Well, I didn't think there'd be a part 3, but after a delightful dinner discussing possibilities and hopes, we moved on to a local bar where Mansfield Insulation and another un-remembered company (I apologize, little good that does) hosted an open bar for Efficiency First folks, of which there are many nowadays. Great discussions included Russel King and Gavin Healy arguing amicably about how low a RetroTec duct tester will accurately measure and whether it was possible in the real world to get only 0.2 inches of static pressure drop across an air handler and coil. Another topic covered ways to streamline the Energy Upgrade California's data entry requirements and piggyback them on to EnergyPro software. I know, I know, heady stuff and with fervently held positions, especially after a couple of free glasses of whatever they were serving.
Whew. Only one more day. ACI Conference: Energy Nerdism is alive and well.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011, pt.2
I have to confess up front, a couple of drinks magically appeared in front of me this evening and for whatever reason, my hand reached out and picked them up. Not my fault, OK?
That out of the way, the afternoon's first session was either a) not as captivating as previous sessions or b) I can't take much more in without other important stuff falling out the back. To continue the business development flagellation I seem to hunger for, I went to "Business Building Blocks" with Stephen Self. Stephen, if you're listening, it's nothing personal but I couldn't focus and didn't write a thing down so after 20 minutes, I slipped out the back and went to my little cave at the Mosser Hotel which, if all you want is a clean little cave in downtown San Francisco, is the best deal around. A room in downtown SF for $89? Almost miraculous. An hour alone for an hour for a recharge. Ahhh.
The Happy Alone Hour was enough that I chose "Selling Home Performance: Where the Mastic Meets the Metal.", which wasn't about either mastic or metal. Or even ducts.
There were 3 speakers. Jason Bowers from Recurve talked about how to present myself when across from a client at a table. Be patient. Summarize frequently. Spend the first 30 minutes mostly listening and asking questions. Tell a personal story about myself and my Company. Present with confidence. Talk about money early and be firm about costs: 'This is what it takes to get the job done right'.
Casey Murphy of ICF International was next and talked about how to sell using Indoor Air Quality as a sales point. As part of his talk, he threw out a number of statistics that were captivating: 1.8 million ER visits per year because of Asthma. 19% of households have someone with Asthma. Indoor Air Quality is important enough to discuss in almost all sales meetings.
Eric Howarth of EGIA was last, talking about how he uses an in-home display as part of his sales pitch, showing his company in a personal way with pictures of families and previous happy clients. Sell a Good/Better/Best because most people will choose the Better. Forget about myself; it's the client's story that is most important. Talk about how well we will take care of their home, using details. Have financing options at the tip of my tongue. Make it easy for the client to say yes.
As if 4 sessions today weren't enough and with a quick bite on the run, I managed to spend time with Peter Troast from EnergyCircle.com. Peter's business model is superb and if you're in the Home Performance field, I highly recommend that you look at Energy Circle. This is my personal, completely subjective feeling: they feel about me like I feel about my clients: that they really want the best for my company and are continually looking for new ways to make my business more successful. They're good folks. Peter, Lisa, Greg.
That out of the way, the afternoon's first session was either a) not as captivating as previous sessions or b) I can't take much more in without other important stuff falling out the back. To continue the business development flagellation I seem to hunger for, I went to "Business Building Blocks" with Stephen Self. Stephen, if you're listening, it's nothing personal but I couldn't focus and didn't write a thing down so after 20 minutes, I slipped out the back and went to my little cave at the Mosser Hotel which, if all you want is a clean little cave in downtown San Francisco, is the best deal around. A room in downtown SF for $89? Almost miraculous. An hour alone for an hour for a recharge. Ahhh.
The Happy Alone Hour was enough that I chose "Selling Home Performance: Where the Mastic Meets the Metal.", which wasn't about either mastic or metal. Or even ducts.
There were 3 speakers. Jason Bowers from Recurve talked about how to present myself when across from a client at a table. Be patient. Summarize frequently. Spend the first 30 minutes mostly listening and asking questions. Tell a personal story about myself and my Company. Present with confidence. Talk about money early and be firm about costs: 'This is what it takes to get the job done right'.
Casey Murphy of ICF International was next and talked about how to sell using Indoor Air Quality as a sales point. As part of his talk, he threw out a number of statistics that were captivating: 1.8 million ER visits per year because of Asthma. 19% of households have someone with Asthma. Indoor Air Quality is important enough to discuss in almost all sales meetings.
