.

This video from WXTV (that’s “weatherization tv”) from Montana shows how to weatherize ducts in mobile homes. For a site-built residential home, this procedure looks like over kill, but it’s a good video on how it’s done. Mostly, weatherization teams slather on mastic, they don’t typically tape the connection between the “boot” of the register and the wall/floor like they do in this video. Still, it’s good to see how it’s done. To check your work, you’d either:

Do a before and after test with a duct blaster, or
Do a before and after test with a flow hood on each register

to see how well you reduced the air leakage. Few people or building codes care if the air leakage is inside the building envelope. (I care, though, because air leaking in one place means that it’s not getting to where it’s intended to be someplace else, possibly contributing to rooms that are too hot or cold.) Everyone cares if the leakage is occuring outside the building envelope, like an attic or crawl space. No sense in heating or cooling the out doors.

Joel Greenberg Interviews Bob Metcalfe at SXSW Interactive 2011

Joel Greenberg — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:17:15 +0000

If you can’t make it to Austin, join the conversation live by using the #sxswenergy hashtag.

Watch Unsealed Air Ducts Leak

Joel Greenberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 23:27:45 +0000

This video dramatically shows leaky air ducts. It’s a new install in a new house before the ceilings have been put in. The energy auditor has used a theatrical fog machine to blow smoke into a duct blaster that was pressurizing the ductwork. The smoke leaks out where the ducts aren’t well connected.

Attic Stairs and Energy Loss – What You Can Do

Joel Greenberg — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 08:03:34 +0000

Thermal Image of attic door taken around 1pm on a cool day that's turning into a mild one. Attic heat build up is beginning to come through the attic door. Fuchsia is cooler, yellow is hotter.

Q: Can I really benefit from an attic stair cover, tent, or whatever they call it? A: Yes. Do you have one of these attic stairs in your house? Probably, right? In this infrared image, see how the heat from the attic is infiltrating the door and into the living space? This is a problem. But how big a problem? Let’s run the numbers. First, let’s describe the door. This one’s typical: eight square feet of quarter inch plywood which has an R Value of 0.31. Even though it’s weatherstripped, you can still see air infiltration coming through the cracks. But for this calculation, we’ll just look at the BTUs coming through the plywood itself, not through the air from the attic leaking around the edges.

Thermal Image of attic door taken on a cool day. Fuchsia is cooler.

These thermal images were taken in Austin, TX, so let’s use that climate. In both images, the attic doors were not insulated, but they were weatherstripped with foam weatherstripping. They both were in “conditioned space.” Let’s assume the attic temperature is 125% of the outside temperature during the summer. That is to say, when it’s 100 degrees outside, it’s 125 degrees in the Attic. This is a reasonable assumption for a typically ventilated attic. In the winter, let’s say the attic is is the same temperature as the outside air. This assumes a well ventilated attic. In the summer, this 8 s.f. of plywood is pass 1,350,348 BTUs of heat from the attic into the living space (like the top image). In the winter, this 8 s.f. of plywood will pass 1,008,581 BTUs of heat from the living space into the attic, (like the lower image). That’s a total of 2,358,929 BTUs of heat passing through the door year round. Assuming an all electric house and assuming 100% efficiency in the electric furnace (a good assumption) and A/C (a poor assumption; the A/C is less efficient, but if we assume 100% efficiency, our calculations will be slightly easier and the results will still be a conservative underestimation), the total killowatt hours needed to deal with this 2.4 million BTUs is 691 KWh. Assuming a current Austin Energy rate of 11 cents/KWh, this 2.4 million BTU’s costs the home owner $76.05 a year to deal with. If you were to buy an R6 attic tent cover from the Attic Doctor for $100 and install it yourself, you’d only have to deal with 121,878 BTU’s per year, which would cost you $3.93. This is an energy savings of $72.12 per year. This savings means: - Payback is one year and five months. - The Savings to Investment ratio is 14.42. This means that over it’s lifespan (assuming 20 years), the attic tent will pay for itself 14.42 times in energy savings. - These things will probably last longer than 20 years. Even if you were to build your own Attic tent (let’s say out of plywood, rigid foam and cans of sprayfoam for $200), your payback would be: - 2 years and 9 months - The savings to investment ratio would be 7.21, meaning your custom built attic tent would pay for itself 7.21 times over it’s 20 year life time. What’s the take away? First, an attic tent cover makes sense financially. Second, any void in insulation in the attic is a money waster. Ever have work done in your attic and the workers raked the insulation to one side, but forgot to rake it back? That’s a money waster. It’s also not that uncommon, especially in renovations when the electricians get up there to run wires, install recessed lighting (big holes in your ceiling), etc. For example, half inch drywall has an R Value 0.45; drywall is typical ceiling material. An eight square foot of uninsulated wallboard lets 1.6 million BTU’s of heat go through it a year in Austin, TX. That’s $52.39 a year of energy wasted. Raking the insulation back has an immediate payback because it’s free if you do it yourself. If you pay a handyman $50 to do it, you’ll make that money back in energy savings in one year and one month. The simple investment to return ratio is 19.38, meaning if you have this problem, paying someone $50 for every eight square feet of raking existing insulation back into place will pay for itself 19.38 times over a 20 year period. Having insulation voids in your ceiling is an expensive energy waster. Expensive energy waster’s typically have the shortest payback periods. Get an attic tent or build your own and begin saving money.

Oh, the Problems I Have Seen!

Joel Greenberg — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 06:33:58 +0000

Here’s a slideshow I used at a recent home trade show to talk about the problems I’ve seen using in energy audits. Each of the issues in this slideshow show energy efficiency or related health and safety deficiencies in actual homes. Any of this look familiar? If so, you may want have a professional energy auditor come take a look.

Austin homeshowslideshow austin-energy-audit

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