Electrify Arlington is a community-wide campaign to eliminate Arlington’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—the pollutants that cause climate change.
EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator: Convert emissions or energy data into concrete terms you can understand — such as the annual CO2 emissions of cars, households, and power plants.
Home Energy: Efficiency and Renewables
Air Source Heat Pumps (Ductless — or Mini-Splits and Ducted)
“It’s Time to Incentivize Residential Heat Pumps” by Amar Shah, Mark Silberg, and Claire McKenna of RMI. Heat pump technology is a particularly efficient way to heat a home, delivering two to four times more heating energy than the electricity it consumes.
Building Electrification
Rewiring America: The leading electrification nonprofit — loads of resources
Check out their Savings Calculator, which shows which programs you may be eligible for
“The key to shifting away from fossil fuels is for consumers to begin replacing their home appliances, heating systems, and cars with electric versions powered by clean electricity. The challenges are daunting, but the politics will change when the economic benefits are widely felt.”
Mass Save: A collaborative of Massachusetts’ electric and natural gas utilities and energy efficiency service providers including Eversource and National Grid. It empowers residents, businesses, and communities to make energy efficient upgrades by offering a wide range of services, rebates, incentives, trainings, and information.
Home Energy Assessments, US Department of Energy: Can help you understand the whole picture of your home’s energy use, comfort, and safety. An assessment can help you determine how much energy your home uses, where your home is inefficient, and which problem areas and fixes you should prioritize to save energy and improve the comfort of your home. A home energy assessment should be your first step before making energy-saving home improvements, as well as before adding a renewable energy system to your home.
Find an Energy Assessor: The US Department of Energy does not offer energy assessments. Visit RESNET or the Building Performance Institute to find a professional assessor near you.
A serious book about making our homes energy efficient and electrifying them. It’s also funny and accessible.
Review by Lloyd Alter. “In the conclusion, Bailes nails the real importance of this book. ‘We don’t all have to become experts in building science. But we need to know enough to find the right companies to design, build, maintain, and remodel our homes.'”
Blower Door Tests, US Department of Energy: Diagnostic tool that determines how much air is entering or escaping from your home.
Controlling moisture can make your home more energy-efficient, less costly to heat and cool, more comfortable, and prevent mold growth.
Properly controlling moisture in your home will improve the effectiveness of your air sealing and insulation efforts, and these efforts in turn will help control moisture. The best strategies for controlling moisture in your home depend on your climate and how your home is constructed. Proper ventilation should also be part of a moisture control strategy.
Read further for Foundation Moisture Control, Moisture Control in Walls, and to learn about Vapor Barriers
Energy Vanguard: Energy Vanguard’s mission is to turn houses into high performance homes. They do this by:
If you want your heating, cooling, and ventilating system to perform well, you need to start with good HVAC design. Here’s why:
You’ll get a new heating and cooling system that is sized properly. Most new air conditioners are oversized, which means they don’t dehumidify as well as they should and can break down sooner.
You’ll get a distribution system that delivers the right amount of conditioned air to each room. Many contractors skimp on this part of the HVAC system. Even if they start right with a true Manual J heating & cooling load calculation, they often don’t use Manuals S, D, and T for the equipment selection and duct design.
Your home will be comfortable and efficient. They perform detailed calculations to ensure it.
Reducing the amount of air that leaks in and out of your home is a cost-effective way to cut heating and cooling costs, improve durability, increase comfort, and create a healthier indoor environment. Caulking and weatherstripping are two simple and effective air-sealing techniques that offer quick returns on investment, often one year or less. Caulk is generally used for cracks and openings between stationary house components such as around door and window frames, and weatherstripping is used to seal components that move, such as doors and operable windows. [But see above: Caulking & Weatherstripping Don’t Fix the Big Leaks]
Saves energy and can make your home more comfortable.
Conduct a home energy audit to start building your strategy for weatherizing your home, then learn about air sealing, insulation, moisture control, and ventilation.