Eric Howarth of EGIA was last, talking about how he uses an in-home display as part of his sales pitch, showing his company in a personal way with pictures of families and previous happy clients. Sell a Good/Better/Best because most people will choose the Better. Forget about myself; it's the client's story that is most important. Talk about how well we will take care of their home, using details. Have financing options at the tip of my tongue. Make it easy for the client to say yes.
As if 4 sessions today weren't enough and with a quick bite on the run, I managed to spend time with Peter Troast from EnergyCircle.com. Peter's business model is superb and if you're in the Home Performance field, I highly recommend that you look at Energy Circle. This is my personal, completely subjective feeling: they feel about me like I feel about my clients: that they really want the best for my company and are continually looking for new ways to make my business more successful. They're good folks. Peter, Lisa, Greg.
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
Saturation. I don't have it yet but I see it coming over the horizon. So far, most of my courses have been on business and marketing; I guess that's where I feel the weakest. It's also been great to meet people on the show floor. Putting faces to names I've only spoken to on the phone. It's funny: after I've spoken with someone a dozen or two times, done business with them, engaged in a little chitchat, and then meet them face to face, we're already sort of friends and it's a real treat to meet them. Lisa Fahay's a great example of several today. My pleasure, Lisa.
This morning's seminar was another tough call. I need you to understand: every time slot of 90 minutes has 15 to 20 different classes going on at the same time, in different rooms, so perhaps you can see the difficulty in winnowing it down to just one. This session, "10 More Marketing Tactics Worth Stealing' or 'Systems and Methods for Scaling Your Business'? Well, not too tough. 'Systems' had such a dry title that '10 More' won fairly quickly. It was a panel of 4 contractors of various stripes who, for whatever reason, now do Home Performance Contracting. It was led and moderated by a stub of a guy that was a delight to listen to, Ed Thomas. The 4 contractors were informative and had some solid nuggets but I could have listened to Ed for the whole hour and a half. What a great presenter. Vivacious, funny, and active with a solid, natural feel of his subject and an effortless delivery. Hope you read this, Ed. Great class.
The second morning session was a *real* difficult choice. "House Characterization", "Online Marketing Strategies for Home Performance Contractors", "Standards, Specifications, and Certification: Why They Are Your Business", and more. Sort of randomly, I chose "Online Marketing" with Aaron Goldfeder of EnergySavvy and Ben Gutkin of Warm Thoughts. Looks like I'm a glutton for marketing info, eh? I remember thinking part way through the session that perhaps this one was bit of a bust but now, looking back over my notes, I took a LOT of notes. They must have been more informative than I thought at the time. Lots of nuggets: customer reviews are everything. I won't get them unless I ask. A strong website has a lot of *inbound* links. Story, Snacks, Sneezes: make your company sound like a good story, offer visual snacks, and ask everyone I know to mention my Story. The new Google Maps search makes strong websites a larger size on the map. I only have 4 seconds when someone lands on my website to answer 3 questions: Do I have what they want? Am I local? Am I somebody they want to do business with? Otherwise, click, they're gone.
After more show floor shmoozing and a hurried bite, it's off to the first afternoon session.
I'll tell you how it went later.
This morning's seminar was another tough call. I need you to understand: every time slot of 90 minutes has 15 to 20 different classes going on at the same time, in different rooms, so perhaps you can see the difficulty in winnowing it down to just one. This session, "10 More Marketing Tactics Worth Stealing' or 'Systems and Methods for Scaling Your Business'? Well, not too tough. 'Systems' had such a dry title that '10 More' won fairly quickly. It was a panel of 4 contractors of various stripes who, for whatever reason, now do Home Performance Contracting. It was led and moderated by a stub of a guy that was a delight to listen to, Ed Thomas. The 4 contractors were informative and had some solid nuggets but I could have listened to Ed for the whole hour and a half. What a great presenter. Vivacious, funny, and active with a solid, natural feel of his subject and an effortless delivery. Hope you read this, Ed. Great class.
