ecobeco's September 2009 Newsletter
ecoTips, News, Deals, and More - And it's Free!
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Greetings!
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.
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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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Visit www.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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