Get the Lead Out

Lead is a neurotoxin and even in very small dosages it can be a very dangerous substance. It’s right up there with mercury as far as bad stuff to have in us and it is especially damaging to children under age six whose bodies are still developing. Lead can cause nervous system damage, stunted growth, and delayed development. It can cause kidney damage and affects every organ system of the body. It also is dangerous to adults, and can cause reproductive problems for both men and women. It’s also been linked to ADHD. I do remember my brother chewing on the door casing, come to think of it.

Anyway, the ban on lead paint started in 1897 when Australian doctors discovered that there was a connection between lead paint and childhood illnesses when they noticed that children who were eating lead paint from porch railings were getting sick. This conclusion led European countries, such as France, Belgium, Austria and Great Britain, to ban lead-based paint in the early 1900s.

“Lead” paint was banned in US homes in 1978 by the Consumer products Safety Commission somewhat after our European neighbors got the lead out. At one time, the majority of homes in the US had lead based paints at their interiors and especially exteriors, as lead was (is) an excellent additive for durability. Less and less lead paint was used as we progress through the 1900’s until it’s removal from the marketplace in 1978.

A very small amount of lead, even a gram or less, can be very dangerous. One myth related to lead-based paint is that the most common cause of poisoning was eating leaded paint chips, like my brother. In fact, the most common pathway of childhood lead exposure is through ingestion of lead dust through normal hand-to-mouth contact during which kids swallow lead dust dislodged from deteriorated paint or leaded dust generated during remodeling or painting.

Like it or not, the EPA has taken a very strong step towards controlling the presence of lead “dust” in construction projects. Owners of houses built before 1978 or contractors who work on such homes should pay special attention. Supposedly, on or after April 22, 2010, companies working on pre-1978 homes as well as child-occupied facilities must be certified and use lead-safe work practices during any renovations.

The rule applies to remodeling projects that disturb more than six square feet of painted surfaces inside, or 20 square feet outside, of residential structures built before 1978. It requires that the contractor and certain subcontractors be certified to work with lead-based paint under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP), and follow specific "lead-safe work practices" to prevent lead exposure to humans. That includes testing for the presence of lead-based paint in the work area.

The rule does not apply to homeowners working on their own houses. If one is a contractor who is not certified, they can be fined $37,000 per day per rule violation. The EPA licenses certain organizations, such as local building organizations, to administer training and certification courses to become a Certified Renovator.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.

The True Cost of Oil

The recent and ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is just one tragic and ugly incident in the history of the world oil industry, as miners’ deaths are to the coal industry. To be fair, most industries have a dark side to some extent.

Usually when the subject of using alternative energies, such as solar or wind, to wean us of our “addiction to oil” comes up, there’s always the complaint that such technologies only work if they are subsidized and can’t be competitive with oil and coal.

The Gulf oil spill is just a small example of the peripheral costs of the oil industry. But wait, there’s more! To get a true idea of the cost of a gallon of gas, we need to look at such things as the cost of oil-related defense expenditures, the loss of jobs and economic activity because of the trade imbalance (foreign oil imports are a significant part of our chronic trade deficits), the loss of government revenues, and the cost of periodic supply disruptions.

The National Defense Council Foundation has estimated that after 2006 the annual cost to defend Persian Gulf oil was approximately $140 billion a year, the loss of domestic employment from sending our money overseas was approximately $118 billion a year, and the cost of spending our industry reinvestment money overseas was close to $400 billion a year. When we spend our dollars overseas, our jobs go with it. The Department of Energy has estimated that every $1 billion dollars of trade deficit costs America 27,000 jobs and that we have spent over $7 trillion dollars on our oil dependency over the last 30 years.

The estimated cost per gallon for our oil dependency would add anywhere between $5.00 to $8.00 per gallon on top of what we pay at the pump. This doesn’t include, by the way, the lives of our soldiers and others who have died protecting our oil supply. So the next time someone, be they Democrat, Republican, Tea Partier or whatever, complains that we shouldn’t support domestic home grown energy technologies because they cost too much, have them do their homework. Maybe they can take their laptop to the beach!

Who/what is TED?

The Energy Detective, also known as TED, is an energy demand feedback device that promotes energy conservation by making residential consumers aware of how much electrical energy is being used in their homes. Reportedly, this device can help reduce energy consumption by 10%-20%. This device provides immediate feedback on your energy usage so you can decide where and when to reduce your consumption. But of course, like all advice, you must take it in order for it to work.

Essentially, TED is no different from the utility company energy meter on the outside of your home, but it’s displayed indoors at a place where it can be more conveniently read, and displays some extra information of interest to the user. This device comes in two parts - an electromagnetic transducer that sits at the power mains to measure the total power usage and transmits it over the power wiring, and a receiver device that receives the signal and displays it to the user.
TED tracks kilowatt-hours, and optionally computes cents per hour and estimates the month's electric bill.

TED's transmitter only transmits its signal over a single phase of household wiring. Most houses have two incoming phases divided evenly throughout the house. TED's receiver usually can only receive if it's plugged into an outlet on the same phase as its transmitter. A phase bridge, such as one compatible with X10 home automation equipment, can overcome this limitation. Despite TED's ability to only transmit over a single phase, it does include the necessary equipment to properly measure power usage on both phases.

A research project by the Florida Solar Energy Center has successfully used the device to develop a protocol which can be used to inventory the electrical demand of all household appliances. This same research has installed the device in twenty households with the intention of evaluating pre/post household behavior after a year of having the device available.

The TED receiver displays power measurements with a resolution of 10 watts, and updates every 1 second. The actual measurement hardware in TED may have a higher resolution, with a granularity as low as 1 watt. All data is stored in nonvolatile memory, so there is no data loss on power outage.

One of the coolest aspects of the TED is the use of the “Footprints” software which allows you to monitor your usage on your PC. The software will cost you $50+/ -. There is a brief You Tube video which explains this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_XIOp19kk.

Although ours is being installed, it is supposedly easy to install by a “qualified” homeowner, whatever that means. When I open an electrical panel, I personally prefer to have an electrician standing next to me! The cost for the TED 1001 is about $150.

Jeff Good
Benchmark General Contractors, Inc.