Several articles on this site and others talk about how wasteful hot water recirculation pumps can be, both in terms of wasted electricity (running the pumps even when you’re on vacation or sound asleep) and wasted natural gas (reheating the water after it cools down running through the plumbing in Read more…
The company OhmConnect provides a “demand response” service to consumers in some parts of the country. I tried their service way back in 2014 and was unimpressed: seemed to me very few people would be willing to run around the house turning off lights and delaying dinner during their random Read more…
Last summer we had to do an emergency fridge replacement — our giant 25 year old SubZero gave up — and we struggled to find the right replacement. Availability was very low at that time due to the pandemic. But we ended up with an LG-LFCC22426S and love it; other Read more…
How can you know if your existing home’s heating and cooling systems are efficient? New homes are often modeled in software before they are constructed, and in many states this model is required to result in a certain level of heating and cooling efficiency. But after a home has been Read more…
It’s logical that household energy use will go up while we’re all spending more time at home. But how much more? Ohmconnect thinks it may be as much as $1.2B in increased utility bills for California residents. Ouch! Happily, there’s lots of low- and no-cost things we can do to reduce our home energy Read more…
Lisa Schmidt from HEA talks about a free program to lower energy bills for Californians. HomeIntel focuses on “easy savings” with no purchases or $20-25 devices. Fyi, the California Energy Commission (CEC) supported HEA and volunteers to put together this educational website. This is part 3 of our interview with Read more…
This is part 3 of an interview with Bruce Mast, who runs Peninsula Climate Comfort, a pilot program to help California residents go from using natural gas appliances to using electric ones. This is often called beneficial electrification. The benefits include more comfort, safer, healthier and helping reduce pollution and Read more…
This is part 2 of our talks with Bruce Mast. To get the background on electrification and heat pump technology, review part 1. In this section, we talk about Bruce’s experience in the energy industry, including why and how he’s in it to overcome the challenges of deploying win-win solutions. Read more…
Bruce Mast has been in the energy industry for over two decades. He’s been looking for win-win solutions to help humanity and the environment for three decades since the Peace Corps. We really welcome him to discuss the beginnings of his latest mission: making homes more comfortable and electric. Bruce Read more…
In part 1 and part 2 of this interview, Patti talks about how our communities really need energy efficiency and how easy it is if people knew to focus on unnecessary waste. This is part 3 of the interview where she shares examples from her energy coaching where people were Read more…