making the Green Triple Decker real

once we were awarded one of the five pilots to take our 1905 triple decker from HERS 135 (or worse - the lower floors had even worse HERS ratings than we did on the 3rd floor) to HERS 65 or better, we needed a plan.  we sat down and developed some ideas about how to cut energy consumption while at the same time improve the living conditions of the building and make it a more comfortable home.

in a case like this we were trying to balance wants versus needs and think about the project as individual components and as a whole.  wants versus needs is a tough one for anyone doing design and construction work.  we needed to make a proposal and define a scope of work that would hit HERS 65 and there were some general guidelines set forth by the City which included specific targeted items such as insulation and systems as well as some bare minimums we needed to attain, but the specifics were up to us.  we could, if it made sense financially and otherwise, choose a completely unique route to get from 135 to 65.  that route could be replacing some or all of the systems, replacing some or all of the exterior of the house, insulating some or all of the house, etc.

not only were we choosing our own route, we were also working as three individual condo owners deciding what to do to our entire house.  it might be that what makes sense for one floor makes less sense (or even no sense) for another.  for example, the third floor had recently been renovated to add new electrical and all of the interior walls and ceilings were intact.  the first floor was part way through a gut renovation that included removing all interior plaster.  this meant that blowing insulation from the inside could be "easy" for the first floor, but would create havoc on the 3rd.  similarly, we needed to insulate the roof.  blown insulation was chosen as the best solution, but we (the 3rd floor) did not want to poke a hole in every single joist bay in every ceiling of our condo.  so we had to develop a strategy to achieve the insulation value we needed/ wanted without unnecessarily inconveniencing any one specific unit owner and making unnecessary work (patching holes in poorly done popcorn ceiling is pretty much impossible and expensive).

the project strategy was simple: aim for the most valuable (energy wise) items first.  scope items with big impact on energy reduction are more valuable than lesser (or more expensive) ones.  for example, super insulating the house (built in 1905 with almost no insulation) is a huge improvement in energy need in both summer and winter.  it's not glamorous, but it gets the job done.  after tackling the biggest items (basically the exterior/ shell of the building), we aimed inward at the major systems (heating, cooling, hot water, etc).  the third and final category of our project would be the interior and the users (this includes everything from ceiling fans to dual flush toilets and low flow fixtures to CFL or better bulbs).  approaching the project in this manner (from big to little and from outside to inside) helped us make important decisions about where to invest our resources.

now that we've painted a bigger, overall picture, I will start to talk about specific strategies and scope of work, focusing first on the shell and exterior of the building.  stay tuned!

energy use reduction through behavioral changes

another very interesting presentation at the CLICC Conference was made by Wictoria Glad of Linkoping University.  her focus is on energy use reduction through behavioral change with a specific angle of the psychology of choice, action, and change.

Ms. Glad started with the most important, perhaps obvious, fact that people are hard to change.  we are stuck in our ways and there are many reasons for that.  then she delved quickly into the fact that much of energy use is not about behavior but about other factors such as physical factors (location, climate, building type, building systems, etc).  she also pointed out that there are studies directly correlating energy consumption to social factors such as employment status, income, etc.

after the basics were out of the way, she got into the meat.  behavior and choices are clearly linked.  she cited a psychological explanation of how we choose to buy energy consuming goods and services.  there is habitual (unconscious), rational (conscious), and symbolic (status).  one might buy the same brand of recycled toilet paper without thinking every month from the store (habitual), but one might look carefully at buying a long lasting reusable wash cloth to replace throw away dish sponges (conscious).  and then there's the symbolic prius sitting in front of your house...

then Glad started getting into some interesting explanations about choice and behavior.  she talked about the opposite of economies of scale (she called it the un-economies of scale).  she cited several examples about household consumption.  for example, some people think that there needs to be a tv in the bedroom and one in the kitchen and one in the living room.  they are all plugged in all day, wasting phantom load (more commonly called standby power).  the need to have multiples of the same thing does not end with seemingly identical items such as tvs or computers.  lots of households have more than one kind of coffee maker (french press, espresso machine, etc) or toaster (toaster and toaster oven, etc).  many households prepare multiple meals simultaneously (parents' dinner and baby's dinner, special meal due to allergy or health condition, etc).  children of the current generation won't think it strange to have several televisions, cook several versions of the same meal, or be able to prepare an item such as toast using more than one different appliance.  my parents' generation only had one (or less) tv, coffee pot, or dinner option.

