energy efficiency

Chaka Fattah and NASA Chief Technologist Visit West Philly Hybrid X Team

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Our company has been very excited to watch the incredible successes of the West Philadelphia High School “X Team” as they take on other competitors with very deep pockets and many years experience for the coveted “X Prize” for high efficiency vehicles. In fact high end Tesla Autos recently dropped out of the competition, perhaps because they couldn’t compete against the West Philly High School team!

We are excited to see our local congressional representative Chaka Fattah also supports these kids. We would like to see Philadelphia as a city get behind these kids and others in our city who are also passionate about learning.

City kids get a bad rap when it comes to their performance in school. The West Philly High “X Team” is proof that urban kids want to learn. The are smart, hard working, successful people. And our company supports the notion that “learning with your hands” is where it’s at.

You can read about the recent visit these kids had with Chaka Fattah and Dr. Braun, NASA’s chief technologist here:

West Philly High “X-Team”

Save Thousands of Dollars By Using One of These!

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We get a lot of calls from home owners who have stars in their eyes for solar arrays, geo thermal heat/cooling, or other fancy expensive “green” gadgets.

Here is a device that costs around $100 or less that can save you thousands of dollars in energy bills. Better yet, you can buy one at the home center and even install this yourself.

These are programable thermostats. A programable thermostat allows you to program various temperature settings into it, so you only use the fuel you need to be comfortable when you need it.

The thermostat on the left handles whole house/zone heating and cooling. You can see, its set for 57 degrees. Thats our “away” setting for the house. This thermostat, combined with some new insulation and the low settings when we were sleeping or away from home saved us well over 20% in heating costs last winter.

The thermostat on the right is for the electric radiant heat in our foyer area. This can be an efficient way to heat a room but it has to be planned for before renovation.

Call us if you need a hand.

Myers Constructs, Inc., Wins a Grand Jury Award in Renovation from The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia!

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We’re thrilled to announce that we recently received an award from The Preservation Alliance for a major renovation and repair project at The Fleisher Art Memorial, the nation’s oldest tuition-free art school located on Catherine Street in South Philadelphia.

This project entailed repairing and replacing 83 wooden windows – most of which were nearly a century old – with the goals of maintaining the historical integrity of the buildings, achieving energy efficiencies, and providing a safer and more secure environment for the 17,000 people who visit Fleisher throughout the year. Click here for details on this project.

A Serendipitous Find at The Philadelphia Home Show

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At the Home Show last week, we saw some nice, new products, including energy-efficient heating plants. These new hot water boiler systems can make hot water for heat and for domestic use, they are smaller than what you have now, and they are 95% or more efficient!

We also found that one of the window suppliers we use offers a 10-year warranty on its product! This was news to us — and good news, at that — since a set of their doors we installed seven years ago has water-damage issues. We have contacted their offices to see about getting the prob fixed!

The Sexy Side of Home Insulation

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This post is a continuation of my blog post about the truly sexy stuff that goes on behind your walls. I’ve been writing about these topics because we have been getting lots of calls from folks who are focused only on the shiny bits of their projects. The fact is, the shiny bits are not where the true value of a project lies, even if they are fun to use.

By the time most of our customers call us, they have spent many hours eyeing expensive, flashy items like new kitchen cabinets, high-gloss tile, chrome fixtures, and all the other glitzy things that go into a project. They can even quote the prices and technical features of these items. But the fact is, these are just the cherry on the sundae, the icing on the cake. They are “the fun stuff” that comes at the end of a complicated mix of science and art we apply to every single project we take on. 

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Its heater season!

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Lucy suggests you check your home’s weather tightness.

The dogs at our office enjoy their seat next to our office electric heater. IMG_2502

We can help you be more comfortable and spend less money on heat and air conditioning at the same time. Call us to schedule an energy audit. Once we know what’s happing in your home we can put together your energy efficiency plan.

Natl. Academy of Science Says Our Current Energy Economy Has $120 Billion in “Externalized” Costs

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Ars Technica has a brief article on the NAS report, which was requested by Congress. Externalized costs are those not charged to producers or consumers, but which must be absorbed by society as a whole. A very good example is the damage to subterranean acquifers in West Virginia done by mountaintop removal coal mining. Rent the film “Burning the Future” for details. We need to move to microgrids. See my post on feeder tariffs below.