Blog

Financial Planning with your Energy Advisor

Energy efficiency has been all over the news lately, but among the headlines, this line made us sit up and take notice:“Energy efficiency investments can have returns so handsome they will rival those of successful criminal enterprises.”Wait…WHAT did he just say??

Climate Change Address Today

President Barack Obama makes an important address on climate change this afternoon, following up on the environmental emphasis of his second inaugural address. In a video announcement Saturday, Obama called global climate change “a serious challenge, but it’s one uniquely suited to America’s strengths.”

Next Step: Infrared Training Center

Thanks to a Next Step Maine Scholarship from the Maine Development Foundation, Energy Advisor Ham Niles will study advanced thermography at the Infrared Training Center in Boston in July. Ham received his scholarship at a cermony at the State House, left.

Trek Across Maine – again!

For some, Father’s Day means a new tie and a barbeque on the back deck. For Nate Spectre, his son Peter, and more than 2000 other cyclists, it means the Trek Across Maine.

Air Sealing and the Stack Effect

Sometimes building science just isn’t fair. It doesn’t care how much insulation you buy, or even how hard you work installing it. Nooooo, the laws of physics insist that your house is a system, and that insulation can only do its job when it goes hand in hand with air sealing.

Art, Energy Efficiency, and the Economy

We’re abuzz with the news of a new neighbor. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art announced last week that it’s moving to downtown Rockland – a stone’s throw from the Strand Theater and the Farnsworth Art Museum, and right across the street from Evergreen Home Performance.

Before You Pre-Buy…

The kids aren’t even out of school yet, and next winter’s oil prices are already on everyone’s minds. That’s because local oil companies are rolling out their budget plans for next winter’s heating season, presenting consumers with the annual debate: to pre-buy or not? Every year, I look up this personal finance blog for its clear discussion of the most common options. He hasn’t posted predictions for the coming heating season yet, but the concepts remain the same.

Behavioral Science Can Lower Your Energy bill

Entreaties to save money, save the planet, or be a good citizen may not inspire people to conserve energy, but positive peer pressure sure does. In this TED talk, Alex Laskey, founder and president of Opower, explains how human psychology can make us all better, wiser energy users, with lower bills to prove it.

Happy June!

What is there to say about June? It’s either 90 degrees or cold and rainy, and three days into the month, we’ve already managed both. Since there’s no cutesy weather saying (no in like a lion, out like a lamb; no April showers or May flowers), I’m proposing this one: Home Performance in June’s not a moment too soon.

Another Effective Communicator

Bruce Merryman, Evergreen’s newest Production Manager, graduated from a Dale Carnegie course in Effective Communication last night, and President Richard Burbank (l) and General Manager Brian Schortz (r) were there to cheer him on.

Nothing Lost is Everyone’s Gain: NIST Net Zero Energy House

There are a lot of houses out there, and a lot of them are inefficient, old, and uncomfortable – especially in Maine. From a resource management perspective, it makes sense to retrofit those homes rather than raze and rebuild. That’s why we do what we do. That said, people are going to keep building new homes. It makes sense for that new construction to incorporate as many energy efficient technologies as possible. Green building needs to become the new normal.

Braving Basements, Attics – and Oceans

You might think that dank basements and hot attics would provide enough excitement for Energy Advisor Jessie Davis. You’d be wrong. Jessie is training for a 3-mile ocean swim to Islesboro, one of fifteen year-round island communities off the coast of Maine. The swim is a fundraiser for the Lifeflight Foundation, which provides emergency medical services for Maine’s rural and island communities.