Focus 580; Home Energy

Good morning this is Focus 580 our morning telephone talk show My name is Jack Brighton. Glad you could listen today during this hour of the show will be talking about home energy. Something We Do you know fairly frequently on the show since it's something that people have to deal with if you want to get the most comfort and the best efficiency for your energy dollar this is the kind of show for you. Our guest we have two guests this morning Larry Lister who is our energy efficiency guru we've sort of appointed him that he grits his teeth every time I say that. That's all right. He's with facility dynamics engineering and he is an engineer engineer himself has done a wide variety of work on both homes and business type buildings. And he's here to help and also Carol Timms who is with educational dividends in Champagne Urbana she is working on a program called energize champagne which is working too. Bring more energy efficiency to Champagne buildings in conjunction with an educational effort in the champagne schools and talk a bit about that and also take

your questions if you'd like to join us you can call us around Champaign-Urbana at 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 That's 3 3 3 W I L L A few match letters with the numbers that's what you get. We also have a toll free line. Anywhere you hear us 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Larry and Carol good morning. Good morning. Hello. Thanks for being here. Thanks. Maybe we'll start by asking Carole tends to talk about energize champagne and what you're doing with that and champagne is an exciting program. What we're doing is we're working with local students and we're going to be looking at our historic downtown in Champaign and we're going to be auditing the buildings looking at ways that the building owners can save money make their buildings more comfortable going to look at their bills and track their energy use and some suggest some ways for them to improve their energy efficiency. You're doing this in conjunction with the students young people.

That's right we have students from Centennial who are working with us through the education to Careers program Academy at Central High School and we're also working with the Urban League youth programs. So we're going to be teaching those students about energy about how buildings use energy. And they're going to go through and produce a prioritized list for the building owners telling them where their dollars are best spent. How do you go about starting the students in the process and what you know could you describe sort of how it works. Sure we're going to be doing some training with educators and engineers from educational dividends as well as from Dhaka because they're providing funding through rebuild America for energy champagne Dockery's I'm sorry the deck is the State Department of Commerce and community affairs and the energy bureau has been long supporting energy education throughout the state of Illinois and they will be working with us as well and we're going to be showing students how a building uses energy. There's an awful lot of common sense involved

in building energy use. And there's a lot of disciplines that are touched on. So we called this reality based education if you will. They'll be using their math science language arts technology skills. Working together in teams much as you would in the business world so they'll be attacking each building and looking at each building from a team perspective. So we'll teach them how a building uses energy. Talk about the new technologies. Talk about the common sense approaches to reducing air infiltration and things like that. And then they'll be going through and really giving their opinions. So if someone owns a historic building for example in champagne they can contact you and you know start the process of you know sort of doing a site inspection and so forth. That's right. The champagne Downtown Association is our sponsor for this and they will be soliciting buildings who would like to participate so any building owner or a building manager in downtown Champaign can

contact the champagne Downtown Association and schedule an audit. Our students will be through. In about February we'll be starting our audits. Is there a cost associated with there is no cost for the audit. In an audit is required in order to apply for some of the grant funding that we have through energise champagne So first give us a call schedule and audit our students will give you their ideas of the best ways to spend your money and then you can talk to the champagne Downtown Association and get some assistance in investing in your energy efficiency. OK and where would people contact. They can call 3 5 9 9 4 4 2 and that would be my office and I can put them in touch with the right folks or get them scheduled for an audit. OK good. Let's talk a bit about the kinds of buildings that we would be focusing on this a lot of historic buildings weren't exactly Larry or Carol tell me if I put my

foot in my mouth here or there. They weren't exactly built with the best principles of energy efficiency. Not with energy efficiency. No definitely not. A lot of them structurally are pretty integral and I find that when I when I've dealt with historic buildings like the one I live in a lot of our residential are like that. You really see all kinds of things that are just fabulous construction and engineering. But on the other hand you'll see things that just you know you scratch your head and say wow really surprising to the blocking is a big issue and and I've seen it in some of the downtown buildings over in Champaign that I've been through where there's places behind the walls and behind the ceilings and stuff where there's. And you don't see them but you can tell sort of forensically by looking for cold surfaces or that there's air moving inside the building that shouldn't that shouldn't be there. And sometimes the building might have been built well where they've blocked in things and didn't leave any openings to the outside you

