Please Take a Few Minutes to Help the CRC Succeed!

The CRC is looking for ways to engage more people in its programs.

We are hoping you can spare 10-15 minutes in the next few days to take a brief survey that will give us some important feedback on our programs and how we talk about them.

Please click here to take the survey.

The survey will close September 21st, so please act soon!

We would love to extend our reach beyond the normal community with whom we engage. Please send this survey to 3 of your friends (all must live in Boulder County):

1) Your most green friend

2) Your least green friend

3) Someone who has not heard of the CRC

Thanks so much for helping us make a difference in Boulder County!

Be a Part of CRC’s 14th Annual Boulder County Solar Week

Come join the CRC’s 14^th Annual Boulder County Solar Week! Solar Week is the premier event in Boulder County to learn about how to ‘green’ an existing home or build a new green home with topics including energy efficiency improvements, residential renewable technology, and green building basics.

Solar week kicks off Saturday, September 26^th with the Tour of Solar and Green Homes, which features two newly-built homes and 12 retrofitted homes in Boulder County this year. Tour highlights include plenty of solar thermal and photovoltaic (including roof-integrated) panels, and ground-source electricity, heating, and cooling, many creative passive solar designs, hundreds of sustainable options for interiors, a solar-powered plug-in hybrid, a graywater recirculation system, and much more! The tour starts with registration at one of two Green Products and Services Expos either in front of the CRC or in Louisville near the Farmer’s Market outside the Old Louisville Inn and the Louisville Public Library.

Following the Tour we offer a week of inspirational and educational seminars to help you bridge the gap from inspiration to action. Check out this year’s series at: http://www.conservationcenter.org/e_solarweek_workshops_select.html Seminars often sell out so be sure to register now!

New this year! BGBG’s Ask an Expert Event: One-on-one with local contractors to get advice specific to your home! Tap into the local expertise of Architects, Builders, Renewable Energy Specialists, Energy Auditors, Landscape Designers, and Interior Materials Specialists to get advice on projects from minor energy tweaks to new home construction! Ask an Expert is the perfect solution – affordable advice from local professionals who can help you get the most for your budget, your personal goals and the best efficiency for your investment. For more information: http://www.conservationcenter.org/e_solarweek_ask-an-expert.html

Volunteering for the event is a great way to get involved and to support the CRC! It’s also a great way to learn more about green building. Volunteers can help out during the tour or during one of 7 Solar Week seminars in Boulder, Longmont, or Louisville in the evenings during the following week. Volunteer shifts on the day of the tour are 9:00am-1:15pm for the morning or 12:45-5:00pm for the afternoon. Breakfast and lunch will be provided to tour volunteers. Volunteer tasks will include helping with registration at the CRC office, greeting tour participants at tour homes to confirm registration, helping tour participants understand more about the homes, and educating tour participants about services offered by the CRC, including handing out educational materials. Volunteers are not required to have prior knowledge in sustainable architecture, renewable energy, energy efficiency measures at home, or other tour topics. Contractors will be present at the homes to answer technical questions. Seminar volunteers help with set-up or break-down of the venue and registration. They receive free admission to the seminar (usually a $10 admission fee). Interested volunteers please email Julie Hayes at solarweek@conservationcenter.org with specifics of when and how you would like to help out.

Visit http://www.conservationcenter.org/e_solarweek.htm for Solar Week event details and registration.

Boulder City Council Candidates, Environmental Issues Forum

Want to know candidates’ positions on the Open Space Visitor Master Plan, Growth and Development, Bus/Rapid Transit, Valmont Coal Plant, the Climate Action Plan and other environmental topics? Hear directly from the candidates.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Boulder Public Library, Main Branch
Canyon Theater
1000 Canyon Boulevard, Boulder

6:00pm Doors will open to public
6:15pm–7:45pm Moderated forum
7:45pm–8:30pm Meet and greet candidates

Hosted by: Friends of Boulder Open Space (FOBOS), PLAN Boulder, the Sierra Club and Boulder Climate Action Network (BCAN). We would like to thank the Boulder Public Library for hosting this event. For additional information, please go to: http://rockymtn.sierraclub.org/ipg

"Green Renovation Was a Better Investment Than the Stock Market"

By Julie Hays

Most of us come in to contact with hundreds of synthetic surfaces and materials daily and for the most part, we don’t think about it. These synthetics, everything from the carpet to your toothbrush, are slowly but constantly degrading and releasing particles, often harmful ones, into the air.

