Keywording Strategies for Energy Efficiency and Home Performance Professionals.

As customers become increasingly tuned out to traditional forms of advertising, Home Performance Contractors and Energy Auditors need to dig deeper. In our increasingly “word of mouth” world, the endorsement of someone trusted, even if that trust is just implicit, is the most valuable marketing currency. And though so much of the “trust” conversation seems to revolve around the online marketing space, some innovative, offline approaches can be very effective too.

4 Fresh Offline Marketing Ideas for Home Performance Professionals.

Posts from Efficiency First Blog for 07/12/2010.

From Sean Penrith, at Earth Advantage:

At this time Energy Trust of Oregon’s 2008 Energy Performance Score pilot is now complete and we invite you to read the final Findings & Recommendations report. The goal of the pilot was to develop a performance metric for existing homes that could be applicable to new construction homes and would reflect energy consumption and carbon emissions—an “MPG” for homes. In creating the metric, the pilot compared home energy modeling tools for their accuracy and ease of use in estimating home energy consumption.

Earth Advantage conducted the pilot for Energy Trust of Oregon, performing the home audits, data analysis, and the writing of the report. Conservation Services Group (CSG), the Home Energy Solutions – Existing Homes program implementation contractor, managed the pilot with Energy Trust of Oregon.

Due to the size of the files, the report and supporting documents are available at http://energytrust.org/eps/eps_ex.html.  

Please feel free to circulate this link and inform others of the release of this report. We feel the report’s discussion of home energy performance metrics is pertinent to many ongoing discussions on this topic.

Kindly yours,

I found this post on the Energy Circle blog, and since there seem to be a lot of interest in Hohm, I thought I’d pass it along…  Ammen

By Will Mallett – July 30th, 2009

Joining the slew of energy monitoring programs recently launched – Google Powermeter, Microsoft Hohm, GE’s Home Energy Manager, and eMeter, to name a few – we’ve just become aware of a dark horse candidate that has for four years been quietly developing what may be the most user-friendly home energy program yet.

Read the rest here: Energy Circle

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported on July 2 that nearly 17% of all single-family homes built nationally in 2008 earned the Energy Star label, up from 12% in 2007. Both home builders and home buyers are continuing to invest in high-performing homes that save consumers money on their utility bills and help protect the environment. Market share for Energy Star-qualified homes was 20% or greater in 15 states in 2008, including Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Vermont. To earn the Energy Star label, homes must meet strict guidelines for energy efficiency set by EPA. Typically these include energy-saving features such as effective insulation, high-performance windows, airtight living spaces and ducts, efficient heating and cooling equipment, and Energy Star-qualified lights and appliances. See the list of features of Energy Star-qualified homes on the Energy Star Web site.

Nearly 940,000 Energy Star-qualified homes have been built to date, including more than 100,000 constructed in 2008. In 2008 alone, U.S. families living in Energy Star-qualified homes locked in annual utility bill savings of more than $250 million, avoiding the use of more than 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 155 million therms of natural gas. The Energy Star program is a joint effort of DOE and the EPA. See the EPA press release and a state-by-state breakdown of Energy Star-qualified homes on the Energy Star Web site.

Listen to Full Show at: http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=17894

There’s a lot of talk about energy efficiency. How efficient are you? Steve Scher invited some energy auditors into his home to find out how green friendly he is. Their machine detected hot spots — where heat was leaking from the house — and they offered suggestions on how to fix them. The verdict? Let’s just say Steve has a big job ahead. Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light are increasing their efforts to test homes. How energy efficient is your home or business? What can you do about it? Is there a greener future for Seattle? Call in with your questions at 1.800.289.KUOW or email Weekday.