The second morning session was a *real* difficult choice. "House Characterization", "Online Marketing Strategies for Home Performance Contractors", "Standards, Specifications, and Certification: Why They Are Your Business", and more. Sort of randomly, I chose "Online Marketing" with Aaron Goldfeder of EnergySavvy and Ben Gutkin of Warm Thoughts. Looks like I'm a glutton for marketing info, eh? I remember thinking part way through the session that perhaps this one was bit of a bust but now, looking back over my notes, I took a LOT of notes. They must have been more informative than I thought at the time. Lots of nuggets: customer reviews are everything. I won't get them unless I ask. A strong website has a lot of *inbound* links. Story, Snacks, Sneezes: make your company sound like a good story, offer visual snacks, and ask everyone I know to mention my Story. The new Google Maps search makes strong websites a larger size on the map. I only have 4 seconds when someone lands on my website to answer 3 questions: Do I have what they want? Am I local? Am I somebody they want to do business with? Otherwise, click, they're gone.
After more show floor shmoozing and a hurried bite, it's off to the first afternoon session.
I'll tell you how it went later.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
March 30th, 2011, pt.2
The Energy Efficiency event this evening was a bit of a bust except for the 2 drink tickets they gave out at the door and the open bar inside. It was organized well, with stations around the wall with subjects listed, but the individuals who were supposed to be in front of the placards were mostly.... not there. Still, it was well attended and there were lots of new folks to chat with. Turns out I'm not alone in my small-contractor-struggling-to-grow position. I am, however, better trained and better situated than most (mostly because of my SweetHeart). Much of what I'm networking for and talking about is how to grow my business.
Anyway, back to earlier.
During the lunch hour, I decided it was more important to wander through the main floor of the Conference, stopping at all the booths that looked interesting. Saturn was there with a computer set up so that attendees could take short online tests to get their RESNET CEUs approved but I didn't spend the time to take them. CalCERTS was there, as was BPI, EF, various training agencies that I looked at, insulation providers, etc. This took the whole hour and a half and before I was half way through the floor, it was time for the afternoon's first session. Just so everyone knows, this is not like the PCBC or West Coast Green conferences with many booths advertising 'green' products. This conference is for the believers, the Nerds, those that already work in the field or are starting to. It's not targeted to the public or consumer but to those who already have the religion that energy efficiency is the planetary future so it was both smaller and more focused than the conferences geared towards the public. That's part of why I'm having so much fun; I'm with others like me. Wow.
So for the afternoon session, it was a tough choice between 'Solutions for Wet Crawlspaces and Basements' or 'Beyond your Certification'. I checked out Beyond, then went down 3 floors to check on Solutions. It was packed; probably 200 in there already and few empty seats. Who could ever imagine that a seminar on wet crawlspaces could absolutely pack a room. After a quick internal check, I realized Crawlspaces would be a great thing to listen to on the Conference DVD I was going to buy and that 'Beyond would be a better choice in which to be present. (Note to self: don't decide I needed the exercise and choose to run three LONG stairs up before I sit, sweaty, in a busy auditorium). Turns out Beyond was a better choice, I think.
It was hosted by 3 pretty knowledgeable people: Sam Flanery, Courtny Moriarty, and Dan Kertzman (replacing Matt Golden with other commitments). It was an OK seminar It's take-aways were that the client sitting across from me was everything. That putting myself in their shoes and considering their position was the most important thing in the discussion. Yes, that's pretty much what the last speaker said and what I already believed but they each said it in a different way and I'm slow enough that I need to hear it regularly and a LOT before it actually sinks in. All in all, a good seminar but not great. It just added to the general internal world view.
The last seminar of the day, I chose "Outlast the Competition - and Price Profitably" with Vicki Suiter. It was a tough call between her and "Building Science Puzzles and Solutions" with a couple of Green Homes' speakers, who talked about weird things they've seen while doing home performance work in the East. As much as I love a puzzle and really wanted to 'stump the chump', when I spoke to Vicki before the seminar, her topic caught my interest. It turned out to be the best seminar of the day for me. She's the CEO of a company that helps Home Performance contractors navigate the shoals towards profitability. Not only was she an excellent, engaging speaker, but she spoke to my level of concern: small contractor struggling with the huge number of competing requirements and certifications. She was the first speaker to have hand-outs on which we could write notes. Perusing my notes of her seminar, her main points were that we, as Home Performance Contractors, must not only focus on our clients' pain - what their problems are - but also and moreso on what they want - their desired results or what they would want in a perfect world. Apparently, and research supports this, as clients talk about what they would desire, the gap between their desires and their original concerns or their Pain Points gets larger. They feel more strongly what they don't have, so any solution I then propose is more emotionally charged. Perhaps this sounds a bit manipulative but I see it as more helping a client articulate and clarify what their *true* issues are. And since I firmly believe that what I offer my clients is a Win/Win/Win, helping them get emotionally close to their concerns is just fine with me. All in all, the best seminar of the day. Plus, besides the highly descriptive handouts, she gave us a form in which to enter a message to ourselves, in a sealed self addressed envelope, which she is going to mail to us in 3 months. Absolutely fantastic touch that really encourages those in her seminar to step up and follow through with her concepts. I definitely have a few concrete nuggets to include in my sales. And how successfully she marketed herself and her business to us was a superb example of marketing at its finest: she not only gave us handouts with her info on them that we would write on and take home, but she got us to sign up for her newsletter with the 'mail back in 3 months' thing. I mean, she was *good*.
