Friday, April 07, 2006
What President George Bush and Barack Obama Don't Know About Energy Efficiency
The third week of February President George W. Bush was on an energy efficiency tour, including the Midwest. This week Illinois U.S. Senator Barack Obama held forth on the same topic.
It is a shame that neither visited an energy efficient Solarcrete building. The company is based in southwestern McHenry County.
I wrote this November story about Solarcrete, pointing out my disappointment that new schools were not utilizing this energy efficiency technology. Then, I only knew how to link to the photos showing the difference in heat loss between regular buildings and those using Solarcrete construction. Now, I’ve figured out how to put them right in the story, although not how to get the pictures the same size. Unfortnately, I cannot control spacing. The program automatically places them where they are.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why those building schools, swimming pools, and prisons don’t require architects to design buildings as energy efficient as the state of the art will allow. Haven’t any of the school administrators or board members compared heating bills this year with previous years?
This is not rocket science. If your building is tighter, it costs less to heat it.
Solarcrete walls, as is explained below, are R-36. And, because they reach below the frost line, there is no heat loss where normal walls are connected to the foundation.
Below is the Fitch Company brick building in Huntley. In the next photograph, you can see the heat loss on a 25-degree day from the Fitch Company building using an infrared camera.
You can see a very cold car in the Fitch Building photos above, as well as the second story windows and the doors. (Click to enlarge.)
There is a heat loss line where the walls meet the building's foundation. You can see it best to the right of the row of bushes.
Here are similar regular and thermal photographs of a Solarcrete building with no windows--Northern Illinois Mold:
Below is a cross section of a Solarcrete wall:Concrete on the outside and polystyrene foam on the inside. If you want to put bricks on the ouitside, no problem. As the explanation page says,
It is a shame that neither visited an energy efficient Solarcrete building. The company is based in southwestern McHenry County.
I wrote this November story about Solarcrete, pointing out my disappointment that new schools were not utilizing this energy efficiency technology. Then, I only knew how to link to the photos showing the difference in heat loss between regular buildings and those using Solarcrete construction. Now, I’ve figured out how to put them right in the story, although not how to get the pictures the same size. Unfortnately, I cannot control spacing. The program automatically places them where they are.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why those building schools, swimming pools, and prisons don’t require architects to design buildings as energy efficient as the state of the art will allow. Haven’t any of the school administrators or board members compared heating bills this year with previous years?
This is not rocket science. If your building is tighter, it costs less to heat it.
Solarcrete walls, as is explained below, are R-36. And, because they reach below the frost line, there is no heat loss where normal walls are connected to the foundation.
Below is the Fitch Company brick building in Huntley. In the next photograph, you can see the heat loss on a 25-degree day from the Fitch Company building using an infrared camera.
You can see a very cold car in the Fitch Building photos above, as well as the second story windows and the doors. (Click to enlarge.)There is a heat loss line where the walls meet the building's foundation. You can see it best to the right of the row of bushes.
Here are similar regular and thermal photographs of a Solarcrete building with no windows--Northern Illinois Mold:
Below is a cross section of a Solarcrete wall:Concrete on the outside and polystyrene foam on the inside. If you want to put bricks on the ouitside, no problem. As the explanation page says,The standard Solarcrete insulated concrete wall is 12"As the firm’s web page says elsewhere, the walls arethick. This includes 7 1/4" of EPS foam and 2 3/8" fiber reinforced shotcrete on both sides of the foam. This wall assembly provides an R-value of 36.
2 to 3 times more resistant to heat loss transfer than the average U.S. Department of Energy recommendations for R-values for walls when using gas, heat pump or fuel oil for heating.Any school administrator or board member brave enough to be a pioneer?
Labels: Energy Efficiency, Pete Konopka, SolarCrete
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Energy Efficient Schools – Good Sense and Good Politics?
In the late 1990’s after my bride and I had put a stucco addition on our home, I discovered a company called Solarcrete. I wish I had discovered it before.
When I set up state government’s purchasing of natural gas from the wellhead, rather than from various gas companies in 1996 or 1997, the price was 20-some cents per therm. My October NICOR bill was $1.125 per therm.
Clearly heating costs are going to be a growing part of every school district’s budget.
I can’t remember how I found about Solarcrete, but its president, Pete Konopka, educated me well. (The firm is located in Union with a mailing address in Huntley.)
He told me that two—maybe three now—superintendents ago in Huntley, the school superintendent complained to him of heating costs. Konpoka told him of how his construction system could make new schools so much more energy efficient.
From the schools constructed since Huntley and Lake in the Hills populations skyrocketed, one would assume that more recent school superintendents were not as concerned about energy efficiency as the man Konpoka talked with.
Here’s what the firm does that traditional designers and builders of schools don’t.
Get the answer to this question and see heat losses for various types of constuction by clicking here.
When I set up state government’s purchasing of natural gas from the wellhead, rather than from various gas companies in 1996 or 1997, the price was 20-some cents per therm. My October NICOR bill was $1.125 per therm.
Clearly heating costs are going to be a growing part of every school district’s budget.
I can’t remember how I found about Solarcrete, but its president, Pete Konopka, educated me well. (The firm is located in Union with a mailing address in Huntley.)
He told me that two—maybe three now—superintendents ago in Huntley, the school superintendent complained to him of heating costs. Konpoka told him of how his construction system could make new schools so much more energy efficient.
From the schools constructed since Huntley and Lake in the Hills populations skyrocketed, one would assume that more recent school superintendents were not as concerned about energy efficiency as the man Konpoka talked with.
Here’s what the firm does that traditional designers and builders of schools don’t.
Get the answer to this question and see heat losses for various types of constuction by clicking here.
Labels: Energy Efficiency, Pete Konopka, SolarCrete
