Meanwhile, Ivan Whitworth’s work with Ed Wagner’s Green home was featured on KHNL’s 2 PM Eco Effect TV show.   Ivan discussed ways to cook while limiting heat in the kitchen, and discussed how improved ventilation contributed to keeping this Mililani home cool.  Ivan will air a follow up interview on Eco Effect radio with host Charlene,  on March 9 3:00 PM,

Al Whitworth was a regular caller to Jeff Davis’ talk show Hawaii’s tomorrow (KGU 760 AM) as they chatted about energy efficiency & the impact on island homes.  A segment related to the show will be aired on Olelo TV at a soon to be announced time!

We will keep you posted as we file the paperwork and launch the program. We look forward to the progress of sustainabilty and the growth of our business and friendships in Hawaii.

Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

Passive cooling

Technologies or designs used to cool a space without power consumption. Examples of passive cooling include reducing the amount of heat that enters your home and removing heat with ventilation. The following are simple ideas for staying cool this summer. Because passive cooling requires little to no electricity, you can sit back and relax—you’re guaranteed to see savings on your energy bills, and who doesn’t enjoy a little fresh air?
Read the Article: http://www.hawaiihomeandremodeling.com/articles/2009/July/cooling

We will be showcasing our Whole House Fans with a demonstration and product information so you can learn the eco-friendly and pocketbook friendly way to cool your home all year round.

We hope to see you there!

http://hawaiiwomanexpo.com

Here are some events celebrating Earth Day in Hawaii:

pr 10, 2009 – May 6, 2009 Big Island

Kona Earth Day Festival 2009
The Kona Earth Festival invites you to join us in our annual community celebration of the land and sea! With A MONTH & A HALF of activities, there is something for everyone. The Kona Earth Festival is a celebration of our natural environment and our related community ethics and practices in support of the `aina. It is an opportunity for citizens to get educated and improve our skills for ethical stewardship of the land and the sea.
Toggle EventContact: Tracy Solomon (808) 854-0171
Apr 17, 2009
5:00 pm – 9:00 pm Molokai

Molokai Earth Day Celebration 2009
Since 1995, The Nature Conservancy has sponsored Molokai Earth Day. The purpose of the event is to educate residents and visitors about the part they can play in preserving our natural and cultural resources. The event will be held on Friday, April 12th from 5:00 pm to 9:00pm at the Mitchell Pauole Center in Kaunakakai. There will be ono food, great entertainment, lots of prizes and educational displays. Come join us in celebrating Earth Day. For further information, please contact Kathy Tachibana at The Nature Conservancy 808-553-5236.
Toggle EventContact: The Nature Conservancy (808) 553-5236
Apr 18, 2009 – 7:30-Noon
7:30 am – 12:00 pm Kauai

Kauai Earth Day 2009 in Lydgate Park
The Friends of Kamalani and Lydgate Park invite you to Earth Day in Lydgate Park Saturday, April 18, 2009, 7:30 am to Noon Come share your aloha for Kauai?s kids by caring for our Park! Community Clean-Up, Landscaping, Painting, & Beach Sweep Refreshments & lunch will be served
Toggle EventContact: YWCA (808) 245-5959
Apr 18, 2009 Kauai Earth Week Clean UP
9:00 am – 11:00 am Kauai

Sat April 18 Earth Week NaWiliwili Harbor clean up: Kauai
Sierra Club, Surfrider, DLNR, the Coast Guard and NaWiliwili Yacht Club working together. Help remove marine debris from the harbor and prevent litter from entering the ocean. Bags, gloves & snacks provided. Please Bring water, broom, serrated knifes, tools if you have them. Visitors and residents …please come! Mahalo for taking care of our ocean. Meet at NaWiliwili Yacht Club at 9am. Call Karen Tilley 821-8008 if more information needed.
Toggle EventContact: Karen Tilley (808) 821-8008
Apr 19, 2009
10:00 am – 7:00 pm Maui

Maui Earth Day Festival 2009
The Maui Earth Day Festival at Baldwin Beach Park will be held on Sunday, April 19, from 10 am until sunset. Free live music and dancing all day, delicious veg food, fun for the kids, and exciting array of environmental and social awareness presentations. Main Stage & Community Stage, Food Court, Ecoville, EcoMovie Tent & More! The Earth Day Festival is a community celebration to raise awareness and promote environmental sustainability, on the planet and here on Maui. The festival showcases organizations and businesses that are actively engaged in creating a better world for all.
Toggle EventContact: Maui Earth Day (808) 573-1959
Apr 22, 2009
11:00 am – 9:00 pm Oahu

UH Earth Day 2009 Sustainability Fest
Earth Day at UH Manoa, Honolulu April 22, 2009 Open-air Marketplace 11-6pm with art and plant sales, technology demonstrations, educational booths, food and more. Concert 6-9pm, with John Cruz, Pressure Drop and more.
Toggle EventContact: Sustainable Saunders (808) 772-1874

You can try ceiling paddle fans or portable tabletop fans but any system, even air conditioners, have to work harder if the home is not properly ventilated.

Most homes have “passive” attic ventilation like eaves, gables or ridge vents. But passive ventilation is never enough to adequately reduce the 150-plus-degree temperatures that hot weather can generate in the upper spaces of a house.

This “hot box” effect acts like a giant radiator, transferring attic heat to the living spaces below. It compounds the cooling problem and sends utility bills soaring.

A first step in cooling a house means beefing up “passive” ventilation. You can do that by:

Increasing the number, size and type of vents.

Adding eave vents.

Installing gable vents.

Installing a ridge vent along the roof line.

