Just in time for Christmas

When we upgraded the lighting in the sanctuary with dimmable LED bulbs we hit a snag, flickering lights.  To stop the flickering, we replaced all the dimmers with new modern LED certified dimmers which actually made the problem worse.  The electrician put in simple on-off switches until we could figure out something better.

Now we have.  We now have non-flickering dimmers that work beautifully with our LED lights and just in time for Christmas.  Why Christmas?  Well, that is the one service at which we really use the dimming of the lights during our worship.

While I would not go so far as to call this a Christmas miracle, it was much harder than it should be so we want to share our solution.  After trying numerous electricians and lighting retailers, we were finally put in touch with a senior engineer at Philips who recommended the dimmer that worked with our setup.  Months of various failed attempts all changed in one day with a few emails and a trip to the local hardware store.

Our setup is 8 hanging fixtures, each with 6 Philips 10W L-Prize winning A19 lamps, on 4 switches (2 fixtures per switch).

• 48 Philips 10W Dimmable LED A19 lamps bought from Energy Federation Incorporated (EFI) with MassSave discounts
• 4 Lutron MACL-153M-SW Maestro 150-Watt Multi-Location CFL/LED Digital Dimmer
• Custom lamp parts
• One historic H.H. Richardson's oldest standing church

We had tried several previous CFL/LED dimmer switches that did not work.  One was the Lutron CFL/LED Dimmer CTCL-153PDH-WH which flickered at every setting level.  A second was a Leviton vizia + #VPE04 which is an expensive ELV dimmer that should work with LEDs but requires 4 wires to work (2 hot, ground and neutral).  We only had the two hot wires and ground available and rewiring the fixtures given the ceiling height is out of the question.

Now we are waiting for the lighting audit to come back for the Wiles Hall (our parish hall) where we have the remaining 9 @ 300W incandescent bulbs to replace with something more efficient.

Peace & Joy!
Jon

Let there be light!

You may have noticed something different in the Sanctuary this summer.  The Building Committee upgraded the lighting to highly efficient dimmable LEDs that are brighter than the old energy hogging incandescent lamps we had.

We should save about 80% on our electricity bills for lighting the sanctuary and Wes should never need to replace a burnt out bulb again.  The LEDs should last 20-30 years or more.

Estimated savings:

• 8 X 300W = 2.4 kW is now 8 x 60W = 0.48 kW
• Saving 400kWh per year (assuming the lights are on 4 hours per week)
• or about the electricity that a typical home in New England uses in a month
• Avoid emitting 372 pounds of CO2.
• Save about $50 per year in electricity costs

Hear are some quotes:
James - Wow you painted the walls.  Why do you say that?  They are so much brighter.
someone else - The lights look awesome!

See how we did it:

New light switches were installed last week to complete the project, so that occasional flicker in one of lights we were experience should be fixed. 

Add in your own comments on the lights below.

Peace,
Jon

Being Good Stewards by Changing a few Light Bulb

Grace Church has been working for several years to make our lighting more efficient and better quality.  Throughout most of our parish building we have upgraded to electronic ballast fluorescent T-8 fixtures, but have been struggling replacing the remain high wattage incandescent lights in our parish hall because they need to be dimmable and are 150W flood lights.


One afternoon, with my daughter helping, we replaced all 26 of our 150W spot lights with high-efficiency 17W dimmable LEDs.  We were able to get a $40 rebate on each bulb through a MassSave Commercial Lighting Rebate, bringing down the cost to $13 each.


I'm excited by the reactions we go during the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, which was the first evening event since we changed the bulbs:

"I love the new lights!"
"They will really help the older members of the parish."
"They're really bright in a good way."

Here is what we replaced:

• 9 @ 150W incandescent flood lights
• 3 @ 75W incandescent flood lights
• 5 @ 100W halogen flood lights

Burnt out or missing:

• 6 @ 150W incandescent flood lights
• 2 @ 100W halogen flood lights
• 1 missing entirely

with 22 Philips 17W EnduraLED PAR38 22° Flood and 4 Sylvania 18W UltraLED PAR38 40°.  Both are 75W flood light equivalents.

Four different varieties of flood lights that were in our parish hall.

Two styles of LED PAR38 lights we installed and one of
the track light flood fixtures with an old incandescent bulb

	# of Bulbs	Wattage (W)	Annual electricity usage* (kWh)	ElectricityCost per year at 15.5¢/kWh
Functioning Lights	17	150	2,652	$411
With all bulbs functioning	26	150	4,056	$629
Going forward with LEDs	26	17	460	$71

* at 20 hours of usage per week

So, we should actually save about $340 per year on our electric bill and not consuming 2,200 kWh which will reduce our annual green house gas CO2 emissions by about 2,000 pounds per year.