Then, after Sushi with a few folks, it's off to Efficiency First. But I've already told you about that.
More tomorrow. Good Night.
Anyway, back to earlier.
During the lunch hour, I decided it was more important to wander through the main floor of the Conference, stopping at all the booths that looked interesting. Saturn was there with a computer set up so that attendees could take short online tests to get their RESNET CEUs approved but I didn't spend the time to take them. CalCERTS was there, as was BPI, EF, various training agencies that I looked at, insulation providers, etc. This took the whole hour and a half and before I was half way through the floor, it was time for the afternoon's first session. Just so everyone knows, this is not like the PCBC or West Coast Green conferences with many booths advertising 'green' products. This conference is for the believers, the Nerds, those that already work in the field or are starting to. It's not targeted to the public or consumer but to those who already have the religion that energy efficiency is the planetary future so it was both smaller and more focused than the conferences geared towards the public. That's part of why I'm having so much fun; I'm with others like me. Wow.
So for the afternoon session, it was a tough choice between 'Solutions for Wet Crawlspaces and Basements' or 'Beyond your Certification'. I checked out Beyond, then went down 3 floors to check on Solutions. It was packed; probably 200 in there already and few empty seats. Who could ever imagine that a seminar on wet crawlspaces could absolutely pack a room. After a quick internal check, I realized Crawlspaces would be a great thing to listen to on the Conference DVD I was going to buy and that 'Beyond would be a better choice in which to be present. (Note to self: don't decide I needed the exercise and choose to run three LONG stairs up before I sit, sweaty, in a busy auditorium). Turns out Beyond was a better choice, I think.
It was hosted by 3 pretty knowledgeable people: Sam Flanery, Courtny Moriarty, and Dan Kertzman (replacing Matt Golden with other commitments). It was an OK seminar It's take-aways were that the client sitting across from me was everything. That putting myself in their shoes and considering their position was the most important thing in the discussion. Yes, that's pretty much what the last speaker said and what I already believed but they each said it in a different way and I'm slow enough that I need to hear it regularly and a LOT before it actually sinks in. All in all, a good seminar but not great. It just added to the general internal world view.
The last seminar of the day, I chose "Outlast the Competition - and Price Profitably" with Vicki Suiter. It was a tough call between her and "Building Science Puzzles and Solutions" with a couple of Green Homes' speakers, who talked about weird things they've seen while doing home performance work in the East. As much as I love a puzzle and really wanted to 'stump the chump', when I spoke to Vicki before the seminar, her topic caught my interest. It turned out to be the best seminar of the day for me. She's the CEO of a company that helps Home Performance contractors navigate the shoals towards profitability. Not only was she an excellent, engaging speaker, but she spoke to my level of concern: small contractor struggling with the huge number of competing requirements and certifications. She was the first speaker to have hand-outs on which we could write notes. Perusing my notes of her seminar, her main points were that we, as Home Performance Contractors, must not only focus on our clients' pain - what their problems are - but also and moreso on what they want - their desired results or what they would want in a perfect world. Apparently, and research supports this, as clients talk about what they would desire, the gap between their desires and their original concerns or their Pain Points gets larger. They feel more strongly what they don't have, so any solution I then propose is more emotionally charged. Perhaps this sounds a bit manipulative but I see it as more helping a client articulate and clarify what their *true* issues are. And since I firmly believe that what I offer my clients is a Win/Win/Win, helping them get emotionally close to their concerns is just fine with me. All in all, the best seminar of the day. Plus, besides the highly descriptive handouts, she gave us a form in which to enter a message to ourselves, in a sealed self addressed envelope, which she is going to mail to us in 3 months. Absolutely fantastic touch that really encourages those in her seminar to step up and follow through with her concepts. I definitely have a few concrete nuggets to include in my sales. And how successfully she marketed herself and her business to us was a superb example of marketing at its finest: she not only gave us handouts with her info on them that we would write on and take home, but she got us to sign up for her newsletter with the 'mail back in 3 months' thing. I mean, she was *good*.
