Are damned old houses? The conflict between heritage conservation and energy efficiency

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Editor's Note: Scientific American's George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here.
As readers of this blog know, our family has done a huge amount to button up our Victorian-era house. Today when I hear the word "gun", I think caulk, not Glock. Our basement floor is littered with scraps of rigid foam board and drips of spray foam. But is it enough? Yesterday, listening to a panel discussion on climate change at the 2010 State of the Planet conference at Columbia University, I got the sinking feeling it's not. The U.S. needs to cut emissions by 80 percent and I doubt there's any way our house can do its part or even come close. Will old houses like ours be part of the low-carbon future? Or do they ultimately need to be torn down, leaving deep scars in our cities and towns?

My wife and I always wanted an old house. McMansions leave us cold -- although, after all the time, money, and sweat we've poured into our place, I'm beginning to see their attraction. Our efforts last year reduced air leakage by just over 10 percent, which was deflatingly meager. After more weatherizing, the house is comfier, with fewer drafts, a more uniform temperature, and a slower cooling-off rate in winter. But I still dread the day of the month when we get our heating bill.
Even our energy auditor says he's running out of ideas for easyish steps we could take. Upgrading appliances is hard to justify economically. Air-sealing the house to modern standards would mean ripping off the siding and wrapping the house from the outside. Replacing the gas boiler and steam radiators with a geothermal heat pump and forced air would run $68,800, of which state subsidies would cover about half. That estimate was the funniest thing I'd heard all day. And the sticker price wasn't the real shock. Rather, it was the fact that the system would lower our heating bill by only about a third.
Newer construction can give you a factor of 10 since it's easier to fit than retrofit. In our September 2005 issue, energy conservation pioneer Amory Lovins described his own house in Colorado. It is so superinsulated that it never needed central heat. In December I visited 41 Cooper Square, a LEED-certified classroom and laboratory building at Cooper Union, and was astounded by the sheer number of green features and design principles that are simply impossible to incorporate in any building after the fact.

In an essay last year, preservationist Sally Zimmerman of Historic New England argued that the demands of energy conservation threaten old houses. She cited one retrofit near Boston that cost $100,000. It had to be done with extreme care since old houses were designed to breathe, and reducing their air circulation can cause moisture buildup and mold growth. The homeowner has a fascinating blog that makes you realize how intimidating the endeavor is. Zimmerman wrote: "Perhaps the most likely outcome of a large-scale push toward deep-energy retrofits of older, less well-maintained homes is an increase in whole-house teardowns as owners and developers weigh the costs of new construction against these modifications."
I asked Lovins whether my house is hopeless and he reassured me it isn't. Having worked with him in the past, I know he's not a man to sugarcoat things, so if he says my house is salvageable, I tend to believe him in spite of my worries otherwise. In general, he says it should be feasible to cut an old house's energy use by a factor of two to four. His group, Rocky Mountain Institute, helped to retrofit a building for which historic preservation was paramount: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. True, cost wasn't much of an object. But Lovins says that new technologies and techniques are coming within everyone's reach. For instance, Serious Materials is working on an adaptive window glazing whose infrared emissivity would vary with temperature -- keeping in heat during the winter, keeping it out during the summer.
As if my opposite numbers at New Scientist magazine had read my mind, they published an article today on how old houses not only can be saved, but have to be. It would take decades to turn over an entire nation's housing stock, and the rebuilding would itself consume energy. The article mentioned a promising new technology for retrofits: Spacetherm, an insulation panel with more than twice the insulation value of ordinary rigid foam boards.
Here are some other tips I've gathered:

