Blog

Giving Back: Our New Community-Focused Initiative

This spring, Beyond Efficiency is calling for proposals from organizations or families in need of building-related technical assistance. Applicants must be based in either the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area or Teton County, Wyoming or Idaho.

"We were researching one-day team volunteer opportunities when we realized we could provide more value and service by volunteering directly and doing the work we do best," said Katy Hollbacher, Principal of Beyond Efficiency.

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Right Size Your Pipe Size

I recently attended the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) 2018 Hot Water Forum. This annual event brings together the most forward thinking policy makers, manufacturers, researchers and practitioners whose passion is how to make and deliver hot water efficiently and safely. As with the last water conference I attended, the development of a new pipe sizing methodology was a hot topic.

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Home Energy Monitors

Image credit: http://www.seventhwave.org/
 
This is the first in a series about home energy monitoring.

Let’s say you want to cut your energy use to save money, reduce your carbon footprint or even be zero energy. What consumes the most energy in your building? What's consuming more electricity than usual? How big will your utility bill be?

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Help Give the Earth a Break on Nov. 25!

How much do you feel you are helping to reduce global warming? If you are like me, you are doing things like recycling or turning out the lights in an empty room, but it can feel like a drop in the bucket.

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Details, details, details...

I am reminded every day that the old adage “The devil is in the details!” rings true in our quest for high performance building construction—as much any other endeavor.

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Innovations in Multifamily Plumbing

In early October, I attended the 10th Annual WaterSmart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas. A repeated theme was “saving water saves energy and vice versa.” Multifamily buildings are a prime example, as domestic hot water (DHW) is a dominant energy use in multifamily. Reducing DHW use and delivering it more efficiently are worthy project goals. Here are some exciting new developments in this arena:

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Exciting Building Products From Passive House Conference

In late September I gave a presentation at the 12th Annual North American Passive House Conference, organized by PHIUS, describing how heat pump water heaters can be used for combined space heating and water heating. When strolling the vendors' floor between presentations, I was pleasantly surprised to see an increase in the quality of Passive building products.

Musings on the Solar Eclipse, One Month Later

I was lucky to be in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—virtually smack-dab on the "blue line" in the narrow path of totality—for the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in 99 years on August 21. There was so much hype leading up to this event, and it was completely justified! For an unforgettable moment in the midst of our vast universe, in a special spot dynamically shifting east along with the movement of our planetary objects, our sun and moon literally aligned and our little spot of Earth was transformed: the sky darkened, the horizon turned orange, stars appeared, and the air felt freezing.

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