Two Know More Than One – We Build Community around Energy Smarts
Various government programs, including incentives of various kinds, always promote technologieis, but they never talk about what might be the most appropriate technology for YOUR property. Energy Smarts Net is dedicating to changing all that. Together, we know more than we do alone, so we share information and here home owners help each other figuring out the smart solutions with occasional help from the professionals, but vendors can only sell by invitation. They can inform and advise, but not sell, until a homeowner has gathered enough information to decide and invites proposals.
The only solid measure of success is to pick the option that adds the most value to your property. In the ideal case, there are sufficient options with today’s energy tech, so you can simultaneously lower operating costs and increase the long-term value of your property. Once you can see your way clear to such a solution, the next thing is to decide an implementation strategy and how you’re going to finance it. That is another area where we can all learn from each other.
We talk solutions, not technology
Becoming smart about energy and energy retrofitting is all about learning how not to spend the same dollar twice, or worse. So, the first thing to understand is which technologies are appropriate for your property, for every house is different, and the next thing to understand is which technologies support each other and which might partially overlap or even cancel each other out. Again, this is an area where we can all learn from each other, and together we can prevent making the same beginners mistakes over and over again.
Virtual Neighbors are “the Thing”
Sometimes physical neighbors are the best source of advice, such as in a development that was built with the same materials, although their may still be relevant differences, such as differences in orientation towards the sun, and other physical differences. All such differences need to be understood and taken into account. In other cases, your direct neighbor may have a very different style home from yours and the best advice may come from someone with a property similar to yours across town, or even in another town. Again, it pays to be smart about not just sharing stories and experiences, but undertanding the exact circumstances that were relevant.
The Big Picture
Our company DaBx Demand Side Solutions, Inc, mainly services commercial, industrial and institutional accounts. At one point during a presentation about lifecycle analysis of energy retrofits for commecial building managers, we got a lot of questions about residential retrofitting and the idea for this collaborative project was born. A home owner who wants to undertake energy retrofits can learn by sharing their own experiences and learning from others. Vendors are not allowed to dominate the conversation, for what is best for one property, may not be best for another.
The vendors who participate on this network are prohibited from selling, unless a homeowner invites them and asks them for a proposal. The whole idea is that we give information to prospective customers, and eventually an educated consumer will be the best customer. Too often have unscrupulous contractors rammed home owners into deals that do not serve them well. We do everything in our power to prevent that.
We distinguish between anchor technologies that are neutral and independent of other choices and the major retrofit options which are mutually exclusive, and very dependent on the suitability of the property.
Next Steps…
Besides browsing this website, it pays to join our forum for home owner discussions that will be rolled out initially zipcode by zipcode, to slowly build a network for quality feedback between home owners. Initially, participation is by invitation only.