Guiltlessly avail yourself of government subsidies. Many respondents to my blog have complained that taxpayers shouldn't pay for energy retrofits or solar panels. I disagree. In addition to stimulating the economy, which benefits us all, subsidies correct a market failure: retrofits and renewables do pay for themselves, but many homeowners can't float the cost in the meantime. So the subsidies should be seen as an investment that we taxpayers will eventually recoup. President Obama's proposed HomeStar program would provide juicily large tax credits for weatherizing. Those who still have an aversion to subsidies can consider commerical alternatives such as solar-leasing programs and Property Assessed Clean Energy bonds, which, in effect, spread the cost of energy improvements over successive owners of a house.Old houses can teach new tricks. Not everything about old houses is un-green. Many of them were built with better materials and greater attention to natural air circulation. Our house's tin roof not only has survived one and a half centuries, but is better than most modern roofs at reflecting unwanted solar heat. Restored and coated white, it kept our house cool enough last summer that we didn't need to run our air-conditioners even a single minute. Plug air leaks first. Our energy auditor impressed on us that air infiltration is the single biggest energy sink, and James Brew, an architect at Rocky Mountain, agrees: "You are proper in addressing air leakage as a first priority in these vintage homes -- most assume it's insulation (slowing heat conduction), but the largest energy drain is infiltration and ex-filtration. With a very thorough approach to this, and your added insulation work, you should be able to reach a place where your actual peak demand is reduced enough to begin evaluating equipment sizing."Preservationists need to take the long view. Friends of ours wanted to install solar panels on their roof, but our town's historic preservation commission blocked them, saying the panels (unlike ours) would have been visible from the street. I admire the impulse: so much of our country's architectural heritage has been lost already. But if old houses can't be brought up to modern standards, their very survival is at stake. Saving them may mean bending preservation standards. Peter Troast of Energy Circle, a startup company that offers advice and sells products to reduce home energy use, recently suggested that historic preservation guidelines could slow or stop the retrofits of millions of homes. "A hard line position that the exterior building envelope of historic structures can't be touched means they can never achieve deep energy reductions," he wrote. "That would effectively condemn our aging buildings to hospice."

I'd love to hear other people's experiences with retrofits and advice for what I can do to wring out more savings from my house.

George's home, courtesy of him

Solar versus historic districts: a conflict that we need to resolve

Editor's Note: Scientific American George Musser will be on their experiences in the installation of solar panels in the solar home (formerly 60-second solar). Read his introduction here and see all the posts here.

A few posts ago, I spoke about the tragic conflict between preserving historic homes and reducing their carbon emissions. I thought that had achieved our solar evade the controversy. Our panels were mounted on the back of our House in the mid-19th century, far from the street; The city, after some delays, construction Department approved the project;and the city inspectors signed work when it has hecho.Pero two months ago, I received a notice alarming executing construction code city: our range violated the rules of the historic district.

As readers of this blog will recall that we had many problems with our Installer, 1st light energy, and the person who took our project was dismissed pasado.Su year replacement is sensitive and really knows his stuff. Once he mopped up the problems created by his predecessor, inclined to feel all the good ends well - until we reach that letter.

The problem was due to the inclination of the panels, the top edge of one of them was visible from the other side of the street (see picture). Quickly accepted Installer to blame, though I believe that the Department responsible for building some, too. All in all, our permission request had mentioned the inclination of the matrix and the mounting location and was supposed to Department us historical problems have been reported before it issued the permit.

Our people proud things working out in a way not lawyerly, so didn't respond by saying: "approved, so go away." Neither wanted to invoke a recently adopted New Jersey law which relaxes the local stenosis renovable.Estoy committed to our historic district energy project planning. That said, I could not help feeling victim of double standards.In other parts of the city, people have built questionable home additions, contractors have shot down old houses, and then a developer built a mini-mall requiring large numbers of variaciones.Aquí were under threat of removal of our parent due to a wandering panel that won't unless you actively that was looking for.

My wife and our contact at 1st Light were before the city historic preservation Commission to defend our case.Ultimately, that off the crisis was that additional space on the roof, so the installer can relocate the errant panel.Lawyer the utility of the said modification would be fine (not trigger a full reassessment of the matrix), and in fact does not appear to have reduced the power of the system.

However, this incident shows that cities are still climbing the learning curve when it comes to solar to permitan.Para many houses in our city, the historic district dismisses period panels solares.Y that is a problema.No we have the luxury of choosing between environmental conservation and preservation of the arquitectura.Necesitamos both.

Wandering, solar panel before transfer; photo courtesy of George Musser

How Home solar panels can help stabilize the grid, part 2 of 2?

Editor's Note: Scientific American George Musser will be on their experiences in the installation of solar panels in the solar home (formerly 60-second solar). Read his introduction here and see all the posts here .

The first installment of this post, Arnold McKinley Xslent energy technology describes how "reactive power" - i.e., stored temporarily by electrical appliances and then released power - destabilizes the network eléctrica.Aquí explains how home can help solar panels.

