Why don’t I close the windows? Well, I’m getting there. It’s just that I don’t have a deck around my 3-foot elevated yurt and therefore a ladder is required. The picture tells the story.

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This is good news for yurt dwellers without an exterior walking deck and with a raised platform. For those, it’s go outside with your ladder.

Fully Operable Windows is the new description in Colorado. It opens like a traditional home window with a crank. Each window is big enough to meet code requirements for egress. Made with a thermal pane and Low-E glass in a Doug fir frame. E-glass means low emissivity glass, a new technology for energy efficiency.

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Cops based near Oxford in the UK have revealed that they are unable to to use flashing blue lights on their new electric car - in case it drains too much power from the battery.

The Thames Valley police force is testing out the £20,000 ($33,000) Mitsubishi iMiev in an effort to improve its environmental credentials. Apart from this quite obvious setback, they have been pleased with the silent, emission-free car, capable of travelling 100 miles on a single charge (with the lights off).

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Ettenson told me that the funding comes from the part of the budget that California’s regulated utilities may use to invest in conventional electricity. This may include “negawatts”or energy efficiency measures. This is not just cheaper than building new plants and transmission, but also easier to implement, as it is not subject to the NIMBYism and transmission issues that has impeded development of utility scale solar and wind projects that California utilities must add to meet RPS requirements of getting 20% of its energy from carbon-free sources by 2010. Currently it is at 14%.

This giant leap in funding could jump-start the new low-carbon economy in California; helping grow all the businesses that create cutting edge efficiency in cooling and heating, lighting, building materials, windows, insulation, appliances and smart grid technologies that reduce energy use.

Ettenson gave me some examples of uses for the funding in practical terms:

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A new exterior film for glass has been developed which can be seen by birds but not humans. It could be used to help prevent the needless deaths of billions of birds which collide with windows annually.

Collisions with windows are estimated to be the most common cause of bird death worldwide aside from habitat loss. The numbers of deaths are staggering, outranking deaths by domestic cat, hunting, vehicular collisions, and wind turbine accidents combined. Thus, preventing bird-window collisions could be the simplest way to significantly reduce bird fatality around the world.

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JELD-WEN, the window manufacturer, set out to find the house with the worst heating bill in the United States last year.  They found it in Maine.  A 119-year old farmhouse that incurred a December bill of $1,100, and had spent over $5,000 during the year in home heating oil.

What could be done to help the poor homeowners stuck with this atrocious energy sucker?  JELD-WEN provided 35 new Energy Star rated windows, two AuraLast wood doors, and some basement insulation - free of charge.  Did it make a difference?  You bet.

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1. Never block weep holes in windows and doors, as these allow water to drain properly.  Pay particular attention to this when caulking.

2. Don’t block breather holes on dual-sash units.  These holes are necessary for air circulation.

3. Use sealants that allow for movement, contraction, and expansion.  Watch the recommended temperatures for installing sealant, as provided by the manufacturer.

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First of all, the installation went well and was completed in just two days.  The crew was very friendly, knowledgeable, and cleaned up nicely.  There was some inconvenience, in that we had to move furniture and other items away from the openings, especially when the window sizes were being changed.  Also, someone had to be home to let the crew in, and watch the cats.

The installation was well done, certainly in comparison with the original windows.  They are all tight to the outside trim, and the inside and outside are well caulked.  This should prevent air leakage and water intrusion that was occurring before.

As far as energy use differences, it has been hard to tell.  Penguin promises a 40% reduction in heating and cooling costs.  The weather has warmed up considerably since the installation, so the air conditioner is still running as much as it was before.  I will need to compare the costs for the next few months to the same period last year to see if there has been any significant changes.

As a homeowner, I am pleased with the quality of the windows and the installation.  We will have to see if the promised energy savings materialize over the next few months.

I own a manufactured home that was manufactured in 2000. I figured I didn’t have too much to worry about. The windows seemed to be working fine, and we had no comfort problems. I was looking forward to learning about their product, and curious as to how much it would cost to replace my windows with more efficient models, purely for research purposes. Little did I know ….

When the salesmen arrived, they started by explaining that they would be looking at the condition of my windows, inside and outside, taking some measurements, then give me a demonstration of their windows, and finish with the estimate for replacing the windows. So, off we went.

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Nicknamed “frozen smoke,” aerogel is extremely lightweight material, with a density only 3 times that of air. Only a small fraction of a volume of aerogel is the material itself. Most of the volume is filled with air. This makes aerogel an excellent insulator. (Aerogel provides nearly 40 times the insulation of fiberglass insulation.)

Aerogel can withstand great pressures and is also an excellent sound insulator. Aerogels can also be used to absorb airborne pollutants and have been used to clean up oil spills. NASA also used a section of aerogel as part of its Stardust probe to collect samples of material from the tail of a comet.

Aerogel is available for some high-performance applications, but due to its high cost, it has not been widely used. However, new research from a Malaysian scientist offers the potential to drastically reduce the cost of producing aerogel, and could lead to new possibilities for its use as a building and insulation material.

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While major cities located along migratory flyways get a lot of attention, they account for a comparatively small percentage of kills. The crucial next step, says New York City Audubon Society executive director Glenn Phillips, is “getting to the big designers of suburban and exurban buildings.”

I live in a one-story suburban house, cheek by jowl with other houses, but I’ve still been startled by a SMACK! on my window and had to check outside for a small feathered body. And I design similar houses and their additions. Clearly I’m someone who should Do Something. But what? One answer came from the Birdchick Blog.

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