Then, after Sushi with a few folks, it's off to Efficiency First. But I've already told you about that.
More tomorrow. Good Night.
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
Wow! What a day! Nonstop from early morning til now: 6 PM.
OK, let me recap the day. Every day, they publish a new, color coded, double sided page of the day's goings-on. Just this morning, from 8:30 to 10:00, there were 17 different courses to choose from. After winnowing it down to 3, I checked each one out, asking the presenter for a synopsis of what they'd be talking about, to get a feel not only for the information but also for the quality of their presence.
So this morning, for the first session, "Eight Simple Things to Enhance Your Business" won, with Michael Rogers. My take-aways:
1) find out what business I'm in. What do I want to focus on/what are my strengths? For me, it's residences rather than commercial, existing rather than new, and low hanging fruit rather than only whole house retrofits (thought I wouldn't turn those down).
2) Make it easy for my customers. Show up. Call. Follow up. Look professional. Help with their paperwork. Have answers ready for their financing/money questions. Listen and be concerned for their family. You know: all the stuff I already know but sometimes don't actually do as well as I should. I know it's basic, but I still like to be reminded.
3) Get good help. The guys I have working for me make a huge impression on my clients. Dirty clothes, muddy boots, smoking; there's a lot more ways to lose a job than keep one.
4) Reward what I want to see. Compliment good work. Create a mindset of quality and customer satisfaction. We all work towards the same goal: helping the customer fix the problems with their home.
5) Marketing. People want to know "What will you do for me? What will I get?" Be bold in my marketing. Upsell; offer customers more than they ask for: If they call with mold problems, perhaps they need floor air sealing and insulation. Remember 'building as a system"
Oops, didn't make it to the afternoon sessions. Gotta go to the evening Soiree (loveya, Hon) with Efficiency First. Then with Home Performance with Energy Star contractors.
More later.
OK, let me recap the day. Every day, they publish a new, color coded, double sided page of the day's goings-on. Just this morning, from 8:30 to 10:00, there were 17 different courses to choose from. After winnowing it down to 3, I checked each one out, asking the presenter for a synopsis of what they'd be talking about, to get a feel not only for the information but also for the quality of their presence.
So this morning, for the first session, "Eight Simple Things to Enhance Your Business" won, with Michael Rogers. My take-aways:
1) find out what business I'm in. What do I want to focus on/what are my strengths? For me, it's residences rather than commercial, existing rather than new, and low hanging fruit rather than only whole house retrofits (thought I wouldn't turn those down).
2) Make it easy for my customers. Show up. Call. Follow up. Look professional. Help with their paperwork. Have answers ready for their financing/money questions. Listen and be concerned for their family. You know: all the stuff I already know but sometimes don't actually do as well as I should. I know it's basic, but I still like to be reminded.
3) Get good help. The guys I have working for me make a huge impression on my clients. Dirty clothes, muddy boots, smoking; there's a lot more ways to lose a job than keep one.
4) Reward what I want to see. Compliment good work. Create a mindset of quality and customer satisfaction. We all work towards the same goal: helping the customer fix the problems with their home.
5) Marketing. People want to know "What will you do for me? What will I get?" Be bold in my marketing. Upsell; offer customers more than they ask for: If they call with mold problems, perhaps they need floor air sealing and insulation. Remember 'building as a system"
Oops, didn't make it to the afternoon sessions. Gotta go to the evening Soiree (loveya, Hon) with Efficiency First. Then with Home Performance with Energy Star contractors.
More later.
ACI Conference - Tuesday, March 30th, 2011
Never having been to an ACI Conference before and, more importantly, never having been to a conference at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco, any normal person (me) would Google the place to find out where to park. Entering the address of the Marriott Marquis placed it right in the main part of the Moscone Center and since I'd been to a couple of other conferences at the Moscone, I assumed it must be there. After parking in the cheap seat parking garage a few blocks a few long blocks south of Moscone, I find no one at Moscone has heard of the ACI; in fact, there's a completely different conference there this week. Yank out the smart phone, try and make out the minuscule print and find the Marriott is actually several blocks *north* of Moscone. Drag my bags.. anyway, you don't need to hear all this. I made it.