Traditionally distributed electricity using a grid of wheel and speaks: power travels from a large generator plant loads distributed around. In some cases, energy travels very long distance perhaps of 500 to 1,000 miles, before being used. This model is changing.From solar and wind energy at numerous points of local injection, the grid is coming to look more like a network of as a wheel - making it even more difficult than it already is keep power flowing without problemas.Dos recent developments promise to help to. The first is a new generation of microinverters and the second is the growth of the intelligent grid interconnected.

A solar panel generates power DC, converted to alternating current by a device known as an investor. Most investors require a certain minimum threshold voltage to work. Therefore, panels should be wired together electric series to raise sufficiently high tension. Experience has shown this configuration is less efficient, optimally as a previous solar home post has spoken. A cloud shadowing of one panel reduces the efficiency of the entire string.Furthermore, each panel has slightly different electrical, creating a mismatch that reduces the energy generated characteristics.Finally, if the chain tension is too low, the investor never turns; therefore in the days of rain or fog, system neutral no power absoluto.La solution to all problems of three is to adjust to each panel with your own investor low voltage or microinverter. Lit as soon as light falls on the panel and automatically compensates for electrical panels differences.

But if microinverters were also capable of producing reactive energy, could send excess consumption of local loading in the grid, which vigorously active now, and help utilities.

The figure on the left provides an example of a basic configuration in household appliances draw 1000 Watt active and reactive power 600 voltios-amplificadores. If a solar array generate 1200 W power, then, is capable of producing 1200 W AC power active and 1200 VA reagent AC power. This is not only enough to power the House, but also to feed some power active and reactive in the grid. All you require is the microinverter right.

When ordinary investors and microinverters developed firstly, designers do not pay any attention to the generation of reactive power. Since consumers are paying only for active power, the goal was to produce both of you as possible. Today it is clear that reactive solar producers can help stabilize the grid, and microinverters are being designed to produce both. In fact, physics is helping us here.Since no energy is required to produce the reactive power, an investor can produce without sacrificing the active power or requiring more solar panels.

When he first learned that reactive power can occur without affecting the active component, I was surprised.To see that this is reality and not fantasy, the figure on the right shows two days of energy production in a typical installation of first solar.El day, the microinverter was created for active energy (green line) and reactive power (red line);the second was created to produce only active energy.Switch did not affect the production of active energy at all.My company website has more details on this issue.

In the past, the big problem that prevents the production of reactive power of microinverters was heavy capacitors need store energy form temporal.Pero new designs serve the trick simply by changing the way AC.Esto wave significantly reduces the cost and size of the devices.

Thing that Moreover, microinverters are also evolving to communicate with other network devices, both are already doing smart meters .Microinverters network can report data for display in Web browsers, but some also have two-way communication, which allows operators to control their mix of generation of active power and reactiva.Finalmente, onboard intelligence adjust the mix on the fly, offer the best economic benefit consumers that based on their rate (which will eventually include the pricing of reactive power) structures .Esa intelligence will enable these distributed networks to separate from the main grid of continental and is localized microgrids that generates electricity we need when we need it.

Photo and diagram courtesy of Arnold McKinley

A detective story solar: explaining how the output power varies hour by hour

Editor's Note: Scientific American George Musser will be on their experiences in the installation of solar panels in the solar home (formerly 60-second solar). Read his introduction here and see all the posts here.

Item favorite owners solar conversation is the performance of your arrays. As part of the sales pitch, the installer estimated how much power you can generate and most of the systems come with a meter (separated by the meter utility) to handle continuous output power.But how can I know if its parent actually meets expectations? this simple question put me in a mathematical hunt could enjoy other solar owners - and that would make a good project document term for a high school science class.

There are many tools to estimate the performance of a solar array. NOAA provides an applet and the Excel spreadsheet to determine the angle of the Sun at any time of the year, based on astronomical, geometry with corrections for atmospheric refraction and the displacement between the clock and solar time. The Web site of PV Watts combines solar geometry with historical climate data for calculating the expected return on a panel at a location given with a certain orientation.PV performance also factors in the properties of the solar cells and inverter that converts the DC output in home power CA.Para specific issues such as shading, you need to do more detailed measurements. The inspector of the State of New Jersey that signed on my system uses a nifty 360-degrees, called the Solar Pathfinder light meter.

Both for prediction tools. To measure the actual output minute by minute, I have two independent energy monitors that are installed on my electrical service panel: TED5000 and locus.Show the total electric array output through a web interface.

