Cost Effective Energy Efficiency

As fuel electricity prices rise the average working class citizen is wondering how to keep up with the cost of living. Heating oil and gasoline prices have skyrocketed in the past decade due to speculation in the market, and wages have stagnated leaving the average workers reaching for lint their pockets. Many economists believe the cost of food and fuel will cause another recession. It makes us all wonder if there is something more we Americans can do to solve the energy crisis.

The truth is alternative energy solutions exist all over the globe, but in America we have not done all we can to support and grow the industry. Oil & Gas companies are some of the most profitable corporations on the planet and are extremely influential in the political arena; they have worked to suppress alternative energy to some degree, yet right here in New York State we have created a company that can build you a residential or commercial structure 100% off the grid for good.

If you want to update your home for energy efficiency and raise the value retrofitting with Thermal Mass Construction INC can bring you immediate efficiency with a basement retrofit. Elevating your home off the foundation and stripping it out will allow you to install thermal mass panels fit with radiant tubing and a circulation pump to gain heat retention.  We will also install our maintenance boiler which operates at 100 degrees. The thermal mass basement design keeps the basement at 70 degrees giving you an immediate 75% greater efficiency as compared to a traditional basement and fossil fuel boiler system.

Traditional basements are kept at 55 degrees, according to the surrounding temperature of the earth.  It requires a lot of fuel to reach the 180 degrees necessary to heat up the heat exchanger and then heat the house.  The maintenance boiler can be adapted from a pellet stove or a wood stove for supplemental heat, and for 5 dollars a day in the coldest months of winter you will be able to keep an entire 4000 square foot home with the top floor wood framed at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The mass in the basement, garage and 1^st floor creates enough mass to sustain the structure so timber can still be used if you want.

So much energy is wasted just getting the heat exchanger up to temperature in a traditional forced air heating system.  With a thermal mass basement the insulated concrete panels retain the heat that is given off by the maintenance boiler as well as retaining the heat that is pumped back into the basement to keep it at 70 degrees.  Our green building techniques make the most effective use of all the mass a structure has to offer.  The more mass (weight in concrete) a structure has, the more energy it can retain.  Environmentally friendly spray foam insulation on the outside of the structure will protect the heat energy from reradiating outside.

Start with the basement to gain 75% more energy efficiency than your traditional basement and heating system provides, then start planning the phases for the retrofitting of the rest of your home one panel at a time.  With the passage of the Green Jobs Financing Law in New York on June 22^nd 2011 this state has taken a big step towards creating an environmentally and economically sustaining model.  Now is the time to take advantage of the most efficient Green building techniques available with Thermal Mass Construction INC.