Even better than the electricity savings and emissions reductions each year, will be not having to replace the bulbs.  With a 45,000 hour life, these LEDs should last over 40 years. I won't have to go up that ladder to replace burnt out bulbs.  I do not know how many bulbs we were replacing each year, but that should be a nice savings as well.


You may have noticed that we replaced mostly 150W bulbs with 75W equivalent LEDs.  Now that we have all 26 fixtures working again (9 were burnt out or missing their bulb) our effective illumination is only down a few percent.  We may come back and add some additional fixtures to the existing tracks, but may not need to given that all of the LED's light is directed where we want it while only a portion of the incandescent lights was.  I was really glad that the existing dimmers functioned without any flicker or problems so we did not need to rewire anything.

Funding for this project came in part from the Green Grant Program from the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and is part of a larger project that is also looking to upgrade the remaining 300W incandescent bulbs in our historic sanctuary to high-efficiency LEDs while pleasantly increasing the light quality.

Peace,
Jon

Grace Church Celebrated Earth Hour

On Saturday, March 26th, Grace Church joined with people from 131 countries to make a statement of support for addressing climate change by turning off our lights for Earth Hour 2011.

Below are pictures from the church with the lights on and off.

Grace Church - Lights ON

Grace Church - Lights OFF

And another view from Earth Hour 2011

Grace Church - Lights ON1

Grace Church - Lights OFF

Maybe next year we should have a candle lit party at the church...

Peace!

Join us for the Screening of the Work of 1,000 with Marion Stoddart

On Wednesday, March 30 beginning at 6:45pm we will be showing the 30 minute documentary The Work of 1,000 directed by Sue Edwards and featuring Marion Stoddart and her work to save the Nashua River in NH.  Following the screening, we are very excited to have both Marion Stoddart and Sue Edwards for a discussion.

Nashua River, NH before
The Work of 1,000

This is the third of five parts of our Green Faith Series on Environmental Stewardship at Grace Church (160 High St).  A community dinner is served at 6pm.  All are welcome!

Check out http://gracemedford.org/greenfaith for a complete listing of the events and further details.

Here is some more information about the movie and Marion:

Marion Stoddart, a young mother of three, lived next to one of the nation's most polluted rivers. At a low point in her own life, she took on its clean-up as a personal cause-for herself, for the community, and for future generations. She had no special skills or training, but what she did have was a vision for what was possible. And, an unwavering resolve to save the dying river. Marion's historic success in cleaning up the Nashua River-recognized by the United Nations, National Geographic, and chronicled in books and now a movie-is an inspirational lesson about the impact one person can have in the world.

http://workof1000.org/

The screening is free, though we will be taking a free will offering to help defray the costs.

Come watch a 30-minute film about her, and meet Marion Stoddart as we discover together how we might turn our vision of change into a reality.

All are welcome!

Jon

Earth Hour this Saturday!

Do you turn off the lights when you leave a room?

Why do you turn them off?

Do you know what Earth Day is?
How about Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is a global initiative where individuals, businesses, governments and communities are invited to turn out their lights for one hour to show their support for environmentally sustainable action.

When? Saturday March 26, 2011 at 8:30 to 9:30 PM (local time)

What? Turn off non-essential lights

Why? To show your support for environmentally sustainable action.

What else? Register at http://www.earthhour.org/ to be counted.

Grace Church is participating by turning off our exterior lights for Earth Hour this year.

The Greening Grace team encourages all members of the Grace Church Community to turn off their lights and to sign up with the Earth Hour website to show your support for this action.

Who else? The City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts are participating. The City of Boston list includes the following local participants and more:

• MA State Buildings
• Boston Hostelling
• IBEW 103
• The Lenox Hotel
• Westin Copley Place
• Museum of Science
• Boston Children’s Museum

Other places you may have heard of that are participating in Earth Hour 2011 include:

• The Empire State Building, New York
• Times Square, New York
• Christ the Redeemer statue, Brazil
• National Monument, Indonesia
• London Eye
• Eiffel Tower, Paris

Please join us in turning off your lights for Earth Hour and let us know by leaving a comment below!

Alicia

for the Greening Grace Team

Tread Lightly for Lent - Lenten Green Calendar of Activities

On Sunday, copies of the "Tread Lightly for Lent" calendar of environmentally conscience activities for each day in Lent were made available in the Parish Hall.  This wonderful calendar was put together by the Presbyterian Church (USA) Environmental Ministries and is the best "green" Lenten calendar we found so the Greening Grace Team decided we should reflect on it at Grace Church.