Useful though, these devices not separate the multiple factors that affect the output power: solar geometry, time, diffuse vs direct lighting, shading, reflection on the surface of glass panels, the outlet temperature of the solar cell, solar cell and inverter efficiency unit and thus sucesivamente.estos effects operate in concert. For example, if the temperature gets so hot that cuts off the output of solar cells, total matrix output can remove the low enough that the investor drowns.

I in spite of some of these effects quantitatively, put together my worksheet to calculate the expected power output for June 30 - a pleasant, mild day off clouds, when the temperature of air in our site stayed fairly steady reduction of clima.Aquellos confusion who wish to choose an also opportune day can search its records local time Weather Underground.

In the course of a day, the intensity of sunlight varies sinusoidally over time. The amplitude and phase of this change of sine wave with the seasonal cycle, but in hindsight really does not need to worry about by. I have only attracted a cosine and stretches and displaced curve to match the midday peak power. Between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., the output array followed by a sine wave almost perfectly (see the blue curve in the previous frame).

Early in the morning and mid - a-tarde, however, production fell faster than explained the lighting conditions alone.So I went down the list of other factors.

First of all took a little more careful with my techo.Por geometry generally, is supposed to go in the direction South general of panels in the northern hemisphere tilted upwards. My roof, however, also tracks towards the West, by what my panels are tilted in their long and short axes. Had some linear algebra to take into account this orientation. The effect was to give the sine wave a slight bias.

Secondly, sunlight passes through a greater mass of air in the early in the morning and the afternoon, so attenuating.Bradley Hibberd, director of engineering at Borrego Solar systems, I pointed out towards a model adopted by the American Society of heating, refrigeration and air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).(For those who are concerned about the technical details, the model uses the law of Beer-Lambert, which reduces the solar intensity by the exponential of the secant of the angle between the Sun and the zenith).This helped to explain why the power fell so dramatically during peak hours.

Thirdly, considered losses due to sunlight glinting off of the glass pane.A role at Sandia Labs has a chart showing how reflection becomes a serious issue when the angle of incidence of the rays of the Sun is greater than 55 degrees, which for me meant before 9 a.m. and after 4 p.m.The delivery will be more or less like the cube angle.Incorporate this into my worksheet more had reduced power tip.

Finally, took into account the effectiveness of my investor communications below a certain level of power, the investor is unable to convert DC to AC very effectively, offering the double whammy of less light from the Sun and less energy per unit of sol.Aproxima fall light used as a power law.

Between investor, reflectance and atmospheric attenuation, I was able to take into account the result of the decrease array during the hours of the morning (see the red curve) .Que left abrupt decline in the average afternoon for explicar.Tengo suspicion that would be sombreado.Un tree and the fireplace are just to the West of the matrix, and while they are not very high, even partial shading could cause a strong loss of power. the panels are cabled electrical series by affecting everything that one of them affects all measurements of Solar Pathfinder ellos.Las showed something more than shaded in the West than in the East, to be cut in the power output starting around 3 p.m.Uno these days when I'm at home in mid afternnoon, you want to go the roof to see what is happening.

My analysis was really only the first step and I'm not sure that I really isolated significant effects between all posibles.Me would love to hear how other people have tried to explain the performance of your systems!

Graphic courtesy of George Musser

How Home solar panels can help stabilize the grid, part 1 of 2?

Editor's Note: Scientific American George Musser will be on their experiences in the installation of solar panels in the solar home (formerly 60-second solar). Read his introduction here and see all the posts here.

Solar panels can do more than the power supply in the electrical grid. They could also help the grid to tackle a problem that many people are not aware of: the fact that electrical appliances not only consume energy but also temporarily store and drop it. The worst culprits are motors and transformers, whose internal magnetic fields represent a significant cache of energy, giving an electric inertia type that causes them synchronized with the grid of these devices.To describe the problem and possible solution, I've invited a blog part two guest Arnold McKinley Xslent energy technologies. here is the first part.

We all know solar energy restricts carbon emissions, decentralizes the electrical system and reduces the unit of the nation on foreign oil resources, but you know that solar can now help to stabilize the grid?The grid is very temperamental .requiere careful to maintain the frequency and voltage within very limited ranges to make sure that the engines do not burn, monitoring that rises not zap machines and so on. In the United States electricity quality we are granted, but our good fortune comes with an enormous infrastructure behind to make sure to keep it that way.

