Archive for January, 2015

How Solar Heating Benefits the Environment

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

Solar heating involves the installation of solar collectors on the rooftop in order to harness the power of the sun to improve the efficiency of the home heating process. Consider how much your utilities decrease when you go out of town for a week. When you’re not relying on the utility companies for gas and electric heating, you save significantly, especially since we usually use our heating systems nearly nonstop day and night here in Southern Vermont. With solar heating, your system primarily depends on a free reliable source for energy: the sun. The sun’s rays have the power to transfer energy into your home for one specific purpose, like heating, or throughout the entire house.

Whenever you turn on your solar heating system, you’re not only saving money; you’re helping the environment as well. A solar heating system reduces your carbon footprint significantly, especially if you convert from an older standing pilot furnace. Standing pilot furnaces are no longer commonly manufactured, but they remain in some homes because their lifespan can be lengthy. Whereas today’s pilot lights operate on electronic ignition, turning on only when needed, standing pilots remained lit throughout the day, resulting in a lot of standby energy loss.

Replacing a standing pilot furnace with a solar energy system helps the environment in substantial ways, cutting down the amount of fossil fuels you use each year, reducing CO2 emissions that affect the environment. In fact, replacing any type of heating system with a solar-powered unit, from an electronic ignition gas furnace to a heat pump to an electric furnace can help to reduce your environmental impact. Any system that runs on gas, electricity, or any combination of the two contributes to greenhouse gases that pollute the air.

How It Works

Solar heating systems use solar collectors to collect thermal energy from the sun. A liquid such as water or antifreeze flows between the solar panels and a storage tank or heat exchanger. Storing the heated liquid for later is more efficient, but either system may need a backup for use when solar energy isn’t available.

Call HB Energy Solutions, we have installed solar heating systems in Southern Vermont for years, and strive to provide customers with excellent service for years to come.

How Can I Make Sure New Gas Piping Installation Is Handled Safely?

Thursday, January 15th, 2015

While appliances that use natural gas to operate were once considered a health and safety risk, today’s gas-powered systems are safer than ever. Most gas appliances contain plenty of safety features that help to prevent gas from leaking into your home. Today, people do not have to worry as they once did about a pilot light going out and leaving the gas running. In current standing gas pilot heating systems, a flame sensor detects there us a safety hazard and shuts off the unit immediately. Other modern gas burners only ignite when needed, with plenty of safety components to prevent any hazards that may prevent gases from venting as well.

But, as with anything that uses natural gas, there is an unfortunate risk of a gas leak, particularly if an appliance is poorly installed. And if the gas pipes themselves are not installed as they should be, the risk of a leak is high. You may need new gas piping installation for a new home, an extension, or for a major renovation. Similarly, you may need new gas pipes if you’ve decided to remodel a room like the kitchen, and you need to extend gas pipes to accommodate a new oven.

Whatever your gas piping needs, you need a professional, even for the smallest of installations. The only sure way to verify that your new gas pipe is installed as safely as possible is by choosing an expert that is trained and certified to deal with a natural gas line. A professional will check all of the connections and should be able to spot any potential damage with ease. Trained technicians can also check your entire piping system if desired.

Gas leaks are a serious issue for a couple of reasons. A natural gas leak can have very serious health effects, and it’s highly flammable. Never attempt to repair a gas appliance or a gas pipe on your own and evacuate the home as soon as you suspect a leak.

The technicians at HB Energy Solutions have years of experience installing, maintaining, and repairing gas piping in Southern Vermont. Call us today!

Why Switch Your Electric or Gas Meter to a SmartMeter?

Thursday, January 8th, 2015

Have you ever wished your gas or electric meter would provide more information than just a tally of your usage? With a SmartMeter, you can get more. SmartMeters are being used around the country by individuals and businesses alike to help track and monitor energy usage in order to help reduce overall energy usage and costs. SmartMeters are not like simple utility meters; they can both output and receive data, making them somewhat complex devices; this is why it’s important to hire an electrical expert in New Hampshire for installation. The trained specialists at HB Energy Solutions are ready to help you install a SmartMeter, so call us today!

What Is a SmartMeter?

A SmartMeter is a metering system that collects electric and natural gas usage information for your home or business. SmartMeters collect residential electrical usage on an hourly basis and business electrical usage every 15 minutes; natural gas usage is collected daily. SmartMeters have two-way communication with your electrical grid; they can also transmit data over a secure wireless network so that you can see your energy usage first-hand.

What Are the Benefits of a SmartMeter?

