Energy saving tips for your contractor-assisted projects.

Doing it right from the beginning creates a huge difference in the long run.

Now, making energy efficient additions may seem expensive at the outset, but when you consider how much they will save you over the long-term, you can watch the return on your investment add up in energy savings.

Here are some energy saving tips to help you maximize your investment.

Building Maintenance

• Maintain your storm or thermal doors and have them serviced regularly. They may seem unimportant or too small for consideration, but the infiltration loss from doors is actually a substantial portion of a building’s total energy and dollar losses.
• Insulate your ceiling or roof adequately. In business facilities, the largest exposed area is usually the roof, which is why it’s so important to insulate it to recommended levels. A ceiling or roof with too little insulation could be wasting your energy dollars during the winter and summer.
• Perform routine maintenance of your rooftop HVAC (heating ventilating and air conditioning) units.
• Have an HVAC contractor check your roof vents and attic ventilators often. Vents and ventilators help by allowing hot air to escape and cooler outside air to enter, and with proper air flow your attic shouldn’t be any warmer than the outside air.
• Use light-colored shingles if you are re-roofing. Lighter colors reflect more sunlight and reduce the heat gain of your building.

HVAC

• Have your heating and cooling system professionally serviced regularly. Tune-ups can help you save on operating costs and extend the life of your system.
• Install an air conditioner economizer (applicable to packaged rooftop units) to reduce your need for electrical cooling.
• Consider installing a heat pump. Today’s energy-efficient models are real energy savers and makes good sense for businesses.
• Look into adding an energy management system to control your HVAC and lighting.

• Consider replacing some or all your electric cooking equipment with comparably sized gas-fired equipment.
• Replace broilers with grooved or smooth griddles to significantly reduce your energy consumption.
• Opt for solid-state cooking controls that allow the operator to program the equipment with complete instructions, including pre-heat temperatures, cooking times and temperatures, and holding temperatures once the food is cooked. You can easily enter all the information using a keypad-type control panel.
• Replace any equipment that has reached the end of its service life with high-efficiency models.
• Improve your chiller efficiency. Chillers are used extensively for large facility space cooling and in industrial process liquid cooling. In many business and industrial facilities, space cooling and process refrigeration represent one of the largest energy expenditures — and increasing efficiency can significantly reduce your energy usage without affecting comfort or production.
• Install a refrigerant heat recovery system and use waste heat from walk-in refrigerators and freezers to preheat the facility hot water.
• Replace your older gas water heater with a high-efficiency water heater. It can save your a significant amount of money for years to come.
• If you have a kitchen exhaust hood, make sure you have a complimentary make-up air supply nearby. Control them both together.

Lighting

• Retrofit with the most efficient lighting sources available today: HID (high intensity discharge) and LPS (low-pressure sodium) lamps.
• Install lighting controls. This is one of the most efficient means of decreasing facility operating expenses. When lights are left on unnecessarily or areas are lighted excessively, energy costs increase.
• Rewire restroom fans to operate with the lights, or install a timer switch.

Remodeling

• Paint walls with light colors to help keep interiors cooler. A white wall can reflect 80 percent of the light that hits it.
• Install energy efficient windows. The windows will not only help lower your energy bills for years to come, but they will also reduce the amount your carpets, drapes and furniture fade. If you have too many windows or they are too large, replace them with insulated wall and smaller windows. You can lose 10 times the energy through a window that you do through an insulated wall.
• Use highly reflective materials when you re-roof so the building doesn’t absorb as much of the sun’s heat.