know some of the substructure stuff. But what'll happen is you know over the course of time somebody will have you know they'll be an old flue or an old coal chute and then they'll be of a flue from an old boiler that no longer exists going right up through the you know through the roof of the building and sometimes you know they'll patch the hole in the roof but they won't patch the pathway that goes through the building and they'll allow cider to come in of flow through the building those are the things that are you have to look for those. Trying to do at least a novel of modification which is to make the building shell tighter. You have to go through and sort of look for these warning signs of cold surfaces and sometimes as I've told you know talking with with kids also you go down you know if you're down in the basement look for places that go you know gaps that go right up through the walls from the basement. Look for cobwebs that are moving because that shows that there's a lot of there's flow going on and you know it's a way I think. Sure Karel's some of these things with the kids it's a really a way to make it a little bit of a of an

investigative drill and it can be kind of you can be kind of fun. The other thing when you're talking with Carolyn I wanted to mention was that I've done a little bit of work with with children when I was doing my department of defense work. And the one nice thing about doing this kind of thing is that the kids not only once they're once they're engaged in the thought process they carry it with them through through not just through not just home to their parents to start nagging their parents about. You know you've got to close the windows. But also just through their through their lives you know once you touch on this this idea of energy savings and especially if it can be tied into some environmental things. To get to the emotional part of it you know they really kind of become kind of ambassadors and even if they don't go into the area at least they've they've they've got that with them so these programs it is really exciting for me to hear about it. I'm really glad there's something locally going on.

It's a great way to to make the point to students that what they're learning in school is really truly relevant to their lives and to the world. And that's when they begin to understand that they not only need to learn but they want to learn and that excites them quite a bit. You know one thing I would mention about the champagne buildings that I think is really interesting. Up until about 40 years ago all of the champagne downtown champagne buildings were heated with steam heat from Illinois power's generating station. So it wasn't until 40 years ago that those buildings even put in their own system so our students are going to get to see not only the district heating steam tunnel issue but they're going to see some very very old boilers and we have buildings with those 40 year old systems that are now desperately in need of some changes. So it's a nice environment for them to work in. And when they when they build a lot of those buildings because they they knew that there was going to be district

systems a lot and a lot of older buildings in general that are under strategic. They really didn't go to great pains to make the Lopes nice and tight because there was a lot of concern. Even then there was concern about indoor air quality especially on the systems that where they had their own boilers like coal fire fire boilers in the building. I've heard stories from some of the dead men you know the older engineers that did this stuff who are no longer around that you know there would be coal dust and things in the end so they would actually keep these buildings drafty a little bit on purpose or you know product of combustion residue residue that made you know wind up in the building. So a lot of times you know he would have read some of these historic things they say well you have to leave all this you have to leave all these big gaps to keep the air you know keep the interesting smelly stuff. Well they don't have that problem anymore. Yeah well they were engineers they realized it was happening I'm sure. Yeah. To some degree yeah. It's also really interesting the whole concept of this district. You know the steam system that was

used at that point and I didn't realize it until a few years ago there was some renovation going on. Some of the older buildings champagne and suddenly you know somebody discovered this so I walked was collapsing into one of these steam tunnels that apparently had been totally forgotten about. So yeah right and district heating well used quite a bit. Many years ago is something that really isn't used very much now and and so it's a it's a new concept. People hear about that and go Oh my goodness well that's one way to do it. Do you buy his meant his use that says oh yeah yeah pretty effectively. A lot of older district heating systems are really expensive to renovate you know they take a lot of it takes a lot of capital to go in it and renovate one but surprisingly a lot of cities are doing district cooling No not not just in the banana belt you know around the southern part of the United States but all over Chicago is putting in a new big district big district cooling system the University of Illinois is building one right now that's