  • Easy-to-read digital display (for electric meters)
  • Track energy usage hourly, daily, weekly or monthly
  • Sends notification via email, text or phone when your energy usage is higher than normal
  • Can be used for residential or commercial properties

Why Consider a SmartMeter?

The main reason to consider a SmartMeter is to reduce your overall energy usage. This can help you save money, whether for your home or business. Second, reducing your energy usage is good for the environment and your carbon footprint. Future applications for the SmartMeter will include pinpointing power outages.

If you’ve been looking for a way to track, monitor and reduce your energy usage, it may be time to consider the installation of a SmartMeter for your home or business.

Contact HB Energy Solutions and schedule an appointment with one of our electrical installation experts in New Hampshire.

Is a Heat Pump Ideal for Heating in Southern Vermont?

Friday, January 2nd, 2015

Heat pumps are a really great option for any homeowner looking for a safe and efficient home heating system. There are some climates that merit specific considerations, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Right now, let’s take a look at how a heat pump works, and why you would want to install one.

Heat Pump Operation

In order to understand how a heat pump works, you have to understand the different parts that make up the system. There are two primary parts that make up a heat pump, the indoor unit and the outdoor unit. The two units are connected by a conduit, which contains power and refrigerant line. The refrigerant line runs to a coil installed in each unit, before running out of it again and back to the other unit.

When the heat is turned on, the coil in the outdoor unit begins to evaporate refrigerant. The now-gaseous refrigerant acts as a heat sink, drawing thermal energy out of the surrounding air and into the coil. The refrigerant gas then travels back down the line to the indoor unit, where it is condensed back into a liquid. This releases the thermal energy, which is used to heat the home.

Why Install a Heat Pump?

As previously mentioned, heat pumps are both safe and extremely energy efficient. They are not combustion-based systems, which means they don’t burn fuel to generate heat. Instead, they operate entirely off of electricity to move heat from outside inside. This saves energy because the heat pump doesn’t burn any sort of fuel during operation. For the same reason, the heat pump is safer than combustion-based heating systems. Combustion-based systems produce toxic byproducts, which the heat pump doesn’t have to worry about.

Now, there is something you should consider before installing a heat pump. Heat pumps rely entirely on the outside air for thermal energy. Even in cold climates, there is often enough thermal energy to keep a home comfortably heated. In extremely cold areas, however, there is much less thermal energy available for the heat pump.

If you’re concerned that a heat pump may not be able to heat your home efficiently, call HB Energy Solutions. We provide heating services throughout Southern Vermont, and will be able to recommend the best solution for you.

12 Grapes for 12 Months: An Unusual New Year’s Tradition

Thursday, January 1st, 2015

Across the world, many cultures have specific traditions to celebrate the transition from the old year to the new. In the U.S. and Canada, we associate New Year’s with the ball in Times Square, kissing at the stroke of midnight, resolutions, and singing “Old Lang Syne.” But for many Spanish-speaking countries, one of the key traditions has to do with eating grapes as fast as possible.

The “twelve grapes” tradition comes from Spain, where it is called las doce uvas de la suerte (“The Twelve Lucky Grapes”). To ensure good luck for the next year, people eat one green grape for each of the upcoming twelve months. However, you cannot just eat the grapes during the first day of the new year any time you feel like it. You must eat the twelve grapes starting at the first stroke of midnight on Nochevieja (“Old Night,” New Year’s Eve) as one year changes to another. And you have to keep eating: with each toll of midnight, you must eat another grape, giving you about twelve seconds to consume all of them. If you can finish all dozen grapes—you can’t still be chewing on them!—before the last bell toll fades, you will have a luck-filled new year.

Where did this tradition come from? No one is certain, although it appears to be more than a century old. One story about the Twelve Lucky Grapes is that a large crop of grapes in 1909 in Alicante, Spain led to the growers seeking out a creative way to eliminate their surplus. But recent research through old newspapers shows that perhaps the tradition goes back almost thirty years earlier to the 1880s, where eating grapes was meant to mock the upper classes who were imitating the French tradition of dining on grapes and drinking champagne on New Year’s Eve.

It can be difficult to consume grapes this fast, and the lucky grapes of New Year’s Eve have seeds in them, making the job even trickier. (Seedless grapes are not common in Spain the way they are over here.) For people to manage eating all the grapes before the last stroke of midnight requires swallowing the seeds as well and only taking a single bite of each grape.

Oh, there is one more twist to the tradition: you have to be wearing red undergarments, and they have to be given to you as a gift. The origins of this part of the tradition are even more mysterious, and it’s anybody’s guess why this started.

Whether you go for the grape challenge or find another way to ring in New Year’s, all of us at HB Energy Solutions hope you have a great start to the year and a fruitful 2015.