Marshall County: Nice Scientists not Welcome!
I ran across this ad and found it amusing juxtapositioned against the current news articles about the Concerned Property Owners of Marshall County (What happened to their advocate counterpart? – blog here) and the Marshall County Commissioners and Plan Commission like this one. Verizon may not want to run this ad around here. On the wind farm issue, we don’t truck with Mad OR Nice Scientists. Let’s not muddy an emotional issue! We want our bald eagles killed the old fashion way through slow mercury poisoning from coal fired power plants, not whacked by newfangled wind turbines…
LED vs HID Wall Pack Fixture
I generally feel that upgrading electrical fixtures and devices to the newer energy-saving devices is the easiest green energy to justify. Great strides are being made in this area to the point that my average client can see savings with a short pay off time. This is often something that shows gains with a one-to-one swap of new for existing fixtures. Further gains can be achieved by designing around the new fixtures and adding energy-saving controls.
One of my supplier reps was in yesterday and shared the following analysis that he completed for one of his manufacturing clients who was considering upgrading their existing exterior wall pack lights from HID (High Intensity Discharge such as High Pressure Sodium or Metal Halide) to LED (Light Emitting Diode):
These are the wall pack security fixtures you see high on the wall around factories, warehouses or buildings with parking near their wall.
Fixture prices:
HID TWH400MTB w/lamp $218
LED TWHLED 30C 50K $450
At $0.08 energy rate, 10 hour/day, 365 days/year the energy savings is $102.79/year.
LED = In a ten year time frame you would spend $450 for the LED fixture and $305.80 for energy use.
HID = In a ten year time frame you would spend $218 for the HID fixture plus change the lamp four times and the ballast once. 2 hours labor times 4 times is 8 hours. The cost for the four lamps and the one ballast is $124.
Residential Accessibility
Example of a retrofit ramp from rampstoyou.com
An article in the April 2013 edition of Money Magazine made me think about all the accessibility projects we have done over the years. On page 81, Item #7, CPA Aaron Barlev suggests, “And don’t overlook anything: Health-related home renovations, such as installing a therapeutic pool to treat your back, can qualify.”
