Dirigo Custom Structures is excited to offer some of the cutting edge technologies in green building. A recent new home was built by Dirigo in Brunswick complete with a pellet boiler, photovoltaic panels, solar hot water, super high density insulation, and 2 inch styrofoam wrap. In this home you can essentially live off the grid leaving you with little to no utility bill.
Benefits that cutting edge technologies in green building can bring to your home
Pellet Boilers
- Pellets are cheap, ecologically clean and renewable energy source. They are produced of waste wood biomass by pressing under high pressure, without using adhesive substances. Pellets are formed in different diameters but the most common are 6 or 8 mm. This allows their incineration in automatic pellet burners with high efficiency and minimum quantity of ashes remaining.
- High efficiency. Pellet boilers ensure they achieve very high efficiency levels of up to 96%. This means very little heat is lost during combustion. In contrast, most traditional oil and gas heating systems only achieve around 80% efficiency and this can be significantly lower if a boiler is old or hasn’t been serviced regularly.
Photovoltaics
- Photovoltaics is the direct conversion of light into electricity at the atomic level. Some materials exhibit a property known as the photoelectric effect that causes them to absorb photons of light and release electrons. When these free electrons are captured, an electric current results that can be used as electricity.
Solar Hot Water
- Energy Independence. Using solar can reduce your utility use. It helps reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign energy sources. Solar is as reliable as getting your energy from electricity. As long as the sun is shining, you’ve got energy. Many folks with solar hot water only need to use the electricity for backup, and sometimes not even that. Independence can be a very gratifying experience.
- Environmental Impact. It is a fact that most of our energy comes from burning fossil fuels. This leads to a wide array of environmental problems, including human-caused climate change, acid rain, mountaintop removal for coal and tar sands, and health effects around power plants.
- Financial Benefits.When you choose to use solar to replace electricity, that comes with financial savings on your utility bill. It is easy to see 50% to 100% savings on your bill!
High Density Insulation
- Cost effective. While it typically costs more to install than traditional insulation, the homeowner quickly recoups the cost through monthly energy savings.
- Thermal factors. Conventional insulation typically offers a thermal resistance of 2.2 per inch, while high density offers a 3.8 per inch resistance. Did you know that conventional insulation is difficult and often impossible to install properly around wires, pipes and other obstructions? Ultimately, this reduces the thermal resistance in your walls.
- Keep the mice, mold and other nasty intruders out. Because some brands of high-density insulation contain fungicides, the growth of mold is inhibited, and termites, mice and other vermin won’t make their way into your home as easily.
- Energy savings. Because high density insulation is so dense when compared to traditional, air and moisture are blocked from entering your home. Buildings constructed using high-density insulation use 20% to 40% less energy than those built using traditional insulation. This means that you will save a bundle on monthly energy costs.