Comments on: To 'green' the world's buildings, think retrofits

Making existing buildings more energy-efficient is the best way to cut emissions. But the energy retrofit industry lacks products, skills, and standard performance measurements.

[a_aylett]

Retrofits are definitely where it is at. The big question though is how do we roll them out at a big scale? Incentives and rebates haven't had all that much effect in getting all the millions of individual homeowners to invite a contractor into the attic.

Cities like Berkely, Portland and Toronto have been experimenting with different ways of managing city-wide building upgrades. In essence, we need to find mays of managing retrofits the same way we manage any other utility or service. I've written more on this here: http://openalex.blogspot.com/2009/03/retrofittingeverything.html

and

http://openalex.blogspot.com/2009/03/berkeley-alternative-solar-financing.html

[Dango517]

"Where are we going to find enough people who know what they're doing?" Rosenbaum said. "We need a lot of people to get trained. Otherwise, we're going to create a lot of disasters."

If it says put in 11 inches of insulation then put in 11 inches of insulation. There! You've been trained. This is basic non skilled labor. They might need a few more inspectors and industrial laborers to work in the insulation mills but this is certainly not a major problem. Wonder how many out of work industrial and construction workers there are?

There are more then enough Federal, State and local building codes concerning insulation and weather stripping already. In short ............. standards! There are standards a plenty.

A botched insulation job might cause dry rot or mold in your attic. Insulation plus a leaking roof equals your ceiling ends up in your lap. Inspect your roof and replace it before this becomes a problem. An insulated attic must be ventilated to prevent mold and dry rot. Simple problems, simple solutions, no crisis here that I can see..

[greenwasher]

An important element of buildings going green is a computer that can moniter consumption and give you an idea where energy is leaking from. My HOA is meeting with this group http://solarcommunities.com
They are integrating panels into our roofing and providing this interesting computer interface. We want to be the most green HOA in SoCal.