Glad then talked about feedback.  she explained that feedback has been proven more successful when it is easy to understand by the user, clear in content, and timely.  if you want to give direct feedback to someone about energy use, here is a worst to best example:

• WORST: a yearly summation of the energy use presented in therms to the homeowner
• BETTER: a monthly update on energy use in dollars for the homeowner
• BEST: a weekly (or monthly) comparison of energy use versus last year's use and also compared with a neighbor (or neighbors)

it sounds obvious, but most people (especially in the US) get energy bills (electricity, gas, etc) in a monthly bill that does not easily translate or compare to anything else, so the information feels like it is in a vacuum.  the user does not know if this is better or worse than last year or last month.  changing behavior cannot be directly linked to any specific improvement.  additionally, many people have changed their energy bills to be automatically deducted online, so the connection between energy use has been strained even further by technology in the 21st century.

as a conclusion to an interesting and unique presentation, Glad makes some key points.  penultimately, she describes eight (8) influential factors in decision making, choice, and behavior.  understanding these factors and using them to one's advantage can, she says, greatly improve the quality of the message as well as the rate of success, both of which are important in a campaign to influence people to change.

1. the messenger.  it's important who gives you the information and what that person's status is.  is the person an authority, a friend or family member, someone with status in the community, a hero or star?
2. incentives.  having incentives can be useful, especially if the incentives are explicit.
3. norms.  these can be learned at school, work, or home.  kids often learn from their parents, but there are plenty of examples where children learn about recycling at school and come home to school mom and dad...
4. default.  our material world (what we face every day) is, in itself, an influence.  customary procedures and standards will need to be broken for change.
5. salience.  we are influenced by our surroundings, by beautiful things.  people pay more for pretty or well designed objects (iphone, etc).
6. priming.  we prioritize what we talk about and we are heavily influenced by mass media and certain kinds of messages.  change doesn't typically come from nothing, it is built over time through messaging and targeted communication, as well as through consensus building.
7. "affects".  this is really emotions.  we are driven by our emotions (some more than others)  not only logic.  emotions can sell ideas (this is common in tv commercials for example).
8. commitments.  most people set some kind of goal or goals for life (sports, health, exercise, etc).  some people keep these goals to themselves and others talk about them.  communicating goals in an explicit fashion makes them more real, more attainable, and more likely to be reached.
9. ego.  we aim to better ourselves and no matter what we think, there is some piece of every person that is about an attempt to be successful.  this takes many forms, but can be reinforced by simple understanding of self and desire to be what we say we are.  "I take my bike to work every day."

at the end of the presentation, Glad made a simple point that is quite relevant when talking about climate adaptation, energy consumption, and aiming toward a more sustainable future.  she said (this is paraphrased but pretty accurate): 

"we need to design the message...  maybe we should learn from other fields or parts of society.  shouldn't we learn from advertising, marketing, and industries that are aimed at influence?"

Glad's presentation was intriguing to say the least.  her work for Linkoping University falls into the category of "thematic studies, technology, and social change", but clearly it directly relates to issues that we are grappling with today as we aim toward a more energy conscious and sustainable future.

for more information on Linkoping University's work in this area, visit their website.

energy action: a UK case study on addressing fuel poverty

Rachel Jones of the Energy Action program in the UK spoke in the afternoon at Covenant Capacity about some of the projects she has worked on related to energy, comfort, and health.  she talked about something scary that is a big problem in the UK that I had not heard about before her presentation.  one of the biggest issues in the region is "fuel poverty".  fuel poverty (or energy poverty, depending on the specifics of the issue and the country/ location) takes place when a person or family cannot afford to adequately heat the home.  in the UK the figure used as a starting point to determine fuel poverty is if it costs more than 10% of the household income to heat the home.  according to statistics, approximately 20% of the UK suffers from fuel poverty.  Jones explained that not just elderly people with lower incomes, but young people and even families with babies or small children are suffering from the high cost of heat.

not being able to heat the home is more than just a little problem, especially in places like the UK.  it leads to unhealthy and uncomfortable living and actually creates significant health problems and causes thousands of "excess winter deaths".  according to Jones, approximately 25,000 people die in the UK every year from "excess winter death", much of which can be directly attributed to fuel poverty.  to me this sounds like an alarming and almost unbelievable idea, that people are dying because they cannot afford to heat their homes.