Monday is what's called the "Pre-Conference Summit", costs an extra several hundred bucks and did not include enough of interest for me to attend. If you're interested, the ACI Conference website lists what went on that day. I want to talk about my personal view of the Conference so this Blog starts on Tuesday.
Tuesday has two parts to it: it's the second and last day of the Pre-Conference Summit but it also has several 4 hour classes in the morning and several more in the afternoon and are included in the Core Conference, even though the Core Conference doesn't start until Wednesday. 4 of the 5 morning courses were designed for specialty trades - insulating sidewalls, optimizing HVAC, etc. - so I went to the 5th, which sounded right up my alley, House as a System.
David Keefe is an experienced, quality speaker who has apparently retired from a few decades of working in the Efficiency field and now speaks. It's not easy to speak for 4 hours with only a 15 minute break. He warned us early in the session that it would be a fairly basic but complete going over of the Home Performance field and that's what it was. He spend an hour or more setting up and describing concepts and history, and the rest of the time talking about how things are done and going over in detail why we have to be so careful about indoor air quality issues when we tighten up a house. Using several detailed examples, he kept coming back to the idea that Home Performance Contracting is a large and complex discipline and if people are considering entering it, they must buy in to the 'house as a system' or risk serious health and safety consequences. 4 hours is a long time when I already know and believe what he was talking about so I sat in the back rows where I could micro-nod off in peace. I slipped out for a while to check in to my hotel before returning in time to get CEU credits for the course. (Oops, did I just say too much? BPI?)
The afternoon selection was an easy one: John Snell and Matt Schwoegler of the Snell Group were here from Vermont to talk about IR cameras and that course was GREAT! Fun speakers in a tag team fashion, plenty of humorous examples of mistakes made amd enough new tips to keep me busy with my camera for months. Great stuff. I've been wanting to take Snell's Level 1 Thermography class but it's $1500, which is out of my budget for the foreseeable future but apparently they're trying to put together a simpler class just for us Building Energy Nerds who will only be certified to use our IR cameras on building and promise we won't try to explain why the sky measures -22 degrees or other non-building questions. The down side is that RESNET, one of my HERS certifying agencies, is eventually going to require this certification.
I've met several folks that I know already and I expect to meet more on Wednesday, when more people arrive for the main part of the Conference. An impressing number of people fly in from other States. So Wednesday morning - it's off to the Main Floor to meet up with quite a few people that I only know from phone conversations. It'll be great to put faces to the names.
Monday is what's called the "Pre-Conference Summit", costs an extra several hundred bucks and did not include enough of interest for me to attend. If you're interested, the ACI Conference website lists what went on that day. I want to talk about my personal view of the Conference so this Blog starts on Tuesday.
Tuesday has two parts to it: it's the second and last day of the Pre-Conference Summit but it also has several 4 hour classes in the morning and several more in the afternoon and are included in the Core Conference, even though the Core Conference doesn't start until Wednesday. 4 of the 5 morning courses were designed for specialty trades - insulating sidewalls, optimizing HVAC, etc. - so I went to the 5th, which sounded right up my alley, House as a System.
David Keefe is an experienced, quality speaker who has apparently retired from a few decades of working in the Efficiency field and now speaks. It's not easy to speak for 4 hours with only a 15 minute break. He warned us early in the session that it would be a fairly basic but complete going over of the Home Performance field and that's what it was. He spend an hour or more setting up and describing concepts and history, and the rest of the time talking about how things are done and going over in detail why we have to be so careful about indoor air quality issues when we tighten up a house. Using several detailed examples, he kept coming back to the idea that Home Performance Contracting is a large and complex discipline and if people are considering entering it, they must buy in to the 'house as a system' or risk serious health and safety consequences. 4 hours is a long time when I already know and believe what he was talking about so I sat in the back rows where I could micro-nod off in peace. I slipped out for a while to check in to my hotel before returning in time to get CEU credits for the course. (Oops, did I just say too much? BPI?)
