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SANTA CLARA – Host, Sarah Rutan: When building or remodeling a home, there are several ways to boost energy-efficiency and reduce your carbon footprint. Today we’re in Santa Clara with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Ilan Sigura of Sigura Construction to learn more.
Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Ilan Sigura: When designing and executing a project we talk to our clients about energy conservation. For example, insulation. When we talk about insulation we talk about the different types of insulation, the cost of the insulation, and the savings in operating costs. For example, batt insulation will be something that is up to code. However, if we use foam or spray-on insulation we can save money to our clients all in all in the long run for the operation costs of heating and cooling the house in the winter and in the summer.
Also we talk about HVAC systems. We are always recommending our clients to work on high efficiency products to make sure that the energy conservation is in place and making sure that the costs are low, of operation. Also when you use HVAC high efficiency you have a much better ability to have a better climate control and not to have big differences in temperature in the house, but have something that is more controllable.
Also when we talk about green technology we talk to our clients about greywater, such as collecting all the water in tanks in the winter from the garden system, and from the house, as well as watering all the lawn and all the flowers during the summer time. So that helps on actually water consumption. Also when we talk about green technologies to our clients we talk about tankless water heaters and solar panels. So if we talk to them about tankless water heaters we are showing them how they save money financially over time and how they have constantly hot water without having to finish the hot water that’s in the regular tank and then wait for it to get warmed up, or et cetera, et cetera. But have constant hot water, well, you’re actually paying for the usage of warming up the water as you go, versus also heating up the whole tank.
When we talk about the solar panels we talk about explaining to our customers and showing them, by statistics and all the appropriate media, how they save money in energy. And how they actually can — Sometimes they’ll have a very, very low bill, or even maybe sell some of the energy to PG&E or to the local electrical company. This is our tip for the day and thank you very much.
Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.