I had a chance to talk with Jones after the conference.  the story gets even worse when she explains how challenging it can be for her organization to support people.  she tells me an anecdote about how sometimes people don't want something, even if and when you think it is in their own best interest...

the government started trying to address this problem (fuel poverty) along with huge inefficiencies in older homes by offering heavy rebates on home insulation (this is a current strategy in many places, including the US).  owners were skeptical and typically refused support.  eventually the government started offering the insulation for free (much of the funding was coming from the EU and the money needed to be spent by a certain date).  still, most homeowners did not want the free insulation.  in an amazing and unheard of strategy, the government even offered to install the insulation for free and then give the homeowner a cash gift with no strings attached.  we are talking free insulation that will make your house warmer, save you money every year starting immediately, and we will give you cash in addition to the free insulation.  still, it was a struggle to spend the money down and reach the households and homeowners in need.

this story put my jaw on the floor.  I will admit that I am naive and always imagine people jumping at the chance to do good in the world, but in this case we are talking about what may be the single most influential strategy for sustainable living: saving money.  I can't imagine people not wanting to do something that saves money, especially in an extreme case like this, where the work is free.

Jones explained very simply in her presentation; it's about more than energy efficiency and more than improving the homes.  the issues need to hit the people directly and in a way that is both personal and significant.  she listed off some of the key strategies and factors for connecting people directly to their energy use:

1. it has to be about the people (not about their houses)
2. you need to understand the audience and their needs
3. it has to be personal.  the message, the idea, everything
4. partnerships need to be formed

Jones told a story about a project she worked on called "Warmer Worcestershire", which was directly related to the fuel poverty issue.  she explained that everything from the concept to the story to the strategies was about cultivating and sending a clear message, about understanding the audience and really connecting with them, and about being simple and clear.  why call it Warmer Worcestershire?  because it is about the people, about their lives, and it touches everyone, especially people who are suffering from the circumstances of cold, uninsulated homes.

screenshot from Warmer Worcestershire website showing homes and their heat loss scores.  red is bad.  green is good.

one of the ideas that they came up with for this project was called a thermal flyover.    during the winter of 2009 they flew over the entire county, taking thermal images measuring the heat escaping from each home.  they compiled this information onto a gis map and put it on the internet, color coding each house.  now, any person in the area can look up any property and discover how the home performs in terms of heat loss through the roof.  red is bad.  green is good.  simple.  and on the same page where the person discovers how badly the house is performing: links to government and other sponsorship opportunities, advice and more information, and even direct connections to installers. simple.  effective.  successful.

and one last related anecdote that Jones told about energy use and conservation.  her agency asked the people to come together and help strategize ways to decrease energy use to show the effectiveness of conservation as well as more thoughtful energy use.  they picked a specific week to showcase these ideas and lots of folks got involved.  one of the ideas:  local restaurants offered "dine by candlelight dinners".  what a concept: the restaurants are saving energy (and hopefully money) and the patrons are getting what many would consider a better, intimate, more cozy experience.  simple.  effective.  genius.

feedback: the next evolution in energy

in the afternoon during the CLICC Conference, Stina Wessman of the Interactive Institute of Sweden gave a very interesting presentation about feedback focused on sustainability.  though the entire presentation was in Swedish and the slides were rich with text (also in Swedish), I did manage to get the gist of some of what she was saying.  I also used this thing called "the google" to look up some of what she was talking about to learn more.

Stina Wessman, from the Interactive Institute of Sweden, talking about feedback and energy awareness at the CLICC Conference at Malmomassan in Hyllie

the Interactive Institute of Sweden is an experimental company that combines Information Technology, design, and research together and applies this learning and knowledge to a wide variety of fields and applications.  as usual, their website describes themselves better than I can:

Interactive Institute is a Swedish experimental IT & design research institute that conducts applied research and innovation through creative and participatory processes.

the Interactive Institute works ons lots of stuff, more than I can even get into in this post, so I will focus on what I gleaned from Stina's presentation and from reading a little on their website.  the Institute has a focus on sustainability (among other topics) and has engaged in many research projects and experiments about behavior and feedback, which ties in perfectly to the idea of CLICC, which is all about engaging city inhabitants on the issue of carbon footprint and helping people living in the city understand their own individual role(s) as a part of the citywide effort to become carbon neutral in the next 20 years.  yes.  I said it.  the city of Malmo would like to be carbon neutral in the next 20 years.  and the city is actively aiming toward that goal.

