ecobeco's
September 2009 Newsletter
ecoTips, News,
Deals, and More - And it's
Free!
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Hello,
September is... cold? Did you just put on a
jacket this morning like I did? September is also back
to school (and work). Our ecoTip this month
focuses on greening your children's habits as they head
off to school. Read on.
- September's ecoTip - Greening "Back to
School."
- Events Update - Celebrate Gaithersburg, Calvert
County Green Expo, Green Festival.
- Sneak Peak - Green Home Certification
- Product Highlights - Draft Guard, Earthlust
Bottles, Multi-Pure Water Filtration Systems, Battic
Door Fireplace Draft Stoppers
- ecobeco's Home Energy Audits - A Great Value.
- Tax Incentives for Energy Efficiency.
- Montgomery County Residents get $250 of FREE
Energy-Efficiency Products.
- Store
Hours.
Enjoy! |
September's
ecoTip - Greening "Back to
School"
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School
bells rang around the DC area Monday, ushering in a new
academic year. Perfect weather and lots of new
facilities took center stage. Here at ecobeco, we
wanted to share seven ecoTips that will help you save
energy, money and the environment this year.
- Pack your lunches
with eco-friendly materials - Trade out your
disposable water or juice box for an eco-friendly
reusable bottle (such as the Earthlust Poppy shown to
the right).
 Use a lunch box or reusable
bag to transport your lunches. Use silverware
instead of disposable plastic utensils. Try a
cloth napkin instead of paper. The goal is to reduce
the amount of material going into the landfill, which
also helps keep your costs down, and teaches children
about having responsibility for keeping track of their
lunch boxes while helping the environment.
- Carpool -
If your child doesn't take the bus, carpooling saves
time and reduces logistic hassles, which is why most
people do it. But there is an important
environmental benefit, too. Carpooling reduces
your gas consumption, which not only reduces your
carbon footprint, but also saves money.
- Biking - If
you live within a few miles of school, there are many
days of the year where having your child bike to
school is the most environmentally friendly
choice. You might want to purchase a bike rack
for your car just in case it rains in the afternoon
and you have to pick up the bike along with your
child.
- Optimize Your
Computer Power Settings - Many youngsters have
laptops or home computers. Your child can be an Energy
Star by selecting a computer that meets the Department
of Energy's ENERGY STAR program requirements.
 Then, configure your 'power
management' settings to turn off the monitor and hard
disk drive after a few minutes of non-use. This
tweak can save you up to $80 per year. Also, remember
to turn off your computer overnight. Use a SmartStrip
(shown right) to eliminate standby power use by making
sure your peripherals (printer, speakers, backup
drive) shut completely off when the computer turns
off.
- Library and
E-books - Instead of buying new books, your
local library may have the book you need for the two
weeks that your child needs it. Most libraries
allow you to reserve on line, and if the book isn't in
your local branch, you can reserve it for delivery to
your local branch. E-books and Audio-books are
very new products that eliminate paper printing
completely. Some e-book devices even let your
child highlight and take notes as they read, just like
a real book. While e-book readers are not cheap, they
have the benefits of saving trees and transportation
costs compared to hardcopy books.
- Save a Page
- Some new printers will print on both sides of a
page, which allows you to cut your paper use (and
waste) in half. Don't forget to check the print
preview to make sure you only print what you
want. Finally, if you're printing drafts, use a
grayscale draft mode to reduce the amount of ink.
- Recharge Your
Batteries - Move to reusable batteries instead
of disposables for all your electronic devices. Not
only do rechargeable batteries help reduce your impact
on the environment, but between your calculator,
messaging devices and game-players, you can save a lot
on the cost of batteries over the long
run.
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ecobeco
Events
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Visitwww.ecobeco.com/events to get the latest on ecobeco's speaker series and to see
where we'll be speaking throughout the
community.
PLEASE RSVP
by replying to this newsletter or by clicking here to
email us.
Celebrate
Gaithersburg - Sunday, September 20, 2009, from noon to
5 p.m. in Olde Town with ecobeco's Curt
Christenson
ecobeco will have a booth in
the Green Zone at Celebrate
Gaithersburg. Stop by our booth to meet our
certified Energy Auditor Curt Christenson. Curt will
tell you about our products and services, and how
ecobeco can help you save money, energy, and the
enviroment. Admission is Free.
