Green on Top
Making your home cooler also saves you money.
Article by Michael Keany
Issue Date: April 2007
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When Joe Nicolai built his Cycle City motorcycle showroom near the airport in 2004, he was trying to make a big impression. He also wanted to be smart about saving energy. “I often visit my relatives back in Italy, and throughout Europe I’ve found many people to be conservationists in energy use,” he says. “Taking a lesson from them made sense, especially considering Hawaii’s ideal climate for photovoltaic technologies.”
Nicolai had 11,000 square feet of rooftop solar panels installed on his new building. Today, that system pumps out enough electricity to power the entire multistory building during the day, and saves his company about $10,000 a month on its electric bill, he says. The same energy-saving concepts that Nicolai employs work just as well in a residential setting. “Solar is a very economic way for homeowners to lower their electric bills, while helping lower the amount of imported oil used,” says Beth-Ann Cox, of SunTech Hawaii, which supplies a range of solar solutions for residential needs. “For roughly $5,000 to $6,500, depending on the size of the system needed, homeowners can cut up to one-third of their monthly electric bills.” In fact, there’s a laundry list of ways you can go “green” in your own home, and save on your utility bills at the same time.
A Cool Roof Of course, the most dramatic way to cool your house down is to stop the sun’s rays before they can get in. Metal roofs are a perfect way to do this—new technology allows roofing manufacturers to coat steel or aluminum with a durable titanium oxide layer that reflects infrared heat. The result, often enough, is a temperature drop of as much as 50 degrees on the roof’s surface. Metal roofs aren’t the noisy tin roofs found on old plantation-era homes—contractors such as Mac Steel and Custom Metal Roofing install their products over a solid substructure, making them no louder in the rain than a typical composition roof. They’re practical, too. If you want to install a solar unit on your roof, the smooth and flat finishes of Custom Metal Roofing’s products make them ideal surfaces on which to install solar panels.
Metal roofs don’t even have to look like metal roofs. Met-Tile Inc., for example, offers a recycled steel “cool roof” material that combines the popular look of tile roofing (in 10 different colors) with ENERGY STAR performance. “For every 5 percent of added reflectivity, a roof is approximately 40 degrees cooler in direct overhead sunlight,” says Terry Holman, of Met-Tile. Many homeowners prefer the look of a traditional wood shake roof, and Aluminum Shake Roofing Inc. can install its Perfection’s Country Manor Aluminum Shakes, which marries a traditional appearance with a Kynar 500 finish that reflects away most infrared radiation, dramatically reducing the roof temperature. If a full-on re-roofing project is beyond the ol’ budget, one option is to have the existing roof painted with a reflective, elastomeric coating such as All Weather Surface’s White Lava Roof Coating. The coating adds a durable, heat-deflecting pigmentation to the roof—foregoing the hefty project of tearing everything up and starting over. Don’t forget about your home’s east and west exposure to the sun, particularly its west side. Low-E window panes and glass block, available from Hawaii Glass Block, can filter out much of the infrared and UV radiation that heats up a room and fades furniture and drapes.
Even simple, low-tech methods, such as landscaping, can help cool your home. Clinton Murakami, of Murakami’s Roofing, offers a range of heat-minimizing services, from solar roof vents to elastomeric roof coatings. Of course, he adds, there are also shade trees, which can be an added layer of defense against the sun. “You just want to be careful that the trees don’t overhang the roof too much,” Murakami says, “because leaves turn to mulch on the roof, which can cause damage over time.” Here Comes the Sun If you’re looking for big bang for your buck, a solar water heating system is the place to start, says Howard Wiig, an institutional energy analyst at the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. He has a laundry list of ways to cut your electric bill, including ENERGY STAR-certified appliances and low-E windows that filter out UV and infrared rays. However, “In a non-air-conditioned home, the largest energy user by far is water heating,” Wiig says. “The obvious solution in Hawaii is solar, because out of all the states in the U.S., we have the best sun—all through the year.”
Ivan Gomez, owner of Saving Oahu’s Solar, a full-service solar company, agrees. “Harvesting the sun’s energy to provide hot water and energy for the home makes so much sense,” he says, pointing out that installing just one of his solar hot water systems can save eight barrels of oil per year, as well as reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 1,600 pounds.