Wind-driven turbines — those silver domes you see spinning on roofs — are also a consideration.

But no matter what method you choose, air exchange is the key. When over-heated air in your home or attic is vented and fresh air is pulled in to replace it, that’s air exchange. Cool air enters intake vents, which are located along the underside of the eaves. When air warms, it rises and moves out of the roof or gable attic vents.

Active ventilation systems use mechanical equipment — specifically fans — to exhaust hot air. Two of the most widely used are the attic fan and whole-house fan.

An attic fan, which costs less than $100 at most hardware stores, draws hot air out of the home and discharges it to the exterior. The hot air is displaced by cooler air, drawn in from vents in the eaves. A venting fan is generally placed at one of the highest points on the roof. Where a gable exists, a fan can be affixed to the inside face of the gable. In either case, the fan requires an electrical circuit, and more than one fan can be installed depending on the volume of air involved.

By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Panasonic’s whole house fan and other vent systems
are most effective when the outside air is cooler
than the air in the home.

A whole-house fan, which costs less than $250, does everything an attic fan does, but also ventilates the entire house, including the attic.

A whole-house fan draws in fresh air through windows and passes it through the attic where it’s exhausted through gable and other roof vents. You cool your home and attic at the same time, and get added benefit of fresh air.

The louvered-shutter intake system of a whole-house fan is typically installed in the attic floor at a central location of the home such as a hall. Installation is relatively simple. (All ventilating fans whether for a single room like those made by Panasonic or a whole house fan have CFM (cubic feet per minute) ratings. The rating gives you some idea of the unit’s ability to circulate air. Before buying a fan, estimate the volume of living space in your house so you know how much air the fan will have to circulate. Do this my multiplying the length of each room by the width and height, then adding the totals.

Once you’ve calculated your home’s volume, multiply this number by 0.33 to obtain the recommended fan rating. So a house that has 12,800 cubic feet of space will need a fan with a rating of 4,224 CFM.

Your attic may already have some roof vents, but with a whole house fan you may have to add more. Calculate the venting area by dividing the fans’ rating by 750. So 4,224 CFM divided by 750 requires 5.6 square feet of unrestricted vent area.

A whole house fans can cost three or four times as much as other fans, but they provide a tremendous amount of cooling effects like portable, ceiling and window fans combined.

If you only want to ventilate individual rooms, including bathrooms, take a look at Panasonic’s new Whisper Series ventilation system.

The six models — with noise levels ranging from rustling leaves to “a calm office,” the lowest currently available in a ventilating fan. The WhisperLites can ventilate up to 190 cubic feet of air a minute, or a room up to 500 square feet, depending on the model. Prices range from $94 to $229.

Ways to vent

WHOLE HOUSE FANS: The most effective and efficient, low-cost system for cooling a house. These are large fans mounted in the ceiling of the uppermost floor of a home. They work by drawing air from open windows in the house into the attic, where it is released through enlarged vents to the exterior. The air flow in the house can be controlled by the number and location of open windows, as well as the speed of the fan, which usually has several settings. Using a time switch allows you to set the fan to run at specific times.

ATTIC FANS: Attic fans, mounted on the roof, keep the home cooler by reducing the temperature of trapped warm air in the attic. If the attic is cooler, the house temperature will be lower and air conditioners will not have to work nearly as hard. These fans are inexpensive and run by a thermostat which turns the fan on automatically whenever the attic temperature goes up.

ATTIC VENTILATION: Drafty attics, not drafty houses, make for very efficient heating and cooling. In fact, a well-ventilated attic should be as close to the outside air temperature as possible. To achieve this, most homes should have a combination of ridge and soffit vents. The ridge vent, mounted along the entire peak of the roof, will allow trapped warm air and moisture to escape to the outside. To make this happen however, lower vents must be added at the soffit, which is at the underside of the roof overhang. With these vents installed, air is pushed into the soffits, rides up the underside of the roof sheathing, and exits the home at the ridge.

Learn more about Whole House Fans at Island Cooling Concepts

Honolulu, Hawaii – January 30 & 31, 2009

Blaisdell Center – 700 Ward Ave., Honolulu, HI 96814
4pm to 8pm Friday

10am to 4pm Saturday

Map It

Each Green Living Expo will feature hundreds of exhibits divided into seven major zones, including:

• Green Building & Remodeling

• Healthy Living

• Organic Products

• Kids Zone

• Eco-Car Display

• Green Living

• Green Associations

Hawai‘i 2050 seeks to engage in a dynamic and inclusive process, reaching out to all communities in a variety of settings to ensure maximum participation and communication.

Planning for a New Sustainable Hawaii.
The development of the Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability Plan is long overdue. Hawaii has changed dramatically over the past three decades when the first Hawai‘i State Plan (PDF) was adopted in 1978.

Today, there is an urgent need to assess the visionary guidance of the Hawai‘i State Plan in light of major global changes that have altered the lives of all of us who call Hawaii home. The Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability Plan is one of the most comprehensive and important public policy and strategic planning activities embarked on by State government in three decades. The State Auditor has been designated to oversee this challenging task.

Objectives
In looking forward to the future of our state, the objectives of Hawai‘i 2050 are to:
Create a new state planning process that will:
(1) guide the decisions of our policymakers, our communities, and individuals to create a sustainable Hawaii; and
(2) reflect the collective values, priorities, and aspirations of residents throughout the State about the kind of Hawaii we want.
Engage and involve as many residents as possible in an open and meaningful discussion about Hawaii’s preferred future.
Establish a mechanism to ensure that our unique islands and way of life are maintained and sustained for current and future generations to enjoy.