Light and Heat

Jun 15, 2022 | Homeowners, Uncategorized

What if every light switch in your home controlled every lightbulb in every room? You’d basically have two choices at night – light up the whole house or sit in the dark. 

Sounds crazy, right? Who would want that? Not many, I’d guess. It also would not be very energy efficient. Yet this is how central heating works (in essence). If you want more heat in the living room in the evening, you have to turn up the heat in every room. Unoccupied rooms during the day get more heat just because you’re cold in your office, ad nauseam. Arbitrarily changing the heat for the occupants of other rooms not only can affect their comfort levels but also start a thermostat battle.

Forced air systems, even energy efficient mini-split systems, are also limited in effectiveness because of a fact about ambient air temperature. Cool air readily travels from the source throughout a home since it flows down where everyone is. But warm air begins to rise as soon as it enters a space. And, with central air systems, heat is lost as it travels through ducts. Closing the register in an unused room just means the heat will move through the ducting to that room, cooling down the whole way, only to have no access and, therefore, to wasted effect.

In contrast to hot air, far infrared light is the invisible part of sunlight that heats the land, water, etc. directly. Then, the heat is shed into the air. So, just as we simulate the visible light of the sun with electric lighting, we can do the same with the heat of the sun using technology that shines far infrared light into our spaces.

Infrared radiant heat allows for room-by-room control. A warm bathroom doesn’t affect a cooler, unoccupied bedroom. A boost of cozy warmth in the family room on movie night doesn’t affect the temperature of the laundry room. Since one of the most significant factors in both comfortable and energy efficient heat comes down to control, infrared radiant heat can maximize efficiency without sacrificing comfort.

Think about what happens when you need to change a lightbulb. You take the old one out and put in a new one. And, just like changing a lightbulb, only the room it is in is significantly affected. Whereas, if your furnace, heat pump, or mini-split system fails, your home will be left in the cold until a repair or replacement can be made.

As such, when you think about infrared radiant heat, approach it like you might approach lighting — room by room control. Infrared radiant heat will help you achieve maximum comfort while using as little energy as possible to get the job done.

For more information, contact us at info@mightyenergy.net or 206.880.1558

 

The Human Touch

Apr 26, 2022 | Case Studies, Uncategorized

Mighty Energy Solutions has always been about providing direct, person-to-person customer service, and affordable, effective, and durable products that help reduce carbon emissions and save energy. And, with more and more of us working from home, we are  looking to improve our spaces. However, with the safety concerns and precautions needed to shop face-to-face in a showroom, online shopping for durable goods and large appliances has increased significantly. And, even as we come out of this unprecedented global crisis, the new level of online shopping is unlikely to revert to pre-pandemic levels.

The good news is that shopping online is better for the environment and our schedules. Online purchases are delivered directly to customers by well-established shipping companies specializing in efficient logistics. The number of cars, borrowed pick-up trucks, etc. driving from showroom to showroom, and carting items home has decreased substantially. This saves people a great deal of time. And has reduced the amount of fuel burned and carbon emissions associated with going out shopping and getting our purchases to our homes.

However, between huge, impersonal platforms such as Amazon, and so many products coming from overseas, working directly with human beings – let alone the same person from inquiry about the products to final delivery – is becoming the exception rather than the rule. And, we have all been made aware of the supply chain issues, increased likelihood of shipping delays, higher rates of damage in transit, and all the rigmarole involved in returning or exchanging products that are either not working properly or not the right fit for the job.

So, when you can call and/or email an actual human being who offers you professional guidance and solid customer service, and who will stick with you throughout the process, it can be a big relief. Mighty Energy Solutions is proud to be among the companies – often small businesses – who have always offered this level of quality service and support.

If you need a new heating system for your remodel, renovation, new build, or just an upgrade of your old system, call us at 206.880.1558 or email us at info@mightyenergy.net to find more about what we can do for you. We will always work to find you the best solution for your project. And we are always happy to assist you every step of the way.

A New Reality Requires a New Approach

Mar 16, 2022 | Case Studies, Uncategorized

This unprecedented pandemic has lasted over two years so far. It has changed the way we live. Even as certain precautions are being eased in the coming weeks, that could change with little notice. Certainly, we all hope the worst is over. However, now that we have learned to make so many adjustments in our lives, we can better prepare for similar events that may come going forward.