what our streets are torn up. So because cooling is getting to be more and more of an issue in our buildings we put more load in our buildings and we've got a lot of buildings even in Chicago that never have to be heated the air cooled you know 20 below it's still the chillers are still going in some of these big buildings. So they're putting more and more district cooling systems in. And it is an efficient way to do it centrally but you really have to kind of mind your mind your engineering principles when you do it or else it can be pretty expensive. We're talking this morning about home energy and energy in general energy efficiency comfort etc.. Our guests are Larry Lister a engineer with facility dynamics engineering and Carol Tim's with educational dividends. She works in the area of energy education has done a variety of consulting like energy issues for the state of Illinois and now working with the Downtown Champaign partnership. It's a little the downtown

champagne Association thank you and several organizations involved in this. Anyway we welcome your questions we had one person who was on a car phone I think they probably had two. Hang up because of you know navigational issues. But if you'd like to join us you can calls around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free anywhere you hear us 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. You know one thing that I really want to stress about this project and I think that parents who may be home and listening this is especially appropriate. We really challenge the students who we work with and we say you need to find the answers you need to go out and work together as a team and really begin to do your research and that's something that I don't think we do enough for our children is challenge them often and I think that you're hearing this now parents as children are home on break. School is boring. I don't I don't need to learn that. Well when you hear that math is boring. From a

student who 10 minutes later is able to come up with every statistic in the world on some baseball player. You know that they're not being challenged and that's an important part of what will happen with energy as champagne. Right well they're using the knowledge for real world sort of activity. Exactly yeah. We have a caller talk with let's include them in our conversation. Someone in Champaign on line number one. Good morning unfocussed 580. Yes I was wondering about what kind of careers students might become interested in and whether those careers will be there for them in the future. That's a very good question. There are over 35 degree careers in energy related to energy that a student might choose from. In addition there are all of the trades that each have their own energy bent to them. So when a student learns about energy it opens up a lot of options for them that they may not realize is available to them. We also use a lot of technology

in this project and so certainly we know how interested and capable students are with technology. They're going to find a lot of opportunities and it will be up to them to determine what best fits their needs and where their interests are. But yes those careers will certainly be available in the future energy is something that's incredibly important to our society and our economy. You know Carol mentions the trades and that's one thing that tends to get I think a lot of a lot of short shrift these days is that you know there's the obvious engineers you know go to college for four years or eight years or like us more and go out and be an engineer and do this and that and that's great and we need engineers but there's really because of the technical nature of things these days commercial buildings in general the control systems which is the area I tend to focus on. There's really a need for technically competent people who

don't need an engineering degree you don't have to send your kid to college for four years but you know there is some training you go to technical college you know to your technical colleges will give you good help. Just being computer literate is a huge step in the right direction. If your children are messing with computers or messing with programming and and even just playing video games try to push them off into a little bit of the programming kind of thing. You know not all of us have kids that are that are college bound in that are motivated to go to college but that want good paying jobs want a job that will that will last into the future. And some areas like the controls industry is as a big issue they need. They need people who are computer literate who want to understand you'll learn the basics in the trade while you're working to learn all the basic heating ventilating cooling systems. But there's really just a shortage of these these folks out there and it's really impacting what. What I as an engineer can do and I'm sure what Carol as a

as an educator and advocate can do so. So that's one thing that the trades are not to be not to be overlooked in this day and age I think it's and our students who are especially curious. The kind of students that we really want to direct towards the trades because if you look at the need to continually learn and the need to continually keep up with the technology that's something that's so very important with our trades people. When you are designing or building a structure you need to know what the newest thoughts are out there to make that structure energy efficient and you have to be able to constantly keep up and really be clever about how you can build something so that it is affordable to operate and to maintain. We're going to call this talk with let's include them in our conversation this is another listener in champagne. On one of the two good morning unfocussed 580 Would you care

to comment on the subject and who Chris. A timely question. Anyone want to dive into that. Wow. The cost. It's I mean it depends on first of all what you call excessive being a little bit nerdy. I metered my Christmas trees when you're in the middle. Yes there was a while ago I'm trying to remember what it was how much it was. My my take on it was that yes we don't need to have Christmas lights and I can

