A commitment to conservation has been a driving force throughout my career. One of the first classes I took in college was entitled, "Solar Design". Today we employ other words to describe conservation such as green, environmental, cradle-to-cradle, off the grid or sustainable design, as a recent conference I attended was entitled. With all the talk about small carbon footprints, energy independence and global warming these days many people are considering employing solar energy in their projects—until they look at the installation cost.

A typical residential photovoltaic installation after rebates and tax deductions will cost you about $15,000. That will certainly make you wonder if it's all worth it. But before you throw up your hands and decide it's not worth it, let's consider some simple lighting strategies you can apply at both work and home to achieve some measurable energy savings.

• Reducing energy costs and maintaining comfort can be as easy as replacing incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). Lighting technology improvements in CFLs have made them comparable to incandescent, yet CFLs use 3 to 4 times less electricity and last 10 times longer than conventional lamps. Kitchens, bathrooms, work rooms and garages are great locations to begin lamp replacements.
• Use daylight to illuminate home and office space. Rooms and spaces that have daylight access can have automatic switches and daylight sensors installed to adjust electric light levels relative to available daylight. As daylight increases the electric lights are dimmed to maintain an even light level. South and West facing windows are also candidates for automatic shades in order to reduce cooling loads. Daylighting combined with automatic shades can have a significant impact on electrical costs.
• Spaces that get intermittent use are candidates for occupancy switches. These should be installed in private offices, conference rooms, copy rooms, storerooms and restrooms.
• Replace T12 fluorescent tubes with more efficient T8 tubes. T8s typically have a payback of three years by reducing electrical costs 25-30% and are interchangeable with T12s. T8 options include high-lumen lamps and various ballasts that further increase efficiency.

I hope these few examples help you, your company and family live more comfortable, satisfactory, productive and healthful lives.

If you, a colleague or a friend have a workplace or home space need, please feel free to call me for a free consultation at 415-538-3465. Or email me at ted@mtparchitects.com

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