Celebrate
Gaithersburg features bands, Taste of Gaithersburg, City
World Market, Petting Farm, Juggling School, and the
Green Zone featuring ecobeco!
Calvert
County's 1st Annual Green Fair Expo - Sunday, September
27, 2009, from 11a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Jefferson
Patterson Park & Museum
ecobeco will
have a booth at Calvert
County's First Green Fair Expo. Stop by our booth to
learn how an energy audit works and get some advice on
how to save money, energy, and the environment.
Admission is Free.
The
Green Festival - Saturday October 10 and Sunday, October
11, 2009, at the Washington Convention
Center.
ecobeco will have a booth at this
year's Green
Festival. Come and talk to one of our trained energy
efficiency experts to learn how an energy audit works
and what you can do to make your home safer, more
comfortable and energy efficient.
Green Festival
- Washington Convention Center - 801 Mount
Vernon Place, NW Washington, DC 20001
Click Here to tell your friends about our
events!
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Sneak Peak -Green
Home Certification
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Have you
or someone you know tried to sell their home recently?
It's a tough market out there, and wouldn't it be nice
to get some recognition for the efforts you made to make
your home energy-efficient and eco-friendly?
Energy-efficient homes typically have lower operating
costs, are more comfortable, and have better indoor air
quality than a comparable unimproved home. Plus, a
recent survey showed that homes considered "green"
actually sell faster and for more dollars per square
foot than comparable homes without a "green"
certification.
Until now, the only way to get an
efficiency rating was to hire a RESNET-certified auditor
to get a Home Energy Rating Score (HERS). But that
score compares your home against a new 2006 home.
That hardly seems fair.
In the coming
months, ecobeco will introduce a Green Home
Certification that certifies your home based on a
detailed list of attributes that reward
energy-efficiency, renewable energy, eco-friendly
materials, and more. We only certify items that
convey with the home at time of sale, so your buyers
know they are getting a better home than a comparable
home that has not had improvements.
We want to
thank our intern Liam for all his hard work putting this
product together and wish him best of luck back at
school.
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Product
Highlights
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NOTE:
CLICK ON THE PRODUCT IMAGE TO VIEW MORE
DETAILS
The Twin Draft Guard fits
snugly under any indoor door to create an air
barrier. It's much easier to install than
permanent door sweeps. For only $12.50, these
draft guards can make your rooms much more comfortable
and reduce the work your AC or Furnace has to do each
and every day.
 We sell a large variety of high
fashion metal water bottles from Earth Lust. You
may have seen from the ecobeco
blog that bottled water is 2,000 times more
energy-intensive than tap water, with the manufacturing
of plastic bottles as the largest component. Get
rid of your plastic bottles and replace them with a
reusable stainless steel bottle. Use water
filtration such as Multipure that typically provides you
with better water than most bottled water
companies. Earth Lust bottles come in 20 oz and 1
liter sizes and are appropriate for any cold
beverage. (They are not dishwasher safe, so we
sell brushes to clean them).
 ecobeco sells Multi-Pure water
purifiers. Multi-Pure is Reuven's brand of choice
and its Carbon Block technology purifies a wide variety
of contaminants. Multi-pure provides superior
filtration performance compared to Brita or Pur
technologies. From a cost perspective, these systems are
a no-brainer compared to bottled water. We carry
countertop models starting at $299.95 and under-the-sink
models starting at $399.95. These come with a 1
year filter. Don't forget to purchase our
Earthlust or SIGG reusable water bottles to transport
your filtered water!
Leaky chimney flues?
It's one of the leading cause s of air leakage. Even
when your fireplace flue is "shut", there is often air
leaking through. To solve this issue, we carry
Batticdoor Chimney Draft Stoppers. At $59.99,
these devices are a great value that provide a tight
seal to keep your conditioned air out of your chimney
flue. They are also easy to assemble and
disassemble so you can remove yours easily when you want
to use the fireplace, and replace it when you're
done.