I go I feel a little tinge when I drive down the candlestick lane and the place is just so lit up although it's still fun to take the kids over there. But in general talking about a Christmas tree for example it was it was on the order of. A couple dollars for the entire Christmas season. Yeah if that. Yeah if that. I think too it's each person's choice. And then you get into the decision process which is something that's very important for all of us to pay attention to. What are your priorities. What do you care most about and make your decision based on some some very logical assumptions and there are a lot of ways to decorate without electricity. Then there are some wonderful beautiful ways to decorate with it. Yeah Christmas tree lights to one thing is that it looks you know when you spread a little bit of light over a large area. Yeah it can.

It can actually look like a a bigger a bigger energy dump than what's in them what's actually occurring some of these lights are pretty. Pretty small from from a wattage perspective. Well I have noticed that in recent years there are more and more of these external house lights that are very beautiful I mean if you drive down the streets not like Halsted lane or anything in her manner. People are in the area they're familiar with that probably. But more and more people seem to enjoy you know decorating their houses for Christmas and you know it's one of those tradeoffs I suppose is you know a lifestyle choice what are you going to do you can just you know yeah you know and not do any decoration at all. Yeah you know to get two or three days ago it was so cold it's a great time to go find the leaks in your house because boy they just hit you right in the face. And I found about a one square foot opening in my own house. Been there that long but I found an opening I didn't know about hidden away somewhere that you know I would say that I can see the caller's perspective.

There's usually so many other places where we're wasting energy and electricity and comfort that I would I would say you know I would really prefer people to you know look at those things a lot of people have porch lights on and things like that fairly indiscriminately in. And that can be a career that could be your Christmas tree. Our lines are all full suddenly. Maybe the Christmas trees got the people going here. We'll find out. We'll go next to a listener on a cell phone line number for Good morning your own folks 580 Hi there. Hi I've an inquiry regarding carrier knew I don't know if it's more than a marketing effort but it's it's a soon to be packaging their their company more as a service provider rather than the provider of you know if eating an air conditioning unit as a potential source to go in and make a broader more comprehensive analysis of your of your they have a

buzzword for it sort of. In your residential environmental need I'm very familiar with that program. Yes I mean not not their program specifically but the trend in the HPC original equipment people is toward that and it's at the commercial level. Primarily all those More and more at the residential level too is that the it's kind of a deregulation sort of of the utility industry spun off into the to the HTC manufacturers. What they're what they're wanting to do is to come in and look at all of the different things and and provide I mean really that they're going to say an air conditioner well. But that means that they also in their pocket or they have relationships with with with other fish. This touches a window manufactures and so forth and it doesn't necessarily suggest that their advice any more credible than any sort of individual collection of

people that you might bring in. You know I'm driving at is the it seems like the problem that folks have of finding sources that are credible sources that don't have vested interests that they can make an analysis based on cost over time and decide you know what point is it worth going window replacement or replacing a furnace or you know as you're tormented by the notion of higher utility bills versus you know environmental issues. I mean is there a is there a better database to go to than calling on private industry to come in and do those analysis. There there there is in theory. I mean there's things like this radio show where we talk about that. Could I make a living doing that no. And I don't I'd do this more for fun and as a hobby talking about residential things because. People don't have the kind of money it takes to sustain an engineer frankly. And and and shouldn't have to.

So what I see these are these and these providers. There's there's a number of names for what they're doing there also by the way. And this isn't carrier but there are some others that are going around and buying up a lot of mom and pop businesses all over the United States and these home aggregators and they go around and there's a you know large company in Houston that has gone around and has bought up there's somebody in town that's affiliated with them. It's not to say it's bad it's just sort of the way of the world and the way of the the business side of it. And it really comes down to the individual you know if you had somebody from carrier come in you might get somebody that would give you the same advice that Carol or I would and they might say you know what you don't need an air conditioner you need to get these ducks fixed up and they might actually be able to do that well or not or they might say you know what you really need to look at somebody or you get some problems down on the foundation of the sill plate you know these holes going outside. So it comes like anything in this world it really comes down to the individual.