When you get destabilized the grid, the results can be unpleasant. Blackout on the West Coast in 1982 and 1996 six million people forced to eat by the light of the 1977 New York blackout velas.El infamous left deep scars in the city.U.S-Canadian 2003 blackout affected 60 million personas.En 2004 a U.S-Canadian tasks set in the comparison of these events and found that the main factor common to all is reactive power demand exceeds supply.

Few people have heard of "reactive power". Then, what is, that need you, why was not a problem as before and how could solar help prevent future blackouts?

Homeowners pay our bills public services based on "active power".Also known as "real" power, in part due to a technicality mathematical and in part because it carries energy that does the work of our homes lighting, compression of fluids in our air and water in our pools pumping conditioners kilowatt-hour.

But at the same time, together with the active power, reactive power flows.Performs an auxiliary service that ensures really light fluorescent lights, which actually work equipment, power supplies and compressor and pump really modern electronic gire.Wizardry from LCD TVs for electric cars, engines worsens the demand for reactive power in many transmission - lines so that the European Union and the Government of United States are beginning to force manufacturers to significantly reduce the reactive power of these devices draw.

Power factor provided that cause the voltage and current, ranging in a very constant 60 Hertz, for grid load out of synchronization streams.In the graphic to the left, the current lags of slightly tension.

Multiply the voltage and current together gives the poder.Es the sum of two components: active power, which has an average of a number positive and therefore represents energy delivered to the load, and reactive power, which averages to zero during a complete cycle and represents the energy that moves back and forth between the grid and the load.I.e., reactive energy flows in one direction towards the load, then tour around and flows in the other direction towards the generator, each repetition cycle.

The total power is measured in kilo-volt-amps (kVA), the active power in kilowatts (kW) and reactive power in kilo-volt-amps-reactive (kVAr) .the kW at kVA proportion is called power (pf) factor if pf is equal to 1, all kVA power is power active; if it is equal to 0, all kVA power is power home reactiva.Energía monitors such as TED 5000 display this amount.

Reactive power causes instability for two reasons:

Prevents the flow of useful traffic transmission lines in essence, fluctuating energy footprint could be used to power.Excessive reactive power transmission lines active can cause strong drops in voltage. If, for example, draw a certain number of active energy causes the voltage to drop from 118 Volts at 117 Volt, the same amount of reactive power drawing will that drop from 118 Volts at 108 voltios.Esto is, by definition, a brownout.

In the next article, I will explain how a new solar technology called microinverters, may help control reactive power grid and help stabilize our electric system.

Photos and diagrams courtesy of Arnold McKinley

Focus your mind: concentrated solar energy increased

Editor's Note: Scientific American George Musser will be on their experiences in the installation of solar panels in the solar home (formerly 60-second solar). Read his introduction here and see all the posts here.

I had a fun talk yesterday evening with Bob MacDonald, Executive Director of Skyline Solar, a new array (CPV) photovoltaic concentrated creators.The thing is quite similar to a large solar, pot with a long mirror focuses sunlight so you only need one tenth many solar to cover an area determinada.CPV cells can become the first photovoltaic technology to reach parity cost with fossil fuels.

The basic idea, dating back to the 1970s, is to use less solar cells and shine more light on each one.Rated power of a cell based on straight and full sunlight which is around 1,000 watts per square metre in the Earth's surface. In view that is hundreds or even thousands of times brighter, cell will generate proportionally more current and do both, proportionally more power.(Tension remains fixed by quantum physics). In fact, some types of cells, such as those that capture a wider range of the solar spectrum, perform better under intense light.

The main disadvantage is that the cells, then absorb more heat.The Skyline of array is based on passive cooling - i.e. natural airflow around metal fins mounted on the rear of the celdas.También has to factor in the cost of duplication and if Sun, track engines panels. For small systems residential, regular flat screens are still cheaper, but CPV becomes economic for larger systems around 50 kW, such as those who are beginning to appear on the roofs of shopping malls. For really gigantic array, the larger than approximately 50 MW, the cost of Silicon starts to join and solar thermal systems, which heat up a fluid to spin a turbine, become more expensive.

