Improving Home Heating, Cooling, and Energy Savings with Eclipse Curtains
Green Radio
Sean Daily
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Episode 155 - Improving Home Heating, Cooling, and Energy Savings with Eclipse Curtains

GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily talks home winter heating and summer cooling efficiency tips with Budd Goldman, President of Ellery Homestyles, makers of energy-efficiency Eclipse Curtains.

Transcript

Transcript

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Sean Daily: Hey everybody this is Sean Daily, host of Green Talk Radio, if you have not already I want to encourage you to subscribe to greenideas.comgreen ideas monthly newsletter. Every issue of the newsletter is packed with full of tips and information to help you live a greener, more sustainable life.

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Sean Daily:  Hi and welcome, to Green Talk a pod cast series from greenlivingideas.com. Green talk helps listeners in there efforts to lead more Ecko friendly life styles through interviews with top vendors, authors, and experts from around the world.

We discuss the critical issues facing the global environment today as well as the technologies, products, and practices that you can employ to grow greener in every area of your life.

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Sean Daily:  Hey, everyone welcome to Green Talk Radio this is Sean Daily. Today were going to be talking about improving home heating, cooling and energy savings and as we all know fall chills already in the air, winter stronger chill wont be far behind.

The recent significant increases in fuel cost on top of a national economical situation that is ruled with uncertainty many are concerned about rotationally absorbent home heating bills this winter. There wandering what they can do to save both energy and money while still keeping there homes and families warm.

My guest on today’s program to discuss this topic with me is Budd Goldman a serial entrepreneur who specializes in the early identification of consumer trends. But spent 30 years developing, manufacturing and marketing a wide variety of consumer products. His current company is Ellery Home styles, a 100 million dollar a year business he founded in 2000 as an Ecko conscious energy conscious business.

So Budd first of all welcome to the program.

Budd Goldman: Thank you, it is nice to meet you.

Sean Daily:  Nice to meet you as well, I am curious lets just start off with your experience what are the primary obstacles for homeowners with trying to keep there houses warm in the winter.

Budd Goldman:  You know there is a old saying,” Don’t let the heat go out the window.” and truly windows are the number one area of the home where heat transfers out and cold comes in. The walls of your home are insolated and the siding on the outside of the house and there is wallboard on the inside of the house. But the only barrier for window is glass and so that is the primary area to look at.

Sean Daily: Ok, so also conversely in your experience what are the primary obstacles you see for homeowners trying to keep there houses cool during the warmer month’s spring and summer.

Budd Goldman:  Well again the window let’s say in the warmer months when the sun is beating down, the window allows the sunlight to come in and sunlight produces heat obviously. Again, that is your big hole so to speak for energy transfer rant.

Sean Daily:  I never thought of curtains being a potential a source of efficiency with in regards to home heating energy usage. But it sort of makes sense to me because you say the expression going out the window that is literally, where that came from. I think a lot of people think about cracks around doors and that is one.

We know based on the thermal property is of glass that is a place where that can escape. I think a lot of people think no farther then the window itself and having a efficient window then there’s this idea I literally quite frankly think of till I learned a little more about what you guys are doing in the focus is there. Of stopping it even after the window with the curtains and so forth so why don’t you tell us about specifically how something as simple as new curtains could exactly help people cut energy costs in there home.

Budd Goldman: Ok, eclipse curtains, which Ellery Home styles manufactures and designs and develops, create a barrier for to prevent heat loss and therefore you the result is the energy savings. How do we do that? There’s different ways to produce a curtain that has energy saving properties. We developed the eclipse product line with three different properties.

Energy saving, noise reducing and blackout qualities. With the thermal back curtains, we actually put a coding of foam on the back of the curtain, which acts as the barrier. With thermal weave, we weave in an extra what we call a whope yarn, which again adds a layer to prevent heat loss. With a thermal layer product we add in a inter liner between the face of the curtain and the backing of the curtain. And that inter liner again blocks the heat from going out or keeps the cold in when you have the air conditioner running. The simple principle is to prevent as best as you can energy from escaping through the window.