When Sarah and Marshall Lee’s cats started dying from respiratory cancers and related diseases, the most apparent cause were these very synthetics, specifically flame-retardants used on carpets and upholstery. These “canaries in the coal mine” signaled to them the need to remodel their home with natural and sustainable materials.

After moving into an old home in the perfect location, they started the process with a REAP (Residential Energy Action Program) energy audit from the Center for ReSource Conservation. This home visit by home energy professionals included a blower-door test. After sealing all the windows and doors, auditors seal the front door with a curious contraption that includes a large nylon sheet, a large fan and a pressure-sensing device – a ‘blower door.’

The fan blows air out of the house, creating a pressure difference between the inside and outside of the house. This differential allows the device to calculate a ratio of natural air changes per hour (nACH), or how much air might leak out or into your home in an hour. “It was a real eye-opener” says Sarah Lee of the blower door test. “We learned that we were having air leak from our windows and doors, and from places that we didn’t even imagine.”

What a blower door does for air sealing, an infrared camera does for insulation – that is, make problem areas obvious. This is commonly lauded as the funnest part of the energy audit. Areas of the home exterior that provide little resistance to heat loss are illustrated for homeowners in full color. With this information and detailed attention to the home, a prioritized list of energy improvements is determined for the homeowners.

With energy audit in hand, the Lees decided to add attic insulation before moving into the home. They chose to spend time living in the home getting to know its ‘quirks’ before making more substantial changes. Like test-driving a car or going on a first date, this turned out to be an important first step, one that Sarah Lee recommends to other homeowners looking to renovate green or improve home energy performance. “Had we not lived in it, we might not have discovered that our master bathroom was 48 degrees in the winter time and in need of more insulation,” she notes.

Armed with high-speed Internet and robust curiosity, the Lees also began to educate themselves, moving from ‘novice’ to ‘expert’ level in their knowledge of green remodeling and retrofitting. They found many knowledgeable contractors able to assist them, however none whose expertise was able to cover their entire home.

Empowered with information, the Lees implemented a variety of different green and renewable technologies to create exactly the dream green home they wanted. These eventually included a photovoltaic (PV) electric system, geothermal heating and cooling, solar thermal water heating, additional insulation in walls and attic, more efficient (better insulating) windows, CFL and LED lighting, an induction cook top and ENERGY STAR appliances.

Indoor finishes and accents of sustainably-sourced or reused materials and low or no VOCs (volatile organic compound; refers to virtually any carbon-based material that vaporizes under normal conditions) were implemented in many creative ways all over the house. The final touch to the renovation was a complete xeriscape of the yard.

“In the end, it was definitely worth it. Now that it’s done we love it,” says Sarah Lee. “Our green renovation was a better investment than the stock market,” adds her husband, Marshall Lee.

To tour the Lee Residence and others like it, join us for the 14th Annual Boulder County Tour of Solar and Green Homes on Saturday, September 26. The tour kicks off Boulder County Solar Week, which also includes seminars on green building and residential renewable energy topics and rounds out with the inaugural ‘Ask an Expert’ event produced by the Boulder Green Building Guild, in which homeowners can bring their green building project questions to experts for answers.

Visit http://conservationcenter.org/e_solarweek.htm for a full schedule of Solar Week events.

Annual Fall Weekend Sales at ReSource

A different sale every weekend in October!

ReSource reclaimed building materials program locations in Boulder and Fort Collins are hosting 30% off sales in select departments all October long! Materials are regularly priced at a fraction of the cost you would expect to pay at a big box store. Take advantage of this opportunity to get more bang for the buck while saving the environment. ReSource is open seven days a week at both locations.

30% Off:
Oct. 2-4: all lighting
Oct. 9-11: all windows
Oct. 16-18: all doors
Oct. 23-25: all cabinets
Oct. 30- Nov. 1: everything

For more information and to view pictures of select materials currently in stock, click here.