Tag Archives: Energy Efficiency

Energy Efficiency

Your Windows are STEALING from YOU!

Posted on by Jody Gouwens
01
Feb

Outdated windows are costing you SERIOUS cashola!

And replacing those money-sucking vampires is super EXPENSIVE!

Replacing windows in an average 3 bedroom home with 10 windows can cost from $3,500 to $7,500. The cost of window replacement for 10 vinyl windows is an average of $15,955.

The cost of 10 replacement wood windows would be around $19,390.?

YOU and me BOTH!

THIS is what insulating cellular shades will do for you and your home:

  • Cut utility costs
  • Put $100s every year back in your wallet Extra $$ Got your attention?
  • (That’s not all, but we’ll talk about all the other bennies in another blog)
  • SAVE THE EARTH

Ok, talking averages here, it costs about $1,300 to heat an American home each year. Personally, my monthly propane bill was $220….add that up! $2640 a YEAR!! Whhhhhhhhhhaaaa? Insanity.

Our shades will actually pay you back (unlike your teenager).

HOW? You ask? They are SO energy efficient!!

Did you know that 10-25% of your heating costs are wasted when heat leaks out of your windows? On average, it costs about $1,300 to heat an American home each year. If you do the math, that’s up to $325 going out your window!

STOP DOING THIS!

EcoSmart Energy-saving cellular shades control drafts to keep temperatures at a constant, so air conditioners and heaters aren’t working so hard to keep the room regulated. You may have heard of it before, but haven’t understood what exactly it stands for. The R-Value is a measure of how well a material’s resistance is to heat flow and how well it resists heat gain or loss. Let’s make it simple, the higher the R-Value your material has the better insulation that you will receive.

Your windows themselves have an R-value. A typical window has an R-value ranging from 0.9 to 3.0. To put this in perspective, the insulation that is used to build a home today has an R-value in the low 40s. Essentially, your window is a hole in the wall!

Visuals are good.

Take a look at this chart explaining how the R-Value of a given cellular shade corresponds to the type of window being covered.

Our shades have a payback period of roughly 5 yrs –they pay YOU BACK! <–read that again, and out loud! Do you know who is working WAY TOO HARD? Our air conditioners and heating systems.

Soooo…let’s give them and us a break. Reduce your energy usage, increase your money savings, make your home an insulating powerhouse and become more eco-friendly with cellular window shades

Truth.

You win more money in your pocket. Your house reduces it’s energy usage. The world wins.

Every cellular shade that leaves our facility is laden with insulating cells that insulate the window to reduce energy consumption during Summer, Winter, and every month in between.

Now let’s CONSERVE SOME ENERGY!

Order your super stylish and world-saving EcoSmart Cellular Shades today!

877-338-9392

Service@ecosmartshades.com

Design, Energy Efficiency

Let’s go DUTCH!

Posted on by Jody Gouwens
17
Nov

When it comes to treading lightly and minimizing environmental impact, the Dutch are far ahead of most of us. Considering that the Netherlands has more bikes per capita than any other nation, almost 1 per person—and Amsterdam has 400 kilometers of bike lanes, the Dutch are clearly serious about reducing their carbon footprint. They’ve even gone so far to make their bike lanes out of solar pavers. Ingenious.

Shown: Thatched Roofed Home in Zevenhuizen, NL

Until the early decades of the 20th century, domestic work was very labor-intensive. Of course, there were hardly any electrical tools, so each household had staff. Lots of staff, if they could afford it. There was a LOT of polishing, washing everything, sweeping all the floors, polishing, scrubbing pots, pans and all surfaces, not to mention lugging milk, firewood and coal. Sooo what did you do when you weren’t wealthy enough for a staff? The lack of servants stimulated research into running a household more efficiently.

And here at EcoSmart Shades, we are ALL about efficiency. *wink*

It’s in our NAME! Eco-SMART!

‘The kitchen is an important part of the house, it is the main work environment of the housewife. The daily care of the meals, i.e. preparing, serving and clearing away, demands a lot of time and attention, which cannot be withheld with impunity. For poorly cared for, unpleasant, meals break up the family ties’. -Courtesty of Hague Design

How to save even MORE time in the kitchen.

The wire dish rack was born. in 1933 by the Dutch Association of Housewives. When washing dishes with hot water, provide them space to dry in a rack! Your much needed tea towel can stay on the hook. The Association gave the specifications for such a dish rack to the Dordrecht wire metal factory Tomado…

Their specifications: 12 plates or saucers and teacups had to fit in together with cutlery.

THANKS DUTCH WOMEN!!

Let’s fast forward a few decades…..2020 to be exact.

Check out the Unplanned, yet Most Planned Place
This Dutch neighborhood is encouraging their residents to design their own homes and SO MUCH more!

Courtesy of The New York Times.

In the Netherlands, a 10,625-acre community called Almere Oosterwold is demonstrating a democratic way of living. They Netherlands is knowng for very precise building regulations. This community is an experient. An EXCITING experiment. The homeowners of Almere have the design freedom to do what they want. Yes…that’s with or without an architect! The catch? It has meet codes.

Fair enough.

One house in Oosterwold is powered by a bike and built on a rail so that it can turn and follow the sun during the day.

  • “People can do what they want, but they cannot harm their neighbor at all,” said Winy Maas, co-founder of the Rotterdam firm MVRDV, which created the Oosterwold masterplan.
  • Almere Oosterwold has homes of varying shapes and sizes. Residents figure out energy, sewage and roads. When completed, the plan is to have 15,000 homes and some 40,000 residents.
Images Courtesy of The New York Times.

This concept of ‘unplanned community’ was created more than a decade ago. The neighborhood now has some 1,000 houses, with, get this…more than 1000 more in the offing.

The Dutch have always been working WITH the landscape since the beginning. Reclaiming the land from the waters, is the majority of the Netherlands. And recycling, reusing and reducing is instilled in it’s people.

This last showcase is of the creative design to reduce an upcycle plastic bags that have become ingrained in our lives, sadly.

“My goal was to alter plastic shopping bags in a way that would extend the lifecycle of the material, to improve its negative qualities and preserve its positive qualities.

This lead to ‘Precious Waste’, a textile made entirely out of used plastic shopping bags that were spun into yarns and then woven. The resulting fabric forms a big contrast with the cheap, mass-produced bags it is made of. The plastic shopping bag is transformed by pure hand work into a beautiful and strong material that’s suitable for making new bags with a much longer life-span, or a wide range of other purposes. No chemicals, no heat or even electricity needed. When this textile is eventually worn out it can still be recycled in the conventional way, because it is not mixed with any other material, and can then be made into a new product once again.

And just like these clever Dutch, our EcoSmart Shades are designed to last decades, to be repaired instead of disposed of. And that makes us quite proud. Shades in windows, not in landfills!

Sooooooo…let’s Go Dutch! Uhmm..I mean, let’s go with smart design, reduce energy and increase efficiency!

Talk with our shade gurus today!

service@ecosmartshades.com

877-338-9392