There is much talk of energy efficiency and the importance of saving energy at home and that these actions not only benefit the environment, but the electricity bill decreases. Technological advances allow us to enjoy the comforts of our home with less energy expenditure, but sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the maze of new concepts for energy efficiency. Here is a glossary ten essential to start saving energy in housing terms.
Thermal insulation materials are placed in ceilings, partitions and walls in winter to prevent heat from escaping to the outside in the summer and into the house. A well insulated house saves energy because it requires less conditioning. The insulating materials may be of plant origin (cork, wood fiber, etc..) Or synthetic (polyurethane foam, polystyrene, phenolic foams, etc..).
Energy Balance expresses the difference between the input and the energy losses of a process. A home that will save energy, minimize losses.
Cooling Capacity measuring the power of a cooling system that indicates the amount of heat that is capable of absorbing per operating hour. Is expressed in kilocalories per hour.
Refrigeration Efficiency Ratio (EER) measures the energy efficiency in the production of cold. An air conditioner high EER will use less energy to cool the environment, hence the importance of looking at the label when buying one.
Luminous Efficiency: it is the ratio of the luminous flux emitted by a source and electrical power consumption. It is expressed in Lumens per watt (lm / W). It can also be expressed as a percentage, in this case as luminous efficiency. For example, the efficiency of an LED lamp of 4.1 W is between 8 and 10 percent and the tungsten halogen lamp is between 2 and 3 percent, indicating that the LED is most effective.
Fluorescent: These are typical kitchen tables, which use light to generate fluorescence. The principle is the activation of particulate fluoride in a tube by ultraviolet radiation is produced by passing an electric current on mercury atoms at low pressure. Since these lamps need to warm up to its normal operation, is not recommended to turn them on and turn them off constantly if we want to save energy.
Incandescent produce light by heating a metal filament. Are inefficient because they spend most of the energy consumed in heating, and only 10 percent is transformed into light.
No frost system used to avoid the typical frost that forms on the walls of refrigerators and freezers. This creates an additional glitters electricity consumption, so that no frost appliances are more efficient from an energy standpoint.
System Energy Labelling of Appliances is a classification method that informs the user about the energy performance of an appliance compared to all of the same type and performance. It is a uniform system across the European Union. Each product has an associated letter from A in the most efficient to the G in the least.
Absorbing glasses are those that are designed to absorb more heat from the sunlight. They are ideal in cold climates because they allow heating the home naturally.