Ask the Experts!

It’s been a while, so here’s a brand new “Ask the Experts”!
I have a daughter who lives in Lake Elmo and pays $400/mo to heat her home and it is about 1200 SF. They had an energy audit which was not very useful. It appears [...]

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Uh, nope, CFLs are still better.

I was kind of horrified to see this article on the New York Times which seemed to suggest that using incandescents was more efficient than switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs because of…heat.  It’s true, 90% of the energy we send to incandescents is wasted as heat, and I have been asked if that means [...]

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Ask the Experts!

I have heard that using a white colored or otherwise “cool roof” can have dramatic energy savings benifits.  I understand this is true for the hot and sunny south, but I am wondering if this reasoning holds true for the cold northland.
Cool roofs for a cool climate?  Find the answer here on the Minnesota Energy [...]

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New Ask the Experts!

My house was built in 1959/1960. For the most part it has all the original windows with the exception of the addition. Someone mentioned to me that there might be a program in place where if I were to put in new energy efficient [...]

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Ask the Experts!

I have used these new bulbs since they first came out and I can’t get them to last longer than a year!  They burn out almost as fast as the ordinary type.  None of these bulbs are on any longer than about 3 hours per day.  Now 3 years later I have spent more on [...]

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Ask the Experts!

Where I work, we have a Glenwood-type water cooler and a water fountain that delivers brownish water, so we all use the cooler. However, we think it would be greener to have filtered tap water that doesn’t need to be bottled, delivered, or chilled. We are assuming the fountain has bad pipes that would be [...]

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Insulating Water Heaters: Wait a second….

Treehugger has a solid article on reducing hot water use with some good advice – including insulating one’s water heater.  Which can be a very good action to help increase the heat retention of your water heater and cut down on standby losses, or the loss of heat when water is just sitting around, waiting [...]

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New Ask the Experts!

I need to replace outside doors. The wind blows under my front door, and because of the tile job, a door strip does not work.
Think you can’t use a door sweep because you have carpet or tile underneath your door?  Think again!  Discover a new energy-efficient solution at the Minnesota Energy Challenge.

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Ask the Experts!

I am replacing single pane windows with double pane windows, do I need to add Low E coating to my windows? I will still have storm windows in place. I am curious – it seems like the greatest benefits are in high cooling areas of the country.
Find the answer to this, and many more [...]

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Ask the Experts!

Our area of expertise over at the Minnesota Energy Challenge is, obviously, energy efficiency and conservation.  But we do make sure that we are up to date on all energy issues, including renewables.  So here’s this week’s Ask the Experts question:
Are there good residential wind generators on the market and are there [...]

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