Stina talked about projects that are geared toward helping people see (and therefore better understand) their energy use and consumption.  she cited some very cool examples that are prototypes and/ or soon to be marketed and sold ideas that connect people and energy use.  much of what she talked about reminded me of the thinking and initiatives that were undertaken as part of the 2009 Solar Decathlon competition that I worked on through the BAC and Tufts.  our project, entitled curio, focused on sustainable living and awareness as much (if not more) than designing and constructing an 800 square foot zero energy house.

here are a couple that were neat.  there are many more on the website.

"The Power Aware Cord is designed to visualize the energy of the current use of electricity of the appliances connected with it through glowing pulses, flow, and intensity of light."  this picture is from the Interactive Institute website 

the Flower Lamp is another example of innovative thinking around energy use and visualization.  the lamp changes form and becomes dimmer/ brighter based on energy use.  the lamp is an attractive and interactive monitor of energy consumption that can, in turn, affect behavior.

the Element is an attempt to change energy from an unseen source to a visible source.  in this case the energy is heat, as evidenced in a radiator.  the experiment is to showcase the amount of heat being emitted from a radiator in a new form, light.  the light emission is directly matched to the heat emission, thus the brightness of the "radiator" tells you how hot it is.  from the flikr site:

It is usually hard to tell whether radiators are on or off except by laying a hand upon them.  This prototype is made out of glass, metal, and enough light bulbs to reach the same efficiency as an electric radiator, and the current energy level is visible at all times.

I will tell you about two more, but I recommend if you are interested to read up on the Interactive Institute.  they are doing some amazing work in the field of interaction, sustainability, and energy.

the Energy AWARE Clock is an electricity meter that resembles an ordinary kitchen clock.  it measures your energy consumption and tells you the time simultaneously while also allowing you to compare previous energy use to today's consumption, thus you become aware and notice improvements and changes in consumption.

lastly, BoEL is a chance to compare your energy use to your neighbors.  a web based interface and simple glowing orb in your window shows how much energy you are consuming.  red, green, and yellow are comparative measurements that allow each user as well as the neighbors to see how one unit performs.  this could lead to healthy competition, shared knowledge and team building, or even a little pang of guilt, all of which have been shown to affect behavior.  according to the website:

BoEL is an experimental social ambient interface and web service that presents daily consumption figures to home owners and neighbors to promote joint savings and foster competitive energy saving bahaviors.  The service includes an ambient lamp that provides feedback on the energy consumption in the household and these interfaces are installed so that the neighbors can observe each others energy status.

check out the Interactive Institute of Sweden's website for more cool strategies about using interaction and communication to affect behavior and sustainable living.

the washer and dryer... I figured it out!

the bathroom in this apartment has baffled me since day one and I am still trying to figure some parts of it out, but each day it makes a little more sense.  the building is "passive" which basically means that there is no heating or cooling in the apartment.  there is a thermostat that you can turn up and it will simply supply you with clean air that has been pre (or re) heated by the heat produced by building inhabitants.  there are no air conditioners, no radiators, no nothing.  just these little things on the wall that spit out clean air and other ones that suck away the dirty air.  more on that as I figure it out.

front load washer (right) and dryer (left) in the apartment

meanwhile, I figured out the washer dryer situation.  the washer is a pretty normal eco front loader, but the dryer had been baffling me for a couple of days.  I had been talking with Tamara about how to use the dryer and she explained that after every use you need to open up a little compartment on the bottom to wring out a filter and empty a little water compartment.

bottom of dryer

we both agreed that the system adds a little extra work each time you run the dryer and that it was a little annoying.  I could not explain why you'd need to empty water out of the dryer because clearly the washer has a drain so the dryer could too.

after opening the front panel at the bottom of the dryer you can see where the fan operates (on the right) and where the filter can be removed (on the left) as well as the water compartment (bottom)

then it hit me.  its so simple I don't know why I didn't figure it out immediately.  you need to wring out the filter and empty the water compartment because there is no vent for the dryer.  whatever water is taken from the air inside the dryer has to go somewhere, so they suck it through a filter and deposit it into a compartment at the bottom.  because the apartment is passive and the heat created by the inhabitants is reused, they don't want to waste all of that heat venting outside so they vent inside.  in fact, the bathroom actually heats up during the dryer cycle because it is venting into the room!

filter (top left, grey) slides out after the cover (bottom right, grey) that holds it in place is removed

so simple.  or so complicated?

water compartment (white, left), filter (grey, middle), and cover plate (grey, right) are the removable pieces of the bottom of the dryer that allow for the dryer to vent directly into the bathroom