We’ve gotten used to wearing masks, social distancing, etc. And we have also seen shifts in how the economy works. Many of us are now working from home instead of going into the office. We are ordering more online and shopping less in stores. There have been seemingly random shortages of various items – even staples such as toilet paper. Most of us have had to endure longer turn-around times on orders, especially of durable goods. Building materials for home improvement projects have been hit hard. Almost everything has gone up in price. And, by now, everyone seems to have heard and used the term ‘supply chain issues’  – some for the first time in their lives.

Mighty Energy has always followed the policy of selling products (and all their components) that are made in the America. Initially, we saw this as a way to reduce the carbon emissions associated with all the shipping involved in gathering and turning raw materials into finished products. It turns out that this policy has also minimized our supply chain issues when compared to many other durable goods. However, our business has not been entirely immune.

Even with products fully made in America, these issues have cropped up. COVID has found its way into factories in the chain. A big uptick in demand for shipping services has strained that system. And manufacturers everywhere are scrambling to find new suppliers, creating greater competition for in-country sources. All of this has resulted in delays and price increases.

No one wants this outcome, and we’re all hoping for a return to a more ‘reasonable’ status quo. It’s hard to know when this will happen. And it’s just as hard to say and what ‘reasonable’ will mean. So, part of the adjustment is going to require planning ahead a little further out. Budgets are going to be trickier to work-out. The work itself has become more difficult to schedule. It would be good, in this respect, to consider what efficiency and durability mean to this process.

For example, Ducoterra heating panels have a lifetime warranty, will last decades, and electric infrared heating systems in general have the lowest cost of ownership over time. They are among the easiest heating systems to fix. And, if something does go wrong, it won’t leave your whole house without heat if you need to send a heater to the factory for repair or replacement.

Also, as our factories have faced all the various curve balls thrown at them, they have made adjustments that render the all-American supply chain far more stable than could be accomplished using overseas components, let alone supplying imported products.

One final thing to consider is that, more and more, we are finding it safest to gather outdoors whenever possible. This can be a pleasant adjustment in any case. However, the weather does not always allow it. So, many people are working on projects to cover patios and decks. And, to get as much as a hundred extra days a year of use out of these spaces, people are installing INFRATECH infrared patio heaters. INFRATECH has been around for fifty years and are the standard in quality, outdoor heating solutions. So, if you are going to spend the money to make your outdoor spaces more friendly, and your gatherings more pandemic resistant, you may want to invest in making those spaces comfortably usable much more of the time. And infrared radiant heat is the only way to effectively ‘heat the great outdoors.’

We have all received hard lessons in not knowing what to expect in this tumultuous time. But, if we’ve learned anything, it’s that with the proper steps and preparation, we can stay ahead of the curve and weather these kinds of global storms in greater comfort and safety for the long haul.

For more information and answers to any questions you may have about infrared radiant heating solutions, please call 206.880.1558 or email info@migthyenergy.net.

A Flexible Approach to Heating Challenges

Feb 17, 2022 | Uncategorized

Architects, contractors, and specialty trades all know that having many approaches to solve the challenges of their client’s projects gives them a great advantage. One area where this can be particularly true is in how a building is heated.

No Ducts – Only Architecture

Mini-split ductless heat pump systems are an extremely efficient heating solution for projects with large, open-concept spaces. There are no ducts and vents to install.  The conditioned air moves directly from the cassette through the rooms and hallways. And it provides both warm and cool air for all-season comfort. Also, the only connection between inside and out are a couple of pipes for the refrigerant. So no outdoor air pollutants are pumped into your house.

Cool air moves downward. So, mini-splits do a great job of cooling your space. However, in colder months, since warm air rises, the further a room is from the cassette, the less heat reaches it. This can cause ineffective heating and create cool spots/rooms. One solution, of course, is to install multiple cassettes in various rooms throughout the home. However, this quickly gets costly, and requires multiple  holes in the exterior walls for the refrigerant plumbing to reach the multiple cassettes. And every penetration of the building envelope increases the risk of temperature exchange with the outside. Sure, a ducted heat pump could be installed instead, but those are also costly and have limits to their effectiveness. Additionally, it means more moving parts that can fail, and increases the chance that refrigerants will leak.

This is where electric, infrared radiant heat comes in as a great supplement to cover insufficiently heated spaces. This solution also requires no ducting and, in fact, no further penetrations in the building envelope. As easy to install as can lighting, it rounds out the system at a lower cost, allows for room by room control. And, with no moving parts, it will likely last as much as twice as long as the mini-split itself.