You can pick up a copy in the Parish Hall or download it from the web:

http://www.pcusa.org/media/uploads/environment/pdf/lentcalendarnew.pdf

The activities include a good mix of reflection, action and ideas. 

My favorite action is to

Collect your personal trash and recyclables throughout the day. At the end of the day, survey your waste and think of ways to reduce. On average, Americans create 4.6 pounds of waste a day.
Saturday, March 12th from Tread Lightly for Lent

Please take a look and consider these actions during Lent.  The Episcopal Church has similar resources for many of the programs linked to within the Presbyterian Church.  Please ask us if you need help finding local contact information or have a question about .

Genesis 2:15 (New International Version, ©2011)

 ¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Exciting Green Faith Lenten Education Series

Come join us at Grace Episcopal Church on Wednesday evenings in Lent for the Green Faith Environmental Education Series.  The lectures will start at 6:45pm and go until about 8pm. Bishop Bud Cederholm (The "Green" Bishop) will get us started on March 16th.

Click Here for more details including the line up of speakers and events.

More TerraCycling - Ceral Bar Wrappers

Boxes of stuff packed up
to send to TerraCycle

Three more boxes of stuff (Chip Bags, Juice Pouches and Coffee Bags) has been shipped to TerraCycle for recycling.  So far Grace Church has collected and recycled over 31 lbs of trash.

Washing it all

Going forward, please separate your Juice Pouches from other TerraCycle items as the juice pouches can make other things sticky.

Given how many cereal bars were turned in with candy wrappers, I have signed us up to collect "Energy Bar" wrappers. "Any foil lined energy and granola bar wrapper" can be collected.

Box of Candy Wrappers

Box of Chip Bags

Greening Grace Team Formed

Oops, this should have been posted a month or so ago when it was originally written. 

The Greening Grace Team is an active committee focused on our mission to enable Grace Church and parishioners to reduce our energy consumption and cost, reuse our God-given resources, and recycle. Thanks to the leadership of Jonathan and Alicia Hunt, the team now has 7 core team members and launched a 2011 planning meeting at the end of October. We meet monthly on Tuesday evenings at 8pm and are currently pursuing the following education, “greening”, and community service opportunities:

• Submitting environmentally focused grant applications for Grace Church
• Identifying topics and facilitators for the 2011 Lenten Education series
• Identifying workshops and attendees (e.g. Sustainable House of Worship (SHOW) workshop and Green Grant Gathering) to share ideas
• Posting volunteer and education opportunities on our blog: http://gracemedford.org/greeninggrace

The team submitted our first grant application for a small rain water harvesting system thanks to Catherine Smith. We also partnered with Green Medford on Halloween to participate in “Reverse Trick or Treat” to distribute energy efficient light bulbs to Medford residents.

For more information or to join the team, please speak to Jonathan or contact the team at greeninggrace@gracemedford.org or consult this blog. We welcome your ideas!
Written by Kim Jackson 
Peace!

Joyous Event Last Night with Some Green Touches

Last night we celebrated the Institution of The Reverend Noah Evans as the 18th Rector of Grace Church.  The evening was a combination of serious calls to action and fun.  As part of the planning for the celebration, the Vestry made several green choices to be better stewards of our environment that we mentioned at the end of the bulletin.

Here are the choices we made to make this wonderful celebration greener:

• Used reusable cloth table clothes instead of disposable plastic ones
• Instead of buying one time use stemware we rented glass wine glasses and champagne flutes
• The plates were made from bio-degradable and compostable sugar can fiber and held up well through out the event
• The napkins were made from 100% recycled paper
• We used our reusable metal silverware and washed it instead of disposing of box after box plasticware

For our normal Wednesdays at Grace Community Dinner we use our ceramic plates and silverware, but the size and tight timing of the event made us find alternatives that did not involve washing lots of dishes between dinner, the server and dessert.  Some of these choices made the event even more classy.  Toasting with glass flutes was much better than the alternatives.

We hope you will consider the choices you make when throwing your next event and how you can make the party greener.

Here is a short clip from the ceremony to share the fun had by all.



Peace!

Now Collecting Ink Jet Printer Cartridges for TerraCycle

In addition to the candy wrappers, coffee bags, juice pouches, etc., Grace Church is now also collecting ink jet printer cartridges for recycling through TerraCycle.  We'll earn a quarter ($0.25) for each cartridge we recycle, so bring in those used up ink jet cartridges and help Grace Church recycle.