But you're right in having that question. Look about and as long as you're aware of who. Of who it is giving you the advice you might want to get a second opinion. All right well I know that in this program that. Question may seem more suitable for like Hanks to be yours regularly I guess but you know it empowers individuals like bees to go to an absurd level because people are so I think of the consumer side that I can safely say that people are you know are so they're still interested in this twister sensation that you know when a species comes along suddenly you know there's a tendency to maybe what goes and which oftentimes great advice but you know you don't have anything to measure it again. I mean you know consumer confidence and you know in a lot of the actual providers of services one of the things that I might suggest to you the Department of Energy has an awful lot of helpful publications that deal with

residential. And there's a publication that's simply called energy savers and you might want to get a copy of that because energy efficiency in your home really does have a lot to do with common sense in looking at the systems. And as we work with the students we push the four areas that you look at in your home and so I would suggest that you get a publication like that and it will help you make some of your decisions and I have a phone number for you write that on your phone number. Yes I have an 800 number to get that publication. If you call 800 3 6 3 3 7 3 2 you'll be able to receive that free publication and I think that is a good start in looking at what you can do in your own home. And I appreciate it. Thanks very much for the other parts. I get this question a lot also and there's a Lawrence Berkeley labs and home energy magazine has a has a really good site. It's actually I think that

the website has just changed but they have a place that you can go and answer some questions. And it's it's as good as you're going to get from somebody not being there in your house taking a look and it gives you some really good advice of kind of where to point the guns financially and I don't have the link right off the top of my head used to be a home energy saver died Albiol dot gov but there was no w w in front of it. What we might be able to do though is I might be able to do while Al has an incredibly great website the station and if anybody's been to that we might be able to convince the the person in charge of that website we can throw some energy links or something in there because I get these calls instantly. I wish I had somewhere to point them to Walt. I'll talk to the webmaster about that issue that Jack we can. Yeah since it's me I shouldn't be shouldn't be a problem. Yeah we can post on our website. You know we'll post this program in real audio and we can put some more links on there as well on the folks 580 page. So

that's great. Our lines are almost full we'll go on and talk with some more callers. Next up someone in Fisher on line number two good morning in focus 580. Yes I have a couple of questions please. I have a natural gas water heater that needs to be replaced. And I'm just beginning to think for the first time that maybe I need to switch to an electric water heater. And my second question is our air conditioning ducts in our crawl space of our home are not insulated. Is this some project that could save us lots of energy if we worked and to light them by wrapping them. No and Yes. I'll answer that so fast that I'll I'll see if Carol agrees with agreeing with me. You know I've kind of said this before and it's a friend of mine has made quoting a friend of mine he said using using electricity to heat water is like using bottled water to water your lawn. You know it works but why you would want to do that. The electric

providers will give will tease us some tantalizingly low electric rates too. To do that and so you're right for being kind of caught up by that by that book if that's if that's part of what did it. But I would say no if you've got natural gas and you need to replace your natural gas water heater there's some really nice efficient ways to do it I know natural gas is feeling kind of expensive right now but three or four years down the road and may not be cheaper but electricity is just from a resource perspective it's really not it's. It's you know when you get that new natural gas water heater be sure to wrap it. OK. And also some of the newer water heaters will side vent and the efficiencies are a lot better and in a lot of times you can get away from using the chimney which at some point closing up chimneys as we don't need them as we get newer newer nor appliances that don't really

require the chimney. That's actually often a really strange energy loss place from a heating perspective we lose a lot of heat and cooling through drafty old chimneys in the house depending on how old your house is and I've had to play it but inside the hall the water heater is still safe to use with the then at the Maid of the prickly side. Oh right it has to be made specifically there'd be a little induced traffic and or something that goes with that and the doctor usually ducted with PVC pipe in the duct that OK you know just kind of spray the little exhaust there is a natural gas a pretty clean burning fuel. But as far as our air conditioning ducts smell how do we alight. You know the first thing that I would do on that is to seal them before you insulate or they sheet metal or or or flexible duct. They're sheet metal. Great. Yeah that you would want to get somebody and you could probably depending on who you have available to to do this it's something you could do it