The afternoon selection was an easy one: John Snell and Matt Schwoegler of the Snell Group were here from Vermont to talk about IR cameras and that course was GREAT! Fun speakers in a tag team fashion, plenty of humorous examples of mistakes made amd enough new tips to keep me busy with my camera for months. Great stuff. I've been wanting to take Snell's Level 1 Thermography class but it's $1500, which is out of my budget for the foreseeable future but apparently they're trying to put together a simpler class just for us Building Energy Nerds who will only be certified to use our IR cameras on building and promise we won't try to explain why the sky measures -22 degrees or other non-building questions. The down side is that RESNET, one of my HERS certifying agencies, is eventually going to require this certification.
I've met several folks that I know already and I expect to meet more on Wednesday, when more people arrive for the main part of the Conference. An impressing number of people fly in from other States. So Wednesday morning - it's off to the Main Floor to meet up with quite a few people that I only know from phone conversations. It'll be great to put faces to the names.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Single Use Plastic Bag Blues
I love to visit Mexico. I like the climate, most things about the culture, and it's nearby. Possibly my least favorite part is one that's most obvious in the open desert: the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag. Festooning (or is it infesting?) the low growing shrubs, hanging on by their well-designed handles, blowing sideways in the wind. My (ex) brother in law had an apt turn of phrase for it. He said “The Bag Bushes are in bloom.” Of course, we're far from immune on this side of the border. The sheer quantity of discarded bags is less here but not the eyesore-ness.
Not to mention the sheer waste. Plastic food store shopping bags, made from HDPE – high density polyethylene – are made from natural gas. About 600 BTUs worth. That's a relatively small amount; a therm, the unit of natural gas we see on our monthly utility bills, is 100,000 BTUs and we only pay a couple of bucks for that. But let's multiply that by roughly one hundred billion, the number of single-use plastic shopping bags made and used each year in the US. I think numbers are more graphic than the written word here: 100,000,000,000. That's a lot of zeros. Multiply that by 600 BTUs and, well, you can do the math.
A few quick facts to bludgeon the subject with: World wide, there are roughly a trillion bags produced every year. More than 97% are thrown away. 10% or so eventually make it in to the ocean, where they drift for years or sink to the bottom. One report estimates that every square mile of the ocean averages 46,000 floating pieces of plastic. When a plastic bag does eventually start to break down, it releases BPA, PCBs, and other nasties which are known hormone mimics or are implicated in cancer. 4% of the entire world's oil production goes to making plastic bags. An average car driving one mile uses the same amount of energy as it takes to make 14 single use plastic bags. An estimated one billion seabirds and sea mammals are killed every year by ingesting plastic. The numbers are staggering.
Oddly enough, one thing that's worse is paper. It takes more than 4 times as much energy to create a paper bag than a plastic one and it takes twice as much energy to recycle a paper bag as plastic. The plastic/paper choice at the checkout stand is not so easy.
Which brings us to reusable bags. As you can guess, they're not all made the same. Polypropylene, cotton, HDPE, LDPE, they each have their own sized carbon footprint. Cotton, though the best feeling of the lot, takes roughly a hundred uses to pay for itself at the '600 BTUs/single use plastic bag' rate. If you wash your cotton bags, the payback pushes off even further. It turns out that the simple polypropylene bag is the most ecologically economical, with a payback of 4 to 6 uses.
Other countries are far ahead of the US in the push to eradicate the invasive desert 'bag bushes'. California requires food stores to provide bag recycling, which could be considered a start. San Francisco was the first American city to actually ban plastic bags even though opponents argued, with some validity, that the ban would actually increase pollution. Seattle followed soon after by charging a fee per plastic bag used.
Other countries, though were far ahead of the U.S. Australia, many African countries, China, and Europe have all been controlling plastic bag use and production for much of the last decade.
So why are we still using so many? I'm a perfect example of American laziness. Half the time I forget to put my reusable shopping bags back in the car after I unload in my kitchen. And even when I remember to take them in to the store, I still tear off two or three of those clear vegetable bags to hold my vegetables on the way to the checkout. Why? Why is it so hard for me to completely shake those Single Use Plastic Bag Blues?
I've just realized part of what I want from writing this: embarrassment. I want to stand there in the checkout line and know you are watching me with my vegetables in plastic bags. Of course it's silly, but if it's that little extra internal push that helps me remember my reusable shopping bags, I'll use it. Similar to smoking, peer pressure is what will make the plastic bag choice visible. I'm ready to change my behavior, to do my part in making reusable bags the social norm.
Somehow, I suspect our grandkids would thank us for it.
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