Tag Archives: Energy Star

A Website for Buildings, Honestly

Honest Buildings WebsiteReally a website for buildings?  Yes, Honest Buildings is a brand new beta website that allows users to find and compare information, rating and reviews for every commercial or residential building in the U.S.  Search an address in one of 5,570 cities, and ratings on the building’s walkability, energy use, and LEED compliance shed light on its green performance. Join the network, and you can review, comment on, or add photos of a building. Members who design, build, and repair buildings can showcase particular projects and link them to the building’s profile page.  The website tools have been billed as a Yelp for buildings and a Linked-In for building professionals. As the site matures, the creators see it developing into an organic gathering place for discourse on the built environment – a social media hub just for buildings.

The project started when founder Riggs Kubiak sought to help property owners adopt energy efficiency measures but lacked the tools to help owners see how similar buildings performed. The website has partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund, ENERGY STAR, Building Operator’s Certification, and CUNY High Performance Building Lab for data and is seeking even more partnership with groups to make plugging performance and other metrics for a building easy – from skyscrapers to houses. Because Honest Buildings gets their data directly from these sources it’s reliable. Plus, anyone can augment or dispute incorrect information.

Honest Buildings is not just about rating a building’s energy use and green status.  It is also a marketplace where owners can shop for qualified building service providers, from HVAC to solar. Vendors post project portfolios on the site, linking them to buildings. This creates a “health record” for individual buildings, and it also allows owners to review the track record and capabilities of vendors.

Yes, even if you do not own a large, green office building Honest Buildings is for you. If you’re trying to sell your home, you could upload photos and advertise amenities that would be attractive to buyers. Looking for a new house, apartment or office space, you could review the buildings efficiency and feedback from the current tenants on that building. The availability of this data should ultimately drive competition for buildings to be greener, which is a good thing for everyone.

So go ahead, check out your home, office building see who is the greenest in your neighborhood.

As a leader in building automation, Advanced Control Corporation is delighted to that this information will be available to everyone.  Want to up your building’s status?  If you are considering increasing your building’s efficiency, reducing your carbon footprint and saving money, contact Advanced Control Corporation today. From lighting control and air quality control to energy management and small building solutions, Advanced Control has the knowledge, skill and expertise to find the ideal solution for you.  To learn more, call 954.491.6660 today.

Tax Credits Granted for Energy Management, Energy Efficient Home Improvements, Hybrid Vehicle Purchases

Improving your home’s energy management and energy efficiency comes with a great perk from the government.  Not only will these improvements provide a strong return on investment towards savings on your energy bills, but they will also result in a tax break, by filing Form 5695.

For a number of years, the tax credit benefitted taxpaying homeowners who invested in energy-efficiency upgrades on their home. These energy management upgrades include insulated windows and doors, as well as energy-efficient air conditioning and heating systems.  In 2008, the tax credit for optimizing energy performance wasn’t granted, but it came back in 2009 and 2010, with a higher monetary value for taxpayers.

Home-owning taxpayers who made energy-efficient home improvements are eligible under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to receive a credit equal to 30 percent of the cost of energy efficient upgrades, with a maximum credit amount of $1500. In previous years, the credit was only $500. 

In order to be eligible for the maximum credit, a homeowner would have to invest $5,000 towards energy-efficient home improvements.  For those who made improvements in previous years and only received $500 or under, the good news is those homeowners can claim their energy-efficient home improvements for this new credit.

In order to qualify for this tax refund, energy-efficient renovations must have been made during 2009.  Individual item limits and income limits don’t exist for this credit, and if you’re beginning renovations in 2010, you’re eligible to file next year for the tax credits.

The government is making tighter regulations and standards for items and renovations to qualify for the credit.  IRS warned that although a product carries the Energy Star label, it may not qualify. It’s the manufacturer’s responsibility to certify that the items qualify.  Keeping a copy of the product’s certification statement is advised by the IRS.

Taxpaying homeowners who install geothermal heat pumps, wind turbines, or solar water heaters and other forms of alternative energy are in for an even bigger tax credit, with a 30% credit and no maximum limit, and the credit extends to preparation and installation costs as well.

Energy efficient tax credits also apply to the purchase of hybrid or alternative energy automobiles for the first 60,000 hybrids each manufacturer sells.  Manufacturers that had hybrids still eligible in 2009 for the tax credit are Saturn, Nissan, Mercury, Mazda, GMC, Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, Chevrolet and Cadillac.  For 2010 cars, hybrids eligible include those from Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Mercury, GMC, Ford, Chevrolet and Cadillac.

Plug-in electric cars are also eligible for tax credits, and the credit ranges from $2,500 to $15,000 depending on the weight and kind of vehicle, and its battery.

Advanced Control Corporation offers an array of environmentally sound solutions for building automation, energy management, access control, optimizing energy performance and CCTV Solutions. Our experience and continuing work in building automation solutions and security automation solutions give us the skill set necessary to produce optimal results every time for our clientele.

Justification for Building Automation and Energy Retrofits Even for New Buildings

For many of those who own, lease, manage or operate buildings built after 2000, the idea of spending on retrofitting and energy-saving upgrades seems an outlandish idea:  Your investment hasn’t turned to profit, and upgrading equipment that is relatively new doesn’t seem an intuitive action to take.

However, aninvestment in optimizing energy performance today will increase the profits of your investment sooner, and for longer.  Investing early in retrofitting your building provides enough financial savings to justify the spending; oftentimes profit occurs within the first year.

In order to calculate expenses and potential profits that may arise by a retrofit, one must begin benchmarking the energy efficiency and performance of a building.  Add up the total dollar amount of your building’s energy bills for the past 12 months, then divide that number by the square footage of the building.

On average, the cost for most offices per square foot is $1.25.  If your numbers come out to an amount closer to or higher than $2 per square foot, it’s time to consider means by which you can increase your building’s energy efficiency.

Additional benchmarking tools are available at the Energy Star website.  This site allows you to input relevant data related to your energy consumption, then gives you a score  If your building scores above 75, it is eligible to become rated for the Energy Star.  A score below 50 indicates there is some work to be done in order to make your building more energy efficient.

If your building scores 50 or lower, the next step to take is to determine the cause of such high levels of energy consumption.  The key to reducing cost of energy is to use less, and with integrated building solutions, an automated system can be put into place to control different areas of your building as they are used, and these systems will turn off energy wasting devices such as lights and HVAC when they don’t need to be running.

Once a building automation system has been implemented, the most important thing to do is have competent building maintenance staff trained to use the automation system to your building’s advantages.

Advanced Control Corporation offers an array of environmentally sound solutions for building automation, energy management, access control and CCTV Solutions. Our experience and continuing work in building automation solutions and security automation solutions give us the skill set necessary to produce optimal results every time for our clientele.