yourself or can do but. You could also hire somebody if you want you want to use a duct mastic. You don't want to use duct tape right. No no tape of any kind just will will last. But there's a mastic that can be applied that's got some structural integrity. It hardens it becomes just like the duct itself. You want to seal that doctor because we lose so much energy through duct work and through poorly designed. But but usually just falling apart duct work. We spend a lot of money to make cooling and to make heat at the plant in your house at the furnace or air conditioner only to dump half of it before it gets to where it's gone. So the best people to ask to do that are people that do it right the people anybody in the HPC trades you know could do that here locally and you want to but you really want to make sure you don't get because there are people that are still going around throwing duct tape around around ducks so you really want a void that then go ahead and

insulate. And if it's in the crawl space you know fiberglass or anything would do and they can usually do that at about the same time. OK. All right thank you very much. Thanks a lot and good luck. So can we say that duct tape is good for just about everything else but ducks. Duct tape is great for. Yeah every. Rock n Roll. OK good. We have a couple callers were past our midpoint here. We're talking about home energy and energy use in general how to get the most out of it. Our guests are Carol tombs. She's with educational dividends and Larry Lister with facility dynamics engineering a couple callers waiting and we welcome others in the time remaining 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 or toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Next up a listener in Urbana line number one. Good morning you're on focus 580. Good morning. Yes I would like to know about the virtues of blown in cellulose insulation I got a rickety old tract house of mid 60s vintage that the attic spaces all rich anywhere near as

well insulated as they could be and that's one of the projects I have to get done here in the next week or so as to improve that. I've heard that or read that cellulose insulation has a. Air Filtration reducing quality about that and I was wanting to comment upon that and perhaps you could recommend any particular brands of cellulose insulation that are better than another. Thank you. Well we certainly agree that insulation is virtuous so you have a good project on your hands. As far as recommending brands What do you. Well yeah I mean shredded up newspaper sort of newspaper. Really interesting myself. Yeah I think actually there's a lot of things that you should be looking at when you do you mention the attic. So if you're doing the attic from an air filtration perspective cellulose can really reduce it and you're right to go after

filtration because people think because insulation is there it's insulating and it's only insulating if there's not air blowing through it. And unfortunately a lot of applications where we insulate we don't take care of the pressure problem that's caused by all the different forces that go on in house by the weather and by the temperature in your house against the outside air. And we put these pressure differences on our houses and they suck and blow outside air in and out and insulation. It gets defeated by that and it becomes nothing but a filter. Unless you stop the those those places if you're doing your attic and you're just blowing in cellulose and it's just going to lay there it's going to have really no air infiltration effect because it's not it's not. There's nothing impeding the air from from blowing that insulation around. You may want to consider. I mean it's a decent insulator. If there is no air blowing it's I'm not telling you not to do it. You really just need to look a little closer at what else

is going on where you were. I have mentioned in the past that there is a really good air infiltration barrier effect of cellulose is when you blow it into walls. Enclosed wall specifically and it has to be applied in a way so as to put it in under fairly high pressure higher pressure than just dumping it into the wall using the the big vacuum. Kind of looking machines at that they have if you use of blow tube and you stick it you run the tube up into the wall you fill the cavity and then you pressurize it really packet good. That's one way of going after an old and old house that has a lot of these holes and things that we talk about. That's one way of getting at those things and really tightening up old cars as I've done a little bit of that as a as a homeowner. It's kind of difficult to find anybody locally that knows how to do is called dense packed cellulose is kind of the name that they've given that that application method. But there are ways there are ways to do it and. I would recommend using

that as a way to to to solve your IR infiltration if you can get fiberglass in the attic you might be a little better off doing that it will just stay in place a little better and it's not so bad to work with either. Good help is the cost question we have several people waiting will go next to a listener in Oak Forest on line number 4. Good morning on folks 580. I was told if you look at the with Morning Star you know the tankless water heater I would tell you what you know of it. Tankless water here. Yeah it's. A. Tankless job. Just to let you know if you want to hook it. Sorry the tankless water I don't have a lot of first hand experience with tankless water heaters although I'm actually on a job right not going to look at them so maybe in a month or even a month or two all no more. Note that a question down there yeah. Yeah I actually have a question from the last thing I'm supposed to answer.