Sean Daily:  So to bring this down to brass tasks, people are always interested in dollars and cents of things. Can you give us some examples of some kind of savings that can be realized by for example purchasing a new window treatment as opposed to purchasing new windows? Or just the efficiencies that can be gained from that kind of change.

Budd Goldman: We tested here at Ellery with a national testing laboratory eclipse curtains verses ordinary curtains. And a test environment and the measurements on average indicate a saving of up to 25% on home heating and cooling cost verses an average type of curtain so to speak. An ordinary curtain that does not have the eclipse qualities. So it is quite a but and that measurement was done like I said under the laboratory conditions. With measuring instruments, so on and so forth. Of course, it’s important to understand that every window is different, every home is different, every home is in a different location, facing in different directions. So the amount of savings to be gained varies by those various attributes.

Sean Daily: Ok, great when we come back were going to take a quick break and when we come back, I want to talk to you a little more about form and function.

Budd Goldman: Sure.

Sean Daily:  And getting the esthetics.

Budd Goldman: Which is important?

Sean Daily:  Defiantly important and I want to talk to you also get some tips from you for our listeners on winter warming as well as summer cooling. Will be right back after this short break on green talk radio thanks everyone were talking with Budd Goldman founder and president of Ellery Home styles the makers of Eclipse curtains which are energy saving, noise reducing, black out curtains and will be right back on green talk.

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Sean Daily:  were back on Green Talk Radio this is Sean Daily talking today on home heating cooling and energy savings. My guest is Budd Goldman who is the founder and president of Ellery Home Styles and they also make eclipse curtains. You can find them online at elleryhomestyles.comand Error! Hyperlink reference not valid..

We were talking before the break a little bit about obstacles for homeowners in dealing with having more efficient heating and cooling in the home. I want to jump into the esthetics certainly energy efficiency in both in terms of the environment and terms o money and everything else.

 Is undeniably important but you know the esthetic aspects of the home are certainly important to people. To most people maybe some college students not s much outside of that. What advise will you be able to offer to our listeners on easy and practical ways that they can be decorating there homes. Also taking in consideration energy efficiency.

 

Budd Goldman: Well again, lets start with eclipse curtains and move on to some other categories. While we talk about the functional benefits of using eclipse curtains on windows, they are also beautiful. So its form and function to decorate your home, you do not want to just put up a white barrier over your window. You want to blend in with your décor.

The same as if you have wooden floors those are just some of the things obviously, when you consider caulking around your window you want to use that caulking that blends in with the paint that you used. Or you want to be able to paint over it, you want to be practical but you also want the decorative touches that make your home beautiful.

Sean Daily: Absolutely, so I’m curious this is something any long term listener of the show knows about us we always try to offer practical take away tips to weather you know personal or work lapse or what have you. In this case, I would like to ask you if you have any tips you would like to share with our listeners who have these kinds of worries about winter warming you know with the fuel cost and just in general.

 

Budd Goldman: You might want to consider energy star windows, and they would save the most money. You might want to change your bulbs from you know the old style in depth bulbs to LD’s or the other types of new bulbs. Put weather stripping around doors and windows helps prevent a leak that is a quick one. You probably want to wrap the pipes and the ducts that deliver heat and air-conditioning.

Certainly cleaning your oil burner in the heating season and making sure it’s as efficient as possible, is an inexpensive way of being efficient. Same thing you want to clean the filters on your air conditioning units. Another simple one is lower your water heater temperature setting 10 to 15 degrees translates into a good deal of savings on your energy bill. Similarly maybe you can reduce the setting on the thermostat in the winter months at night, those are just simple quick things that you can do from top down.

Sean Daily: Those are great everyone out there you heard you got your marching orders, your preparatory fall and winter to do list for around the house to improve your energy efficiency and cheaper heating and cooling. And from the expert from the source Budd I really appreciate you being on the program today we wish you much success with the business.

Budd Goldman: Thanks so much, nice meeting you Sean.

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Thanks, always for everybody listening in today remember for more free on demand pod casts articles, videos and other information related to living a greener life style visit our website at www.greenlivingideas.com. We also love to hear your comments feedback and questions send us an email at [email protected]

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