A recent customer in Middleton had a 12 year old naturally drafted tank-style water heater that was on its last legs. In addition to evaluating the building shell, insulation levels and electricity bills, Piping Plover was hired to determine the most cost effective water heater type. There are two adults and two children that live in the home and, with everyone being home all day, they require a significant amount of hot water. (continue reading…)
Tag: Middleton
Home Energy Efficiency Presentation This Thursday!
Piping Plover will be giving a presentation on home energy efficiency this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. in the Archer Room of the Middleton Public Library. The seminar is a part of the “Green Thursday” program put on each month by the Middleton Sustainability Committee. The event is free and open to all — no matter if you’re a Middleton resident or not.
The flyer with all of the details is linked below. Come learn about how to have a warmer, cheaper winter!
Middleton Green Homes Tour Next Week!
On Sunday September 12th from noon until 3:00 p.m., The City of Middleton will be conducting a green homes tour to showcase energy efficiency and sustainable practices around the city. Piping Plover will be conducting a home energy audit and showing how homeowners can reduce their energy use in easy and cost effective ways. We’ll be showing how a blower door test and infrared scanning works, how to do an electricity analysis of your own home, and how a solar site assessment works. If you’ve been thinking about having a home energy audit done, please stop by and see how helpful our diagnostics are! We do home energy audits all around the Madison area too — you don’t need to be a Middleton resident to attend.
The entire press release from the City of Middleton is posted below. We’ll post more info and a map as it’s made available. Don’t worry — the Packers game doesn’t start until after the tour is over!
Number One Indicator of Energy Use?
In energy efficiency, the number one indicator of a home’s efficiency is not age, number of residents or type of house — it is size. For instance, a newly built 4,000 square foot “green built home” will likely still use more energy than a 50 year old home of 1,500 square feet. The graph below shows the average square footage of Middleton homes by decade.
As you can see, home sizes in the City of Middleton more than doubled from the 1930s until the 1990s. This same trend exists all over Dane County (and the country). In future posts, we’ll look at trends in other municipalities.