BY JACK SNELL ENERGY SERVICES MANAGER
The San Isabel Electric Energy Services Department works hard to provide member-owners like you with a range of products and services to improve your comfort, and your home’s energy efficiency and value. Our Empower program is the only one of its kind in southern Colorado, an all-in-one energy-efficiency retail, installation, and financing provider. Throughout years of ducking into dusty attics and squeezing into tight crawl spaces, we’ve handpicked a selection of products and services. Driven by technology and in-home assessments, we offer affordable and energy-efficient solutions for the comfort of our members’ homes or businesses. We can help you find products to suit your lifestyle and budget based on past energy usage; finance the project; help you find a contractor; or set you up to install it yourself. The following is a list of products that I’d include if I could build the ultimate Empowered home.
LET’S START FROM THE TOP WITH YOUR ATTIC
Do you know the R-Value of your insulation? The “R” in R-Value stands for resistance and refers to a material’s resistance to temperature changes. R-Value is the insulation rating system used to grade a material’s insulation properties. The higher the R-Value, the better. If you have less than R-49 insulation value, you are letting all those hard-earned BTUs get out too easily. You might as well throw money out your windows. San Isabel Electric’s Empower program can provide the insulation improvements your home needs to maintain an ideal temperature. As your HVAC system gets a much-needed break, you’ll feel a difference and start seeing savings on day one.
Insulation is like the MVP of home improvements. Good insulation will slash your energy bills, keep you comfy year-round, and add years to the life of your heating and cooling systems. The upfront cost is low, installation is simple, and we even offer a $450 rebate to help cover the cost if you insulate up to the R-49 value.
While we are up in the attic, let’s look at your attic’s ventilation to see if a QuietCool whole house fan is a good fit. A whole house fan uses the outside air to cool your house for pennies on the dollar. If it’s cooler outside than inside, you simply crack a couple windows, turn on the QuietCool to draw the cooler outside air in, and feel the temperature drop. A great addition to a whole house fan is an attic fan. Attic temperatures can reach up to 140 degrees in the summer. SIEA can install an attic fan to push that hot air outside and install a thermostat to control the fan when the space gets too hot. This can be done with turnkey installation with American-made QuietCool products.
MOVING DOWN TO THE GROUND LEVEL
Let’s talk about the Steffes ETS (energy thermal storage) 2100 series room unit. It is a great heating addition to any home. ETS heaters come in a range of sizes to provide clean and simple heating for 400 to 1,000 square feet. ETS heaters charge during times when electricity is in less demand and less expensive, storing heat in bricks and putting it right in the room where you want it, when you want it. SIEA offers a special timeof-day rate exclusively to members with ETS heaters. On the time-of-day rate, any electricity your home or business uses during off-peak times is nearly half the price of the regular rate, up to 1,000 kilowatt-hours. With the time-of-day rate and the controls to make the ETS heater work at all the right times, you’ll have a very economical system.
The best part about it is that all you have to do is set the temperature and it does the rest of the thinking. There’s no need to worry about costly repairs or finding a contractor to work on it. SIEA sells, services, and installs ETS heaters, making the process of owning one a breeze. Plus, a lifetime repair contract is an option for an additional $250 to $600 depending on the heater’s size.
Many southern Colorado homes have tall or cathedral style ceilings, which means you have a whole lot of trapped heat at the high points. For every foot of ceiling height, it’s as much as one degree warmer at the peak. Installing a high-quality ceiling fan that can move that air may make a big impact on your energy bill and comfort and it can run for next to nothing. SIEA is a full-service Hunter Fan dealer. Hunter has an innovative product that applies high-volume low-speed technology — typically used in commercial settings — for homes. Hunter’s HVLS Trak Fan is available in three colors (black, white, and silver) and comes in sizes from 5 to 8 feet in diameter with a wireless remote and a 900-lumen light to top it off. The Trak Fan can provide extreme comfort with minimal noise, low energy usage, and can be used year-round in both the heating and cooling seasons.
FINALLY, DOWN IN THE BASEMENT
In the basement is the often-ignored but highly used water heater. Water heating is often a large part of a home’s energy usage and a necessary component to any home. Electric water heaters have come a long way, now with efficiency ranging from 93% all the way up to 400%. That means they’re very cost-effective to run in almost any situation. SIEA offers several programs for members to install the best electric water heater for their home’s needs. We offer Rheem water heaters, including the Pro Classic, Marathon, and ProTerra hybrid electric heat pump models, and have various incentives for installing them. SIEA can offer a turnkey solution for water heating needs and options to match both your budget and energy needs.
SIEA’s energy service team can handle projects from start to finish and provide on-bill financing as low as 0% for any of these projects. We stand behind all our products and have most of them in stock and ready to go. Give us a call today and schedule a free in-home assessment to see how these products might fit in your home or business. Your comfort and savings are just a phone call away.
Recent Comments