At our last SA meeting there were quite a few stories about the uselessness of the NSTAR energy audits.  I had one done about a year ago and was told that my house was pretty tight.  I was skeptical because it seemed unlikely that the previous owner had done much to update the insulation and seal leaks and I was really ezpecting to be told that there were lots of things I could do to tighten things up.  When Jeremy Marin from the A-HEET program came over to do an audit to evaluate my house to see if it was a good fit, I found out just how bad the NSTAR audit really was.

Jeremy spent the better part of 2 hours looking at both the exterior and interior problems and found that there were lots of leaks and things that needed to be addressed.  The basement had lots of issues including gaps around the windows and especially around the foundation where it meets the first floor.  There were gaps around the water spickets that had never been filled with caulk and lots of places where cold air could get up to the first floor living space.  The forced hot air ducts had lots of leakage at the joints between sections and the hot water pipes weren't insulated either.

Jeremy thought the house was a good project for A-HEET and scheduled a blower door test.  This revealed lots of additional opportunities to do air sealing on the first and second floors of the living space.   One big source of cold air is the crawl space on the second floor.  In addition to needing more insulation, there was no insulation under the plywood floor in the crawlspace and there was a big hole that openned directly into the roof allowing cold air to get into the crawlspace and then into the living space.

We're making plans to schedule the A-HEET event and I will be posting updates here to document what was done and how much improvement we are able to make.

UPDATE - 1-7-2010:

Jeremy arrange for a blower door test and it revealed lots of leaks that could be plugged.  It took less than an hour to go through the house and identify all of the leaks.  It is amazing how much different this was from the NSTAR energy audit.  This really highlights how important it is to get a "real" audit complete with the blower door test.

The date has been set - Saturday, January 16th from 9am - 1pm. The materials are in the process of being purchased and collected.  Jeremy will be doing some prep work in the crawl spaces a few days before the actual event.

UPDATE - 1-13-2010..

We're getting close now.  Jeremy came over this morning to do some prep work in the crawl spaces.  We decided that the insulation that was in the crawl space was adequate for now.  I will wait until the spring and add some rigid foam insulation on the wall to the living space at that point.  There was also some dampness that I'm going to look into (hopefully not a big roofing job) and also look into having some isonene blown into the space between the floor of the crawlspace and the ceiling to the living room.

All the materials have been purchased and I'm now preparing to get the food for the event lined up.

In order to get at the crawl apace I had to remove all of the boxes and bags that were in storage there which created the perfect opportunity to toss a bunch of old stuff!  It's amazing how much stuff gets accumulated over the years.

UPDATE - Jan.22nd, 2010

The event was very successful.  31 volunteers showed up between 8 and 9am.  They broke into teams and attacked all of the items that Jeremy had identified during the walk through and blower-door test.  A team headed for the basement to tackle the leaky windows and doors, filling the gap around my foundation, wrapping the heating ducts, caulking the holes around pipes and the chimney.   Another team headed up to the second floor to attack the crawlspace to add insultaion and to seal all of the doors to the crawl and closet spaces.  Another team went to work putting gaskets behind all of the outlets and caulking around the bathroom vent.  After 4 hours of work the moment of truth came - the final blower-door test.  The baseline from the first test was 3100 CFM.  After all the work was done the result was 2160, a reduction of 940 CFM or about 30%.

You can read more about the event and about A-HEET in an article posted by Bob Sprague on YourArlington.Com.

New Links to East Arlington Liveable Streets website and rss feed have been added to the site.

I've added a link to their website in the "Links" section of our site under "Town of Arlington Websites".

I've also added a link to their rss feed in the "newsfeeds" section of the website" under the "Other Local Organizations" category.

We should do the same for other local related organizations as well.

Scott

Natick approves zoning change for clean energy businesses

This is an article from the Metro West Daily News about Natick approving changes to its zoning codes.

Link to article

As part of the Green Communities Act, we are advocating for Arlington to adopt the zoning stretch codes.  Marc Breslow will be presenting to the Arlington Board of Selectmen on Dec. 14th.

Stay tuned for more details.

Scott

All,

I purchased a new tool for creating templates and had to try it out on our website.  I built the new template around our logo but wanted to crate a template that would be lighter in feel and add a dropdown top menu.  I hope you like the new look and feel.  I'll be making some adjustments to the menus and organization of things.

Scott

I wanted to share my spring project with everyone through the blog.  I'm in the process of building 2 new raised beds on what has always been my large grassy lawn.  I have always planted a garden to grow vegetables in a plot next to my house.  I've done pretty well with that plot but last year I decided that the sunniest part of the yard should be tapped for more garden both to grow more vegetables and to reduce the amount of space that was covered by otherwise unproductive grass.

I'm now putting my plans into action.  The plan is to add 2 4X8 foot raised beds.  I've purchased the lumber (18  4X4 by 8 ft. untreated fir fence posts) and I've also ordered a Juliana Mini 3 green house for my seedlings, etc.  I'm also going to setup a composter which is something I've also been meaning to do for some time now.   I'm planning on using the "Square Foot Garden" method.  (I'll provide a link to the site shortly).  This method uses a amixture of 1/3 each compost, vermiculite, and peat.  There's no "soil" involved.  This method divides the garden into 1 foot squares rather than planting in rows.

As I build my beds and greenhouse I will post pictures and more details about what I'm learning along the way.

Stay tuned for more details....

UPDATE:

Lots of progress to report.  I've now purchased all of the materials and constructed my raised beds.  I purchased 4"X4"X16' fir fence poasts for the beds.  I got the lumber at Cambridge Lumber.  For the amount of lumber I purchased delivery was free.

I purchased corner brackets and mending plates to connect the lengths of fir together to form my two 4'X8'X1' boxes.  I treated the wood with pure tung oil combined in equal parts with citrus solvent to help it penetrate the wood and dry more quickly.  The coats dried in a few hours.

I purchased peat, vermiculite (coarse), and 5 varieties of compost to start things off.  These three ingredients get mixed 1/3 each to product the growing medium.  I put a layer of cardboard in the bottom of the boxes to kill the grass and weeds while letting the water drain through the bottom when saturated.

I used eyelets to connect nylon chord to mark the 1'X1' squares (square foot gardening) and planted my first bunch of plants.  I will be getting the second box into production this weekend.

The boxes cost about $150 per for the materials.  The soil mix cost quite a bit as well and I will add some details when I get a chance along with pictures.

I haven't had a chance to dive into the other piece of this project which is to assemble the leanto style greenhouse that I am putting on the side of my house.

In the meantime, I also decided to replace my traditional lawn with a "no-mow" lawn of fescu grasses....I'll write another blog on this as I get going on it.  The basic idea is that the new grass will be over-spread on top of the current lawn.  The fescue grasses will crowd out the old grass and the weeds.  It will provide a nice looking and feeling lawn but require very little water and no mowing!

More to come...

I've added a new links directory to the site.  It adds functionality and makes it possible for registered users to add links.  If you are a registered member of Sustainable Arlington please login and contribute to our growing list of links.

Thanks,

Scott