One of the hangups CPV has been the cost of manufacturing and installation, but MacDonald says that his company has devised a simplified mechanical design that can be integrated in a converted automobile assembly line.The units are sized to fit into a standard shipping container and are totally pre to be easy to plug into the matrix sitio.Una MW 1 will consume about five hectares.The company established a system of 27 kW demonstration in San Jose last May and expected to start shipment of its production units more later this year.

Said MacDonald, initially cost around for 15 cents to kW-hr than half the cost of regular solar panels.If so, it is already competitive with nuclear power and close on fossil energy, that extends around 10 cents per kW-hr (vary with location), not counting its environmental costs.

"Exempifies CPV how the solar challenge these days is not high-tech job lab but reducing costs low technology, nuts and bolts. Description your of how arrays must be tailored for your site also made me appreciate how the two ends of the solar market moved in directions opuestas.Para homeowners, systems are becoming increasingly more standardised to reduce the costs of installation, that is easier to obtain permission, and allows that you excited to prepare their propios.Pero panels large solar farms are becoming less estandarizados.Aunque components can be plug and play, its overall design must customize to squeeze Watt until the last.""There is a lot of profit which it was intended engineering," says MacDonald.

Photo courtesy of Skyline solar

Five tips for lovers of the land and the old houses

Editor's Note: Scientific American George Musser will be on their experiences in the installation of solar panels in the solar home (formerly 60-second solar). Read his introduction here and see all the posts here .

At the beginning of this week I raises the question of whether old houses will never be able to reduce their energy needs by the factor of five or so needed to combat climate change. My discussion was inspired, in part, a provocative essay written by preservationist Sally Zimmerman of historic New England last year.Yesterday he wrote to say that my post and the comments that people left have been widely distributed among inhalaba.Le offered some ideas that I think that you framework the question beautifully:

Here in New England, where we depend heavily on oil heat and where old houses are a major component of our homes, we have to deal with the apparent contradictions of conserving energy and the preservation of historic architecture.Does not mean that these two goals are in conflict? perhaps not if inhalaba and conservationists will find a way to learn about halfway.From the perspective of conservation, here are some thoughts on where we are coming from.

Old houses are not the problema: We can not solve the crisis of energy on the backs of our "old" houses. According to the Bureau of census of United States, slightly more than 8% of existing dwellings of the nation were built before 1920. Perhaps the nation making the "new" homes more energy efficient call "92 percent solution". Pioneering new technologies pay a higher price: Innovative Gadgets usually need some shelf time to lower the cost and to develop the errores.Deberíamos take this into account with cutting-edge technologies Greens and materials and keep them out of our old houses until you know are safe and effective. "Really" mansions (such as constructed houses more than 150 years) really aren't the place to experiment with the latest technologies: are too rare and important to be subjected to attack the most innovative energy strategies. Taking into account the age and the importance of a House will help balance the objectives of energy efficiency and historical preservation. Go ahead and pick the fruit of the baja-colgantes: By all means, do everything what can make your old house less consumptive energy with modifications is easily achieved and does not damage or destroy historic fabric: blower door test; air sealing; insulating floor attic, basement ceilings, pipes and ducts;Weather-stripping and the addition of storm Windows and doors; and maintenance of heating and cooling equipment attended Windows. Preservation of New England and energy groups already have partnered in a new guide which outlines a prudent strategies. And historic New England, with 36 museums House plans to retrofit the Estate Lyman for a reduction of 50 percent of the energy use with comprehensive, but reversible, interventions of 1793. Keep it simple:Sophisticated "restructuring deep energy" which include super-insulation of external walls, ceilings and performance foundations drastic reductions in energy consumption, but may have too many "moving parts" for an old House whose "parties" have most likely moved, changed, settled, decayed and generally existed mucked - far longer. The USGBC and American Society of interior designers offer good information on the scope of the profound energy retrofit but inhalaba invoked that this solution is best suited to the newer houses (see the "92 percent solution", above).Get with the programa:Energy interventions are a critical part of the solution to a global threat.The Advisory Council on historic preservation recently published programming prototype agreement with the Department of energy guidance provides for regulators preservation around the country to approve the conversion of energy that do not harm tissue significant or visible publicly aspects of properties historical. old houses have been adapted to new technologies before and they can once again that those of us who love old houses and our green planet approaching the interventions of energy with common sense and an open mind.

Lyman Estate.Cortesía historic New England energy audit