That eco-friendly situation looks even better when you consider the economic benefits. Peter Chiswick, from solar company Energy Unlimited, says people are often surprised at how cheaply they can get started with solar power. “Everyone assumes solar is expensive, until a contractor comes out to their house, and gives them specifics about how much it will cost, and how much it will save,” Chiswick says. Thanks to a $1,000 rebate from Hawaiian Electric Company, plus a 35 percent state tax credit and another 30 percent tax credit from the federal government, a typical installation for a solar-powered hot water system will end up costing less that $2,000. And because a solar water heating system can lower a household’s electric bill by $50 or more a month, it will pay for itself in three to five years. Everything after that is gravy.
Many homeowners in cloudier areas, such as Manoa, worry they won’t be able to get an effective solar system, but Chiswick says it’s all about customization. “Unless you’re under a tree, solar will work, because we can size it properly,” he says. An experienced installer will be able to match the size of the solar panels and the reservoir tank to create an effective solution for just about any family in any neighborhood. You Got the Power
Already using the sun to heat your showers? You don’t have to stop there. Photovoltaic (PV) panels, like those on top of Cycle City, can actually generate electricity to help power your whole house. Beth-Ann Cox, of Suntech Hawaii, notes there are “many options on the market for homeowners looking to install a photovoltaic system today.” Besides the already-familiar, rack-mounted panels that attach to the roof with an anodized aluminum mounting system, Cox says homeowners can now choose solar panels that look just like a regular roof. Sunslates, for example, is a PV system designed to look just like slate tiles. Unisolar panels are made of a thin, flexible, laminate material that are attached to the pans of standing seam roofing for a low-key, almost unnoticeable look. Not only will homeowners produce extra electricity, they can even decide how to spend it. That’s right, you can be “grid interactive” by hooking into the grid and selling the energy back to HECO (which will deduct it from your monthly electric bill). Or, if you hate blackouts, the PV panels can charge a bank of batteries that are wired to certain circuits in the house, usually the refrigerator, some lights and (yes!) even the entertainment system. “When the power goes out, the batteries automatically take over,” Cox says. “It happens so quickly, the homeowners usually don’t even notice the blackout!”
An easy way to start benefiting from solar power is an “energy purchase agreement” offered by Hoku Scientific Inc. It’ll set up a PV panel system without any upfront costs. Then, you simply pay the company directly for the solar-produced electricity. “Our customers can realize the immediate environmental benefits of solar without any upfront cost, not to mention the long-term savings as utility rates continue to rise—and the cost of solar power remains the same,” says Scott Paul, of Hoku Scientific. Installing a rooftop PV grid will even garner some positive secondary effects. Keith Cronin, of Island Energy Solutions, points out that the solar panels themselves help cool down a house. “In essence, you’re creating a roof on a roof, which has a dual cooling effect: number one because of the solar radiation not penetrating the first roof, and number two because of the insulating air space between the roof and the panels,” he says. On top of that, PV panels can extend the life expectancy of your roof by blocking the sun’s harmful UV rays. “Ultimately, these are gifts that keep on giving for years to come,” Cronin adds.
See the Light While solar panels work great to power your electric lights, it’s also possible to use the sun’s light directly to illuminate your home. David Kaahaaina, of Skylights of Hawaii, says his products offer both aesthetic and practical benefits. “People love the look of natural daylight and the sense of well-being, but they’re also very pragmatic: it’s a dark hallway and they’re tired of turning on the light. And then, of course, there’s the electric bill.” Skylights of Hawaii carries a range of skylights to let the sunshine in, from the standard rectangular configuration to tubular skylights that use mirrors to funnel in light to otherwise hard-to-light areas of the house. Cool It Down With all this talk about making the most of Hawaii’s strong sunlight, there’s one problem with that big orange ball in the sky: It’s hot! Staying cool in the Islands often means cranking up an energy-hungry air conditioner, but there are better ways to beat the heat. Solar-powered attic fans from Hawaiian Island Solar help suck out the hot air that collects at the top of houses. “These run independently of the household circuit and are self-contained, using the suns’ power to vent out the hot air in the attic so the attic can do its job better and accept more heat from the house,” says Jodi Kidd, of Hawaiian Island Solar. “It really helps to cut down on your costs.” The nice thing about these fans is they’re powered by the sun, so they work best when you need them the most.
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