Well for resin and the web like control energy. And it's a raw shark with sturdy makers for residential and then they do commercial things through a shack with or take good care for heaters providing a supply of hot water and save money by using energy only when you're using hot water and you never run out of hot water. So he's a water story. If you pay the water you use it's a little electric or gas. You get a silly rating on its rating compared to other water heaters. How much more efficient if you go in on the website you crying a ton about security but I would just wonder if you know anybody who had one I heard about a radio on a Mr. Fix-It type show to be a GM and. You know Bosh is a wonderful

brain because of your dishwasher which is extremely energy efficient extremely quiet. So when you go home today or back to yesterday look it up and talk. Yeah well yeah the earlier the earlier tankless water heaters I did have some experience of these back in the round the 1900 timeframe and they were awful. The military installed a lot of them. Now this isn't to say anything about this particular brand in general. It was it was not it was that it was a technology to stay away from. I wouldn't I wouldn't carry that same thought forward without having more knowledge about it right now only because things do change and they usually change for the better. The big question is throughput on a tankless water heater is typically where I see them used in the commercial sector is where you don't need a lot of hot water like for hand-washing where the amount where the gallons per minute is fairly low and usually you don't need a high

temperature. So that's usually where you do so because you really if you think about it you're trying to heat 55 degree ground water to one hundred ten hundred twenty whatever you might be using if you're a faucet. The temperature it's really pretty it's not hard to calculate for at least in general it would calculate that say here's the kind of heating that we need to do that so instantaneously do it what I've heard a lot of is that if you don't showers bathtubs things like that it can be pretty rough. OK. Were you looking for a lot of water in a short period of time. They they can be they can be pretty they may not do it so you really did look at the throughput numbers the the the G PM. Let me ask you for a quick follow up and then we'll get on because we have several callers and we're going to run a time. What if you have a system like that in conjunction with say a passive solar system that sort of heats your water to you know at

least room temperature higher. And then you wouldn't have to spend so much energy heating it up to whatever you're going to use it at. Yeah definitely that helps if you're not starting off with 55 degree water here instead starting off with 80 or 90 degree water that really makes a difference to the passive solar ways to do that is the batch type systems where you've got a tank a dark colored tank that will absorb radiant heat and it's somehow insulated you know in a glass. There's there's yeah there's definitely ways to do that that tends to be in our climate that's a seasonal thing. You don't you don't use that in the winter. And we find also that you tend to want more hot water in the winter. So there's a little bit of just a design discrepancy going on there but that would be a that would be a good way to get more capacity out of those. Really when you look at the tankless thing you just need to look at what temperature you want to set it at and how many gallons per minute they can deliver. It's really a heat exchangers what they're talking about just like in your furnace.

And you should be able to see what's going on there and then just look at how your life. It really is a lifestyle thing. You know if you get some teenagers and you get three people want and want to run a shower at the same time just add up those gallons per minute that you need and see if the if the if the unit will handle it. Very good we have three people waiting let's get on to our next call oh this is someone in rule St. Joe. I'm going to get goodmorning on focus 580 0 0 and ask about the difference between. Regular metal ductwork and I was also going to ask about the efficiency of vs electricity for dryer clothes dryer and also the last question was asked about. I know that you're working with college students but have you considered working at the grade school level also. Actually we're not working with college students we're working with in Champagne we're working

with high school students throughout the state of Illinois. We're working with students in grades six through 12th and sixth grade would be the lowest grade that you go to for the energy auditing program that we do six grade is the lowest because of math skills required. We also have a program called Energy detectives that is for grades three through five and then another program in the Chicago area. That is a K-12 program. So energy education is very a political two grades K through 12 and above. But this is a program in Champaign we're working with our high school students. Thank you. OK and the other question was was it fiberglass vs. fiberglass versus sheet metal I hate fiberglass duct work you're not you're going have a hard time finding anybody to to I mean people can do sheet metal it's really expensive. There's a lot of benefits to it it's uses less energy is less pressure drop with it. It can be cleaned it can be sealed well it lasts forever.