Less Can be More Appropriate

In the case of small, tightly built ADU/DADUs, and additions, mini-splits are generally overkill both for what the space needs in terms of heating power and often even cooling power, as well as for the client’s bank account. Once again, infrared radiant heat fits the bill perfectly: no mechanical room to add, no ducts, no holes in the exterior walls. Just wire and mount them, and you’ve provided your client with efficient, cozy heat that can readily be controlled with the simplest thermostat or the most sophisticated home management system. Ducoterra ultra-slim, infrared radiant ceiling panels are especially favored by designers as they are completely silent, paintable, nearly invisible, and carry a lifetime warranty. 

Retrofitting an Upgrade

If your client needs to replace an hydronic system with a broken boiler or leaky plumbing, or a faulty electric furnace, you will keep their costs down with a brand-new infrared radiant system. And you can get them back the space used up by the boiler and registers, or furnace and ducts. Or, you can get rid of noisy, inefficient cadet heaters and obtrusive baseboards with clean, silent, far more efficient heaters that are up and out of the way.

Cost Effectiveness and Custom Comfort at Scale

Maybe you have a big job like a high-rise condo or office building, and the bathrooms or individuated office spaces need primary or supplemental heat. Wires are much easier and less expensive to install into each of these spaces than hydronic plumbing or forced air ducting. Even multiple head mini-split ductless systems quickly become cumbersome solutions for these rooms. And, at these scales, the costs, especially for installation,  rapidly add up. Infrared radiant heat can be the perfect solution to keep costs down, customize, and manage heat distribution to occupied spaces.

Concerns about the new energy code? We’ve got you covered. 

Are you a homeowner working with a contractor uneasy about using something they haven’t used before? Let’s all jump on a phone or video meetup.

Call 206.880.1558 or email sales@mightyenergy.net

Cooking with Gas?

Cooking with Gas?

Nov 4, 2021 | Case Studies, Uncategorized

By now, anyone paying serious attention to what is happening to our climate and ecosystem (global life-support,) as well as to the economic nature of finite extraction resource supplies being played out, knows that we must move away from burning things for energy. Poor air quality, catastrophic climate change, and peak resource availability are all major downsides to our reliance on fossil fuels. This includes burning natural gas.

In January of 2019, the city of Berkeley California became the first American city to ban gas lines going into new construction. The City of Seattle followed suit, in a more limited way, banning gas lines going into commercial buildings and apartment buildings taller than three stories. These regulations are a response to the obvious truth that we must stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible.

So why are we still cooking with gas? This is, in part, because we don’t yet have the clean energy capacity to simply stop. The renewable energy infrastructure required needs to be built out, even in the Northwest which has had clean hydropower for around 130 years. Also, since so much of our built environment is hooked up to sources of natural gas for heating, hot water, and cooking, the transition will be daunting. However, at least we can begin to stop adding to this latter issue even as we move to solve the clean energy supply challenge.

Natural gas is mostly extracted now – largely because it is becoming scarcer and scarcer – using the technique of fracking. This process is well-known to contaminate water supplies with undisclosed chemicals, produce earthquakes in areas with little natural seismic activity, and release massive plumes of leaking gas that are barely even monitored, let alone mitigated. It is delivered through pipelines that can leak (or even explode) or transported in vehicles that can crash and, at best, are burning even more fossil fuel in the process – including driving back empty to get more. And methane is notoriously a more powerful (though shorter-lived) greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide by an order of magnitude.

Natural gas emits carbon dioxide when used as intended. This is the best-case scenario. And in buildings, except largely for the use of outdoor grills and patio heaters, this is happening inside. It’s clear that burning natural gas not only adds to our carbon emissions, but also to the degradation of our indoor air quality.

With the efficiency and affordability of mini-split ductless heat pumps, infrared radiant heat, and heat pump water heaters and dryers, putting a central gas furnace, boiler, water heater, or dryer into a new building seems an obvious mistake. This is especially true as they are rapidly becoming obsolete. But because of a popular perception (not sufficiently substantiated by fact,) that cooking with gas is best, people still want gas ovens and ranges.

It’s true that gas ranges supply precisely controllable heat. So, people continue to want the gas line coming into their homes. And, if you have a gas line coming into your home, the options of using gas water heaters, heating systems, and dryers remain on the table.

However, new electric induction cooking technologies provide more precise control of heat than gas. They heat food up faster. They heat more evenly. They heat more efficiently. And they are a natural fit for the all-electric home. And the all-electric home becomes cleaner and more efficient automatically as the energy infrastructure becomes cleaner and more efficient.

We need to take natural gas off the table and out of the kitchen entirely.

Repair or Replace – how easy can it be?

