1. How Blue Are You? PRICE: Free

This app from American Standard was released in April and is part of their larger campaign to raise awareness of water usage. It helps you calculate your water usage, the cost, and compares it to national averages. It also recommends more efficient products and offers quizzes, prizes and rebates.

2. Waterprint PRICE: Free

Waterprint helps you calculate an estimate of your personal “water footprint.” The idea is to break down your water use by food, beverages, products, and overall household, then calculate your usage. The app will also compare the water footprints of different items.

3. Water Buddy 1.0 PRICE: $1.99

This app was released in late March and is focused on making it easy for you to become aware of how much water you use.  You set a usage target for a period of time and then you keep track of your water meter readings. Don’t have a clue what kind of target you would set? They’ll help. And that’s a pretty good reason to try it out in the first place. Save water and money.

4. myUse PRICE: $1.99

This app, just released in April, tracks water, electricity and gas usage. It estimates your upcoming usage, so that you can walk by the meters and make simple adjustments, rather than taking more time to transcribe the data and transfer it to a spreadsheet. It also creates charts and graphs for a variety of measurements, allowing you to compare your usage to averages and keep track over time. Readings, charts and graphs are all exportable to email.

5. Toobz PRICE: Free

This one is for fun, but carries a lesson. The challenge is to arrange a system of “toobz,” or pipes, to allow the water to flow safely through the network you’ve built. As the levels advance, you have less time to build. Spill any water and you lose. Hmmm… increasing pressure to build efficient piping networks to fulfill water needs? This may be a game, but it sounds awfully familiar.

source: www.greenlivingideas.com

Home Star is a legislative proposal designed to create jobs by providing incentives for residential energy efficiency improvements. The program will drive new private investment into the hard hit construction and manufacturing sectors, while saving consumers money on their energy bills. By building on state programs and existing industry capacity for the retrofits themselves as well as quality assurance, the program will be fast‐acting, in addition to increasing consumer awareness of residential energy efficiency.

The bill provides approximately $6 billion dollars of incentives to the American people, coupled with private investment, to generate an estimated three million home retrofits and tens of thousands of jobs, and to strengthen American industry.

INCENTIVE PROGRAMS

$250‐1500 Silver Star rebates. For the first year of the program, consumers can receive between $250 and $1500 in “point‐of‐sale” rebates for each retrofit involving individual measures, with a benefit not exceeding $3,000 or at least 50% of total project costs (whichever is less). Eligible measures include insulation, duct sealing, water heaters, HVAC systems, windows, doors, and cool roofs. Rebates will be targeted to the most energy efficient categories of upgrades, focusing on products primarily made in the United States. All retrofits must be installed by a certified contractor.

$3000 Gold Star rebates. For the first two years of the program, consumers interested in whole home retrofits would be eligible for up to $3000 “point‐of‐sale” rebate for a comprehensive energy audit and retrofits tailored to achieve a 20% energy savings in the home. Consumers can receive additional incentives for energy savings higher than 20%. The Gold Star rebate program would build on existing whole home retrofit programs, such as EPA’s Home Performance with Energy Star program and DOE’s building programs.

Rebate process. Consumers are eligible for discounted prices of the installation of Silver Star measures at the point of sale. Upon job completion, contractors submit rebate requests to rebate aggregators, such as small independent building material dealers, large national home improvement chains, merchants across the country, energy efficiency installation professionals and utility energy efficiency programs (including rural utilities) and then are reimbursed by the federal government.

$3000 performance tax credit. After the first year, consumers can receive tax credits for whole home retrofits that meet 100 HERS for buildings constructed prior to 2000, and 85 HERS for building constructed after 2000. Homeowners can receive up to $8000 in rebates or 50% of the total retrofit cost. These tax credits will be available until the end of 2013.

QUALITY ASSURANCE AND SUPPORT

Contractor qualifications. Contractors need to be licensed and insured to install the retrofits.

Independent quality assurance providers are responsible for field audits after job completion in order to ensure proper installation and measurable energy savings for consumers. States oversee the quality assurance implementation.

Financing support. Funding is included in the proposal to support State and local financing programs.
The Home Star proposal has garnered widespread support from over 500 supporters in all 50 states from the construction, manufacturing, retail sales, environmental, labor, and energy efficiency communities, and is expected to save program participants $200‐500 per year in energy costs. For more information, please see our website http://energy.senate.gov.

Join the HOME STAR Coalition

The high fuel economy helped the MSU team garner 844 out of a possible 1,000 points, earning its first-place finish. Coming in second place was the Virginia Tech University team, which built an EREV with a 40-mile electric range, also driven by a 21.3-kilowatt-hour battery pack, but with a 90-kilowatt motor. Their extended range was achieved with a flex-fueled, 2.4-liter, four-cylinder engine. Landing in third place was Pennsylvania State University, again with an EREV, which used a 12.8-kilowatt-hour battery pack to power an 80-kilowatt motor. Like the MSU team, their backup power source was a 1.3-liter, biodiesel-fueled, turbocharged diesel engine, which powered a 75-kilowatt UQM generator.