“… the most comprehensive source of information on incentives and policies that support renewables and energy efficiency in the United States. Established in 1995, DSIRE is operated by the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center at N.C. State University and receives support from EnergySage.”
“… experts agree that Massachusetts is an excellent location for solar systems. This section describes the different types of solar energy and how they are used in Massachusetts. In addition, find out what solar programs and incentives are currently available for your home, business, or institution.”
Arlington Community Electricity: A program offered by the Town to provide residents and businesses more electricity supply options by pooling the electricity use of thousands of users in Arlington. The program is a Town-vetted alternative to Eversource’s default supply and other third party electricity suppliers.
Green Municipal Aggregation: Also called community choice electricity (CCE), this model allows MA & RI communities to take climate action by affordably greening up residents’ electricity supply.
How do we know if the electricity we’re using came from renewable energy or not? The answer: Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). But in order to understand how RECs work and how they do their part to clean our grid, we must first understand how the grid brings electricity to our homes and businesses, and how it operates as a whole.
Study Shows Low-Income Residents and Communities of Color Are Disproportionately Harmed; AG Urges Passage of Legislation to Ban Suppliers from Signing Up New Residential Customers
This is the third report from the AG’s Office that shows that residents who enroll with these companies continue to overpay for electricity by tens of millions of dollars each year.
Boston Area Sustainability Group: The Boston Area Sustainability Group’s mission is to break down the silos of knowledge within sustainability, to assist the perpetual education of ourselves and our peers, and to grow a robust community of subject matter experts equipped to collectively drive sustainability forward. We are an affinity group of 1400+ sustainability practitioners and engaged individuals representing a myriad of industries, academia, government, NGO, and not-for-profit entities in the Boston area and beyond. Participants hail from 264 communities across 24 states and a half dozen countries. Since 2009, we have come together on a regular basis to network, to learn, and to exchange on critical topics of sustainability.
Community Action Works: Issues: Energy, waste, pesticides, and toxics. Grassroots focus: “environmental threats are big, but the power of well-organized community groups is bigger.” Since 1987, has worked with more than 1,000 communities and trained more than 20,000 individuals to confront polluters and seed solutions across the Northeast.
Equitable Arlington: Supports affordable housing, accessible to public transportation, in harmony with Arlington’s pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. “Buildings with shared walls or floors, like townhouses, triple-deckers and small apartment buildings, conserve energy. Compact neighborhoods make it easier for people to access daily activities without a car, reducing carbon emissions. In Arlington, these kinds of development are prohibited or heavily regulated, but allowing them would bring our zoning into harmony with our environmental goals.”
Gas Transition Allies (formerly Gas Leaks Alliance): The Gas Transition Allies are a coalition of more than 25 organizations, researchers, and advocates focused on reducing methane emissions from the Massachusetts gas distribution system while developing strategies for a just, equitable transition to carbon-free energy sources.
Interactive gas leaks maps for Massachusetts by community and utility
Gas to Geo: HEET’s gas-to-geo pathway —based on single-pipe, ambient-temperature geothermal networks— is a practical, efficient, and exciting technology evolution that allows utilities to modernize delivery of home heating and cooling. This ultra-efficient approach will improve safety, health, reliability, and costs for all.
Mass Clean Energy Center (MassCEC): a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy sector
Slingshot: New environmental health and justice non-profit, started in 2022, providing organizing skills and resources in New England.
Building Electrification Accelerator: A nonprofit, no-cost network with the mission of accelerating equitable building decarbonization in Massachusetts via municipal action. They support local efforts by connecting participants with resources, model programs, funding, and one another.
Net zero buildings are the future for better, more efficient building construction. MCAN (Mass. Climate Action Network) is committed to improving our building code in two ways: first, by passing a net zero stretch code, and second, by improving our base code.
Better buildings make our communities safer, healthier, and more climate-friendly.