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ecobeco's Home
Energy Audits - A Great
Value
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We did
some mystery shopping, and we realized that ecobeco's
Home Energy Audit outshines the competition in 7 major
ways. In addition to the standard blower door test and a
report with recommended retrofits:
- We use an infrared camera on every job to identify
sources of air leakage that are invisible to the eye
and/or behind walls and/or located in inaccessible
parts of the home.
- If you have gas, oil, or propane-powered HVAC or
water heater appliances, we test them for efficiency
and safety to ensure your home doesn't have dangerous
levels of carbon monoxide or combustion gases.
- We run every job through the Maryland Energy
Administration's BEACON software that models how much
energy you will save when you retrofit your home.
- We estimate the cost of each retrofit so you can
shop smart.
- We tell you about utility and tax incentives that
lower your costs of getting work done and show you
where to get the forms you need.
- We provide you with a payback period and return on
investment so you can compare this investment against
leaving your money in the bank.
- We come back to your home after the retrofits are
complete to validate that you got what you paid for by
re-running our blower door and combustion safety
tests.
If you or your friends are shopping
for Energy Auditing services, ask our competition how
much they charge to include all the things we do in
every audit, and you'll see that ecobeco provides the
best value in the area.
Customers in Maryland can
purchase audits starting at $349. Customers in DC
and Virginia can purchase audits starting at $449. These
differences in rates are due to auditor incentives
sponsored by the EmPower Maryland program that do not
exist in DC or VA. You can get more details on the
pricing and our surcharges for larger homes, for homes
needing combustion safety testing, and for long distance
travel by going to www.ecobeco.com/schedule.
Just sign up on-line for your preferred dates and we'll
be in touch with you.
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Tax Incentives
for Energy
Efficiency
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The
American Reinvestment and Recovery Act included
substantial spending on energy efficiency related
items. Part of the legislation includes an
increase in the tax deductions for purchases of
energy-efficient appliances, insulation and
windows.
Please click the links below to access
the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and
Efficiency (DSIRE). Then, consult your tax advisor
for more information about whether you qualify for these
incentives.
Taxpayers can deduct 30% of
total materials costs up to $1,500 for s pecific
energy-efficient product purchases made in 2009 and
2010.
Residential
Energy Efficiency Tax Credit
Taxpayers can
deduct 30% of the installed cost of solar PV, solar hot
water, wind, fuel cells, and geothermal heat pump with
no maximum limit.
Residential
Renewable Energy Tax Credit
The DSIRE
database also includes incentives specific to your state
and county, so be sure to check for those programs as
well by navigating back to the home page and then
clicking on your state.
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MONTGOMERY COUNTY
RESIDENTS GET $250 OF FREE ENERGY-EFFICIENCY
PRODUCTS
We'll show you how to claim
your Property Tax Credit!
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If you
are a Montgomery County Home Owner (you pay property
taxes), you can take advantage of the
Property Tax Credit for Energy Conservation
Devices. This credit refunds 100% of your spending
up to $250. CFLs, Low-Flow Showerheads,
Programmable Thermostats, and Smart Powerstrips are the
easiest and most essential items for any
energy-efficient home. And there are many more products
that qualify as well. Schedule your in-home visit
today and we'll help you determine exactly which
products you need today.
ecobeco will provide you
with the forms you need to fill out and will coach you
on how to fill them out to ensure a smooth claim
process.
There's no better time than now to
schedule your in-home ecoAssessment or Energy
Audit. The tax credit is limited to $250,000 of
total benefit for the entire county for fiscal year
2010, so make your purchase now and submit your
application as soon as possible to ensure your refund.
There is no income exclusion or residency
requirement for this credit.
Call us at
the store (240) 396-2141 x2 to learn
more.
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Store
Hours
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Our
regular hours are:
Monday
- Friday: 3pm - 7pm
Saturday: 10am -
2pm
We are also available by appointment, and
of course we are open during all of our special
events. |
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Thanks,
Brian, Reuven, Curt, Elena,
Jonathan, Mike, and Daniela
(240)
396-2141
info@ecobeco.com
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