The fiberboard duct work. There's some questions about whether there is a little bit of health issues with that with entrainment of fiberglass However the latest I've heard on that is that it's really a pretty minimal thing. So that issue I wouldn't argue with too much mostly the problem I have a fiber board duct work is that it just doesn't it's not going to last your house is going to last a hundred years. The fiberboard duct work is now so some sun is going to give. OK. Yes there is your questions thank you. OK thank you. We'll try to squeeze in another caller to go next to someone in our band on line number one. Good morning unfocussed 580. Hi thanks for taking my call. I have an older house that I'm working with and has no one. The walls also have not been to wiring. I understand that now open air space between it and if I blow it in place I'll be losing that and I wonder what you know about that. Anyone want to tackle that. If not not sure.

Find in most old houses that haven't been rewired right. It's kind of scary sometimes. It's actually fairly safe. Yeah you knob and tube is not something that you have to you know run away from just for the sake. Again it comes down to how well it was it was applied. If you can get it to change you know go ahead and do so on. On that though you know. I've seen things on both sides from a engineering perspective there's no reason that it would need any air. What does happen though and I've heard of this in a lot of residential energy programs is state energy programs is that they'll And this does happen I read something in Minnesota where they were paying somebody to come in and blow insulation into the wall spaces there's a lot of knob and tube jobs there and because of the waste the way they do some of the junctions on the knob and tube are they just kind of scrape off some insulation and wrap another conductor around it and take off to toward another light. What happens is that when applying the cellulose particularly under pressure they

were blowing some of those poorly 100 year old. One of them a party junkie Yeah they were blown apart and then you know you get all kinds of problems that way. So it really kind of comes down to the integrity of the job. It felt like for since that's a pretty solid wiring that wouldn't necessarily be a problem. You know it's election time. Yeah I actually house I lived in prior to the one I'm in now I went to insulate and found out that I knew there was not been Toobin there it was a pretty good knob and tube job. However I found out that by opening these cavities I was able to get at some of them from the basement they were open to the basement I had a seal that prior to blowing the insulation. But what I was able to do is I was able to feed a lot of new wiring up with very little extra degree of difficulty. So I was able to actually kind of get rid of a lot of the knob and tube and avoid that potential problem. OK. And with cross space inflation termite inspectors are saying don't do it but everything I read says he didn't like going there.

Jamie Foxx Oh yeah were you insulate the crawl space kind of depends on some of the particulars of vanity that timed to go into it with you do the perimeter or the or the how much they enjoy they don't want fiberglass come out. Oh yeah. If they're not paying you're you're not realty bills and feeling your cold floors or their bare feet either. You know I don't I don't think there's much of an issue term if termites are there they're going to be there and all it's going to do is keep you from seeing it a little bit sooner so. OK thanks a lot. OK thanks for the call. Well I'm afraid to say we're out of time and we've got one caller that we couldn't take and I apologize to that person but we will certainly do this program again. And I just wanted to give Carole Tims an opportunity to give out any contact information if people want to check out energize champagne or some of the other programs going around the state that are associated with it.

Right. You can visit the educational dividends website at w w w dot educational dividends dot com. There you'll find information on the various programs there's help for parents who are interested in working with their students as they work through their educational career. There's assistance for teachers who are interested in the new teaching techniques that we're promoting. And there's information for business as well energize champagne will be happening this year through the end of next year next spring so spring of 2002 and we'll be in the business downtown who's interested in an audit should please call us at 3 5 9 9 4 4 2 and ask any questions you may have. Very good. Well thanks for being here and also just to mention that Larry Lister mentioned a website earlier that you could get some information on how to go about improving your home energy efficiency. And while we don't have that off the top of our heads all make sure to post that on the

oil well websites on the Focus 580 page where people can also find this program in real audio in a day or two since we can get that done. So both of you thanks very much for being here. Thank you. Thanks Jack.