Kohilo* Returns Home

With a warm climate year round and relatively cool nights thanks to the ocean breeze, the state of Hawaii is a perfect place for AirScape Whole House Fans. Not only is the weather ideal, but the cost of electricity is sky high. The average cost for electricity in August 2010 in Hawaii was 28.59 cents per kilowatt hour. Compared to the U.S. Average of 12.02 cents during the same month**, it is obvious that going green by lowering electrical use is not as much a choice as it is a financial necessity for many residents of Hawaii.

Armstrong Builders has partnered with the DHHL (Department of Hawaiian Home Lands) to build affordable green homes in a state where affordable housing is virtually unheard of and utility rates are astronomical. The communities “Kumuhau” and “Lai Opua Village” both include AirScape Kohilo-e Whole House Fans (the Kohilo-e is a special limited edition model using the highly efficient ECM technology designed specifically for Armstrong Builders for use in their projects). Even with the high electrical rate, the fan only costs an average of 5.7 cents an hour on high speed and 1.4 cents an hour on low speed. Compare that to an extremely efficient 2 ton Air Conditioner, which is going to cost 68.5 cents an hour on average, and it’s easy to see why our whole house fans are so beneficial in Hawaii.

As Kaulana H.R. Park, director of DHHL and chairman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission (HHC) said, “Reducing living costs is one measure of a sustainable lifestyle and as native Hawaiians, living a sustainable life is what we strive for.”***

We’re glad we can be a part of this move towards greater sustainability in Hawaii.

*Kohilo is Hawaiian for “a gentle breeze”

**For average electrical rates by state, visit the Energy Administration Website.

***DHHL News Release.

is the recession over

Being an engineer, and full of opinions, people often ask me when this recession will end. Good question. In fact, a friend of mine just asked me that. Luckily for him, we were bicycling uphill, and I could not devote my remaining breath to verbalizing the solution.

Well, after a bit of thinking I realized that maybe, just maybe I have a metric, or at least an indicator for when our economy starts to grow.

It comes down to this.  When institutions and organizations return to increasing productivity, then we are on the road to increasing wealth. Why should this simple metric be more important than an economist who knows way more math than most of us? Well, I’m going to bring in some handy engineering tools:

  • The Control Volume.  This is a great concept because it’s so simple and elegant. Draw an imaginary surface around whatever you are studying. Now, the increase in whatever you are measuring has to come from either greater input or less output. A corollary of this is “garbage in, garbage out”.
  • Some basic calculus.  All you need to know is rate of change.
  • BS detector. (based upon proprietary common sense algorithm)

Let’s go over some social institutions and I’ll grade them. The grade up/down is based on whether I (using my tools above) judge whether the institution is providing more benefit to society than the year before.

Education ‘Is our children learning?’ Sure, but the evidence says they are learning less, and it’s costing more money from kindergarten to univeristy.
Medical Way out of control. We’re sicker, life expectancy is not rising, and it costs more every year.
Legal Peleeese.We spend $865+ billion on our legal system. That’s a lot of money.  And even if that is good value, is it getting better for us, the public?
Military A necessary cost, but again, how much safety did we buy this year for $700,000,000,000. And next year will be more safety for less money?
Electronics A rare winner. Way better each year for way less money. Only problem is we let the kids have phones, computers, games, and now they think they’re adults.
Financial Apparently they used to do something. (like your appendix). Currently the control volume concept and my BS detector determines that the financial industry takes 7% of U.S. GDP and gives us what? (hint: bonuses)  I have sympathy for these guys. How can you improve when you gamble invest this amount of money each year?
Manufacturing Whatever is left in this country generally provides good wages, and if they are still in business, have been outperforming themselves year after year. Of course, this is the one group that we chose to outsource – damned producers!
Science A winner. Science pays off. Scientists work cheap and they find things that we can make money from. Thankfully we are busy cutting off funding.
Religion This would be hard to measure. So I’ll say that their effect on society is stable.
Transportation Airplanes, car travel … definitely not improving.  Apparently it’s too expensive to invest in fast trains. Nope.  This sector is not  increasing in productivity. Scratch that. Transportation is so bad it couldn’t get worse, unless of course we ran out of oil….
Public Safety Of course it got better. We have 1% of our population in jail. That costs a lot of money, and the prison population is getting older.Guess what, they need more medical care too!
Energy Still on the oil program. Here’s the plan!. Wait until they raise oil prices, then we panic.

So, there’s the theory. When these groups/industries/institutions  stop feeding and start producing, then we create wealth again. And in case there are any misconceptions, here is what wealth really means to us:

  • Jobs
  • Clean environment
  • Public Safety
  • Education
  • Retirement
  • and last… Stuff.

Solar Loves Whole House Fans

There are a couple of trends that will affect solar photovoltaic installations:

  • Newer electrical rate structures encourage conservation (tiered rates)
  • ‘Energy Security’ is a powerful motivator
  • Photovoltaic rebates require house efficiency check-ups

We think  solar energy gathering is great. The idea of  getting electricity essentially for  free energy has certainly captivated our imaginations. Even though the cost of photovoltaic panels is dropping very quickly, the investment is still considerable.  Our crystal ball tells us that electrical energy is very, very versatile and will be in demand as electrical cars come on stream and coal fired electrical power plants start to show their ugly side. (coal burning)

As the demand for clean electrical energy increases, its value will certainly not go down.   In fact, if the validity of predicting cheap energy such as the famous line is any guide “too cheap to meter”,then we should get prepared for high prices.

By combining whole house fans solar contractors and  homeowners  can:

  • Decrease the initial investment in PV panels
  • AND/ OR
  • Increase the  Return on Investment for the entire system

sustainable budhism

The local buddhist temple has just been completed. AirScape provided several whole house fans. The building itself is constructed with ICF (insulated concrete forms). This makes for a high mass, well insulated and sealed building envelope, perfect for whole house fans.  Total airflow from the whole house fans is 9200 CFM – the building is 6,000 sq. feet. That’s a good lot of air, but this is the only form of cooling, so the amount of airflow has to be high for the peak conditions.

If you want to design your own temple, Carlos Delgado is the architect.