Daily Home Renovation Tips

Last week the neighborhood where we live had a first annual energy conservation fair. It was advertised in the local community paper.

It was a small gathering of approximately 12 exhibit booth or so. There were come energy conservation vendors, environmental organizations, the local utility and so on.

We went because, as a professional educator (when I am not working on renovating our home or telling you about our renovation adventures….or mis-adventures ), I have seen so many cases where if only the person had the right information and knowledge they would have made the best decision.

We knew nothing about home renovations when we started our adventure in the summer of 2007. We have learned a lot through making our own mistakes, through the advice and guidance of our contractors, and by doing our own research.

Technology changes so fast, even in the home renovation ‘game’. Yes, a drywall board is a drywall board. However, more technically involved products like energy conservation devices seems to change and improve sometimes over night.

We went to our local energy conservation fair to learn what we could. We learned about a non-profit organization focused on environmental awareness that also is involved in promoting energy conservation for low-income households. What a great idea and initiative. We hope to include this organization in our blog roll soon and write an article about them and their effort regarding energy conservation related home renovation tasks for low-income families in the near future.

We also were able to speak to a company who we had seen on the web about their solar air heating device and now feel more comfortable with it. They also informed us that this device does indeed qualify for Federal grant money (something which our energy audit report did not mention so we now have to go back to the energy auditor and ask him why?). 

They also have an interesting solar blind product which can keep the sun’s heat and UV rays out in the summer while, by simply reversing the blind, can become a passive solar collector to produce some warmth in the winter. We have invited this firm to our home in the next few weeks to conduct a ‘free’ solar energy assessment.

So, get out of the house every once in a while to learn more on aspects of home renovations and energy conservation. You never know what you will learn that you can use.

Post Script: About an hour or so after I wrote this article I received a phone call from the fair organizer. It so happened that I won one of the door prizes that just happened to be the solar blind product mentioned above! Sweet!  :-) 

So, that will let us have this new (to us) product installed on a south facing window in our home and then we can tell you about our experiences. Stay tuned!