The Daymon Difference - Winter 2008/2009 - (Page 15) A couple of months ago Lisa Ferrante, Director, Innovation (BDT) was the “lucky” winner of a foreclosure auction of a small 1950’s cape house. A top to bottom renovation is in order before she can even think about living in it which is allowing her an opportunity to think about how to incorporate “green” practices into the process. Lisa is doing a lot of research on everything from low/ no VOC paints to geo-thermal heating and cooling systems. “A lot of ‘green’ practices are still in their infancy or don’t exist in our area yet so I am researching and making decisions along the way on what will work for this project,” says Lisa. For instance, no one in the area sorts or recycles demolition materials. Lisa is reusing and repurposing things where she can like wall studs and other lumber that can be turned into shelves. She also saved the beat up kitchen sink to be used in the laundry room. She is saving as much of the wood flooring as possible and Lisa’s Dream Green Home Lisa’s “Dream Green home” will patch where needed and then finish with a dark stain to hide the miss-matching. She will be installing a tank-less water heater, insulating with organic materials, using an induction cooktop, heating with propane and collecting rain water to irrigate the lawn. One of the things she is looking into is a radio frequency wiring system that would reduce the amount of wiring the house would need by about 80% saving a great deal of copper wiring as a result. our computers and other “plug-in” appliances. The panels are expected to be up and running in late December, 2008. Here Comes the Sun In September, 2008 Daymon began the installation of a solar energy system at the Daymon Resource Center in Stamford. This project germinated from an idea that one of the summer interns had and blossomed into a $2.5 million project that will provide the Stamford office with about 20% of the power that it uses annually. When the project is complete there will be over 2,000 solar panels on the roof, each generating 170 watts of power, or about what it takes to power a 42-inch color TV. Put all the panels together and we will generate 350,000 watts, which is enough to put a decent dent in our dependency on electric utility power. There are two types of basic solar systems being installed today: One type (Solar Domestic Hot Water) uses the suns rays to create hot water and is used mostly for residential applications. The other type, which Daymon is installing at the DRC, is a Photovoltaic - or PV – system, which turns the sun’s rays into electrical current in the solar panel. The panels convert sunlight into Direct Current (DC power). All of the panels are wired together and run into an inverter that converts the DC current into an Alternating Current (AC power), the kind used to power Mike Taylor (left) and Rafael Ochoa (right) review the progress of the solar panel work (below) 15
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