The May competition included a series of safety and technical tests at GM’s Desert Proving Grounds in Yuma, Arizona, marking the end of two years of hard work by the university teams. In the first year of the EcoCAR challenge, the teams determined the design for their vehicles, and in the second year, they had to turn those designs into reality. For the next and final year, the teams will have to refine their vehicles to near-showroom quality. In the meantime, you can participate in a Web chat with the top three teams on Friday, June 4, at 3 p.m. EDT on the EcoCAR blog site, “Inside the Green Garage.” See the press releases from GM and MSU, as well as the EcoCAR Challenge Web site.

Tom Gotschall - Instructor and Educator

The Home Builders Association of Jackson will be offering courses for industry professionals to earn their NAHB Certified Green Professional Designation on December 7-9, 2009. The CGP designation consists of two courses, Green Building for Building Professionals and Business Management for Building Professionals. In order to receive the designation both courses must be completed. The courses will be taught at the HBAJ building in Ridgeland, MS by NAHB approved speaker Thomas Gotschall.

Green Building for Building Professionals (2 day course)

December 7 & 8, 2009

8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Fee: NAHB Members $275 • Non-Members $350

More info:  LINK

Learn how green homes provide buyers with lower energy costs and higher value. This 2-day course for building professionals discusses strategies for incorporating green-building principles into homes. You will learn how green homes provide buyers lower maintenance, better indoor air quality, and better long-term value. Techniques are also discussed for competitively differentiating your home products with increased indoor environmental quality as well as energy and resource efficiency.

Business Management for Building Professionals (1 day course)

December 9, 2009

8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Fee: NAHB Members $175 • Non-Members $225

More info: LINK

Learn the management skills that give industry leaders the edge. This course will give you a solid foundation in those best business practices so valuable to smaller businesses: planning, organizing, staffing/directing and controlling. By using case studies and sample forms, your instructors give you practical and applicable tools for management success.

Need Help? Contact:

Spence Tribble
Education and Facilities Coordinator
Home Builders Association of Jackson
195 Charmant Drive, Ridgeland, MS 39157
Phone: (601) 362-6501
Fax: (601) 982-7684
spence@hbajackson.com
www.hbajackson.com

Do Business with a Member.

Listen to Mississippi Public Radio interview of Bo Smith, Cornerstone Lending and Dr. Ben Mokry, Senior Vice President at MHC explain the program

“This program will have an enormous impact on the 48 communities statewide that have been identified as having high foreclosure rates,” said Dianne Bolen, Executive Director of MHC. “Over the next twelve months, the Home Buyer Advantage program will help homebuyers get good value for their money while simultaneously helping their neighbors protect the value of their homes. It’s a real win-win situation for everyone involved,” she continued.

MHC estimates the Home Buyer Advantage program will help home buyers purchase 600 to 700 foreclosed properties in Mississippi. Qualified home buyers purchasing a foreclosed property are immediately eligible for a $14,999 grant. The second component of the Home Buyer Advantage Program provides an additional grant of up to $25,000 based on the buyer’s credit score. The grants are forgiven over a period of five years for the initial grant and an additional five years for the credit score-based component.

“The Home Buyer Advantage program will provide much-needed stability to communities across Mississippi that have been impacted by foreclosures,” explained Dr. Ben Mokry, Senior Vice President at MHC. “By this time next year, we will have helped these communities avoid the blight of foreclosure to remain healthy and vibrant. That is our ultimate goal with the program,” he added.

The Home Buyer Advantage program is funded by the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which was created in 2008 by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. MHC has until September 2010 to utilize its $20.7 million grant before the unused funds must be returned to the federal government. The following communities are eligible for the Home Buyer Advantage program: Batesville, Booneville, Brandon, Byhalia, Canton, Carthage, Clarksdale, Cleveland, Clinton, Coldwater, Columbia, Columbus, Corinth, Greenville, Greenwood, Grenada, Hattiesburg, Hernando, Holly Springs, Horn Lake, Itta Bena, Jackson, Kosciusko, Laurel, Lumberton, Madison, Magnolia, McComb, Meridian, Natchez, Nesbit, New Albany, Olive Branch, Oxford, Pearl, Petal, Pontotoc, Raymond, Ridgeland, Senatobia, Southaven, Starkville, Sumrall, Terry, Tupelo, Vicksburg, Walls, and Yazoo City.

For more information about the Home Buyer Advantage program, including detailed program guidelines and a list of approved lenders, visit www.mshomecorp.com/hba. Parties who wish to learn more about the Mississippi Home Corporation should contact MHC directly at 601.718.INFO (4636) or at www.mshomecorp.com.