Oct 1, 2021 | Case Studies, Uncategorized

Firsthand Experience

As General Contractors, it wasn’t their first installation of infrared heaters in a space. But, when Mighty Energy Solutions’ co-founders, Laura and Doug Elfline, got sick and tired of replacing parts in the electric furnace that was the only source of heat in their West Seattle rambler, they saw it as an opportunity to make their home more energy efficient and more comfortable at the same time.

They chose to upgrade to the two most efficient (and all electric) heating and cooling solutions available: a mini-split ductless heat pump in the open concept space at one end, and infrared radiant heat in the rest of the home. Mini-splits are great for the main space they are installed in. However, without ducting, the architecture becomes the path for the forced air to travel through. Cool air travels low and easily reaches all the spaces. Hot air, on the other hand, rises into the unused space above everyone’s head as it moves into the space. The further away from the mini-split, the colder the rooms become. This makes an infrared radiant solution in the rooms down the hall a perfect addition. And the advantages didn’t stop there. There was no need to heat the bedrooms during the day when they were not in use. And it was never necessary to turn the heat up in the whole house when it was chilly in one room.

From this firsthand experience, it became clear that one major advantage of the infrared radiant products Mighty Energy provides is just how easy it makes replacing an inefficient, ineffective, or broken down heating system.

 Avoiding Future Headaches and Expense

One customer already had infrared radiant heat and loved it for years. It was the kind that was installed above the sheetrock in the ceiling. But then a tree fell on the house and ruined it. The home was repaired along with the ceiling. The homeowners could have opted to have the system they loved replaced in the process. Instead, they chose Ducoterra‘s  SolaRay II ceiling panels. Why? Because they provide the same cozy, direct, silent heat, are super thin, paintable, and almost as unobtrusive as their previous heating system. Plus, they offer the additional peace of mind that a lifetime warranty combined with simple process to uninstall and replace the panels in the event of failure for any unexpected reason.

Another Disaster Mitigated

Twenty years ago, a high-rise condo went up in Bellevue, WA. The units, which now sell for over $750,000, were fitted out with a hydronic heating system. Hydronic systems provide radiant heat from hot water. Recently, some of the units experienced major failures. In this case, this entailed large volumes of water leaking into the unit and, in some cases, into the unit below. In at least one case, the damage was over $10,000 just to clean up and repair. The heating system in that home was now defunct and the home owner had no intention of trying to repair it only to have it catastrophically fail again.

Had the systems been properly installed, this may never have been an issue. However, it became clear that, since the system was installed by the same outfit in every unit, the risk of more failures throughout the building was mounting. There is no space in the units for a ducted system. There isn’t even the proper space outside the units for a mini-split compressor. The ceilings are covered in can lighting and the tops of the walls house a sprinkler system. This ruled out the Ducoterra ceiling panels and even Radiant System’s Comfort Cove heaters that Mighty Energy also offers. However, BioSmart‘s in-wall solution turned out to be the perfect fit – literally.

These 1000 watt, whisper quiet, infrared radiant heaters fit perfectly into the existing cavities that housed the hydronic heaters. And the risk of flooding is gone for every unit that chooses this option. In addition, in the event that a heater should fail – either in the five year warranty period, or decades down the road, repair and/or replacement will not be complicated or overly expensive. And, in the brief interim waiting for repair, the other heaters will still radiate warmth rather than leaving the homeowner to tolerate an entire home without heat.

Some Solutions are Great – Until They Aren’t

It’s true that our infrared radiant heaters warm up the floor in the rooms they are installed in. They take off that cold edge, which is especially nice in the bedrooms and bathrooms where people are most likely to be barefoot at night and in the morning when the temperature is the lowest. That said, we would be the last people to claim that underfloor radiant heat in a bathroom isn’t awesome. Getting out of the shower onto warmed-up tiles is a simple luxury that is hard to beat. Still, what happens if it fails. Improper installation, the occasional factory flaw, etc. can mean the system stops working or, perhaps, never works properly. There is always the possibility of installation errors or factory flaws with any system or device. With underfloor radiant heat, if this happens, you have to tear up the floor to get at the problem.

Other Solutions are Simply Great

With the installed infrared solutions Mighty Energy offers, many repairs are a simple matter of a part replacement. And if any of our products happens to fail, removing a few screws and wires is all it takes to get at and resolve the issue. And, did we mention that there are no filters to clean, no moving parts, and little to no maintenance whatsoever for decades?

So, when you are choosing a method of heating your home, consider how much of hassle you want to deal with when it comes time to fix, upgrade, or replace it. We doubt you’ll find a great solution that is also as easy to live with as our products.