We'll have a small box next to the other TerraCycle stuff in the kitchen behind the recycling so as not to mix the sometimes sticky juice pouches or chip bags with the ink jet printer cartridges.

Energy/Water Saving Parts and Materials used for HEET

The following companies and organizations helped by providing us with materials for the HEET Barn-Raising.

Hillside Hardware (325 Boston Ave, Medford)

Our local hardware store that has been very good to Grace Church over the years.
Parts/Materials used

• Weather Stripping Kits for doors
• Caulk for around windows (Siliconized Latex in brown, white and clear)
• Misc Nails

Advanced Energy Panels - Albany, NY

Interior Storm Window

Jim Devine went to extraordinary lengths to get us the interior storm windows in time for the event.  They do custom fit interior storm windows as well as DIY kits.  We installed 4 AEP interior storms at the back of the stage to eliminate the cold draft that has been coming through those very leaky stained glass windows.  Installation was a breeze.  Check out their site for video instructions on measuring and assembling kits.

Parts/Materials

• 4 AEP Interior Storm Windows custom built to fit

Energy Federation Incorporated (EFI) - Westbourough, MA

Q-lon weather stripping kits being
installed on double doors

EFI is the go to supplier for other HEET events as well as for many energy auditors in the New England area.  They have a wide range of good quality affordable products for saving energy and water including CFLs, faucet aerators, insulation and more.  They even sell the AEP interior storm window kits.  They environmentally friendly packaging and are great all around to work with.

Parts/Materials used (EFI Part# Description)

Toilet Tank Bank

• 5000.58 AUBE TH 140-28-01-B millivolt
• 6560.052 TAYL Refrigerator Therm. #3507
• 7005.149 BITS SmartSurge 7-Outlet SCG3
• 3540.13 Q-lon White w/Metal Carrier
• 3540.18 Q-lon White w/Wood Carrier
• 5010.16 Intermatic TN311C Timer 120v
• 3020.10 NIAG N3137 Toilet Tank Bank
• 1100.324 20w Earthmate T-2 Spiral 27k
• 1100.322 13w Earthmate T-2 Spiral 27k
• 1100.325 23w Earthmate T-2 Spiral 27k
• 4000.031 MD 3/4" Pipe Ins. 4x3' pieces
• 3000.422 WHE UA1C Ultra Saver Aerator

MA Water Resource Authority (MWRA)

low flow shower head, faucet aerators
and toilet leak detection dye pack

MWRA supplies water for most of the Metro-Boston area.  They are big into water conservation and will provide home owners with free low flow water fixtures:

• low flow 2.0 gpm shower heads
• 1.5 gpm faucet aerators
• toilet leak detection (dye packets)

MWRA provided us these materials for free and we handed out the shower heads, faucet aerators and dye packets at the HEET and have some left over.  Talk to Jonathan if you would use these in your homes or apartments.  You can request more from the MWRA site.

Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET) - Cambridge, MA

Without help from HEET to identify the projects to tackle and help organize the event, it would not have been as successful as it was.  A special thanks to Audrey Schulman for her assistance, coaching and support.  They can always use more volunteers and have several barn-raisings planned already for this fall.

HEET Barn-Raising Big Success!

Congratulations and Thank You to all the volunteers that came out to help on Monday.  What a great event and we made a difference. We had over 30 volunteers from Tufts, Grace Church, Medford and beyond.

A longer post with more details will be coming out, but for now here are the preliminary numbers from Monday. Our work should result in the following annual savings for Grace Church:

• 6,400 pounds of CO2 emissions avoided per year
• 34,000 gallons of water saved per year
• $1,300 saved on energy and water bills per year

Check out the slide show of some photos from the event.  If you have some photos, please contact me at jmhunt@mit.edu.

May God be with you!

More Recycling through TerraCycle

So far we have recycled over 1,700 drink pouches and now you can recycle even more "trash" to earn money for Grace Church. We are now collecting:

• Cookie Wrappers
• Coffee Bags
• Chip Bags
• Candy Bar Wrappers
• and of course the Juice Pouches

Please start saving your wrappers and bags to bring to church.  You can leave them by the recycling in the kitchen.  You can combine all the wrappers/bags/pouches into plastic grocery bags and I'll sort them.  TerraCycle will take the wrappers and turn them into heavy duty trash cans that should be available at some point through Home Depot.

If you are doing Coffee Hour please save the empty coffee bags.

Details from TerraCycle:
We accept any empty brand or size chip bag.

We are collecting all brands and sizes of cookie