SunriseGuide wins Pollinator Award
APRIL 7, 2017 The SunriseGuide was honored with this year’s Portland Press Herald Source Pollinator Award.
Lighting evolves: the LED
By Heather Chandler THE LED (OR LIGHT emitting diode) bulb is a relatively new entry to the lighting scene, but one that many say has the power to transform the lighting industry with its energy efficient technology. While even just a few years ago, LEDs were unfavorable to some because of the “cool” blueish light…
Indoor gardening for a year-round harvest
By Erin Covey-Smith THE ABUNDANCE AT the farmers’ markets may be dwindling, and your garden may have hunkered down for a longwinter’s nap, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on fresh, local produce for the winter. In fact, you can bring it even closer to home by planting an indoor vegetable and…
Indoor air quality spotlight: radon
IN MAINE, HIGH levels of radon gas occur naturally in our soil and water, a result of the breakdown of the granite upon which Maine sits. Radon is a colorless and odorless gas that gets trapped in buildings that have contact with the earth, such as your home. The Maine Center for Disease Control &…
Housing Maine: Habitat puts a focus on efficiency
By Tim King HERE IN MAINE, and around the world, it would be difficult to find an organization that is doing more—quite often with less than you might imagine—to resolve the severe shortage of safe, decent and affordable housing for people in need, than Habitat for Humanity. Genesis and the birth of a radical idea:…
Get Pumped: Whole-house heat pumps are here
By Tim King CONSIDERED BY SOME to be something of a novelty just a few short years ago, today there are more than 20,000 heat pumps in use in homes and businesses throughout Maine. While it may be hard for some of us to understand exactly how they extract heat from cold air, there’s no…
You CAN get there from here: Maine’s growing electric vehicle infrastructure
By Barry Woods I’VE BEEN AN UNREPENTANT advocate of plug in electric vehicles since 2009. It was then that I realized these cars, and their improbably elegant marriage of clean energy, battery storage and transportation, could heal many of our accumulated social, environmental and economic ills. When I leased my first Nissan LEAF in 2011,…
Passive House is anything but passive
By Tim King DON’T LET THE name fool you – there’s nothing passive about constructing a high performance building worthy of passive house certification. In fact, achieving what many consider to be the pinnacle of building energy standards requires a substantial amount of activity – before, during and after construction is completed. The payoff, however,…