Ideal Bite

When planting shade trees near your home, choose trees that naturally grow in your area. Many popular domestic plants and trees are probably not native to your area and pose a threat to the survival of native species. Check your local botanical garden for a list of native trees in your region.

Keep in mind that your A/C will run better if you also shade the unit outdoors, As we wait for our trees to grow, we have placed panels in front of the unit,far enough out not to block air flow but close enough to keep the sun from hitting the outdoor unit directly. If you think about it those coils work so much harder when they are in the blistering sun. And this way you only have to see them during regular maintance.

Planting trees in some areas of the country is a great idea but in other parts this may not work well. Some of the hottest places can be the driest and require lots of water. I'm surprised a house looses up to 50% of its heating and cooling through windows. Don't we just love the "up to" numbers. If one really wants to save on their heating and cooling look into Whole House Performance, Building Science, Passive House. Designing a building properly, properly sizing the heating and cooling to the building, installing properly and testing to be sure it all works together, install properly the air barrier and thermal envelope can reduce the heating and cooling 90% or more. Then we add some PV to supply the rest of the load. We now have a building that is unlikely to ever freeze in the winter even in N Dakota with no heat on or get too hot in hottest of our climates. It is all a package and if done correctly we have energy efficient, comfortable, carbon reduced, durable homes that will last for generations or we can just keep doing business as usual and...we will keep complaining about how uncomfortable and expensive our homes are. I do Home Performance testing and training, it is criminal what we find in homes of all eras. Homes less than 10 years old that have duct leakage so bad we cannot test is. Insulation that is so poorly installed it has little or no performance, houses that leak air so bad we cannot test them, HVAC systems over sized 200& and more, poor air flow in HVAC system, no vapor barrier on the ground, no bath vent fans (who regularly opens their bath window for at least 20-30 minutes during and after a shower?), large amounts of West facing glass in cooling climates, high static filters increasing duct leakage and decreasing air flow, poor introduction of air into rooms by HVAC systems, water pipe runs so long hot water never gets to the faucet (yes I've seen this), pressures from leaky dusts closing interior doors and vent fans causing back drafting combustion appliances, increasing infiltration and decreasing indoor air quality, the list goes on. And do not think these are isolated cases. Take a Home Performance tester to 99.9% of the houses in the country and you will get a huge list. Andy Wahl AC Home Performance

I discovered Solar Screens and absolutely recommend them! They are custom right at your house, made to fit your windows, guaranteed for life (they are super sturdy) and cut the temp right inside the window by 10 degrees!! I tried a few and loved them so much I now have them on all my windows. At last I am well into the heat of the summer without even turning on the A/C!

Isn't it true that more energy is used to heat homes in winter than to cool them in summer? So wouldn't the warm sun do more good shining into the house in winter than it would do bad in the summer?

I was more than a little dismayed to see this advice, "Check Lowe's for advice on the best types of trees to plant for shade...." Are you kidding me? A national retailer with absolutely no stake in organic, sustainable or regional planting? The national building supply chains in my area didn't even carry natives or adapted plants until a few years ago. It took them years of fulfilling lifetime guarantees for customers who kept bringing back dead maples for them to even figure that out. Even now the plants they sell aren't locally grown so they have a hard time surviving. Wouldn't "Check with your local organic nursery..." be much better advice and more in-line with what Ideal Bites are supposed to be about? And if people don't have a local organic nursery, well, so be it, they go wherever it is they buy plants. Their state's agricultural extension office most likely offers some advice on the trees most likely to survive in their region, and would be a much more knowledgeable and reliable source than a DIY chain. Some cities even take it on themselves to promote urban forestry and offer information on the best trees to grow in local climates. Check out the growing guide from Tree Folks in Austin http://www.treefolks.org/documents/planting_guide.pdf , for instance. Another place to start is to figure out what zone you're in according to the National Arboretum http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html and get plants for that temperature range. But even that's just part of the climate story as I'm in Zone 8b in Austin, but with alkaline soils and subject to drought most every summer. That dramatically changes what I can grow successfully, and it's radically different than Gainesville, Florida in the same Zone. You're best bet is to plant local, native trees sourced from a local, native, hopefully organic nursery. That does not describe Lowe's in the slightest.

PUTTING FILM ON YOUR WINDOWS WILL ***NOT*** NOT NOT NOT NOT CUT DOWN ON YOUR A/C BILL. UV is ultraviolet light. It does not carry the heat of the sun. Infrared radiation DOES carry heat. Therefore, UV blockage doesn't stop heat. In fact, some window films darken the window which actually makes the window absorb more heat (dark colors are hotter in the sun than are lighter ones). You must put something on your windows that stops infrared radiation. The ONLY things that do that are awnings, trees or shades. And, as another person wrote, DON'T go to Lowe's to look for trees. First, find out what trees are NATIVE to your area and then go to a LOCAL nursery to buy them. Planting natives keeps your water use low.

In my area, Los Angeles, our Department of Water and Power, the LADWP, offers FREE shade trees to all home owners. You must complete a form and a work shop to recieve your tree. The details are below. Maybe there are similar programs in other areas, check with your local department of water and power for more information, or to try and start a program like this one. The program is called: Trees for a Green LA FREE Residential Shade Trees The LADWP Trees for a Green LA Program in partnership with Million Trees LA has made it simple for Los Angeles City residents to receive FREE shade trees through the Trees for a Green LA program (TFGLA). Follow these simple steps to enjoy the benefits of cool natural shade, energy efficiency, and clean air: 1. Complete an online workshop. 2. Submit your completed tree order and site plan. 3. LADWP will deliver the trees to your home; you then plant and care for them. Note: You must be an electric customer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to receive free trees. Workshop To receive your FREE trees, you must first learn how to properly plan for, plant, and protect your new trees through our workshop. You may complete the workshop online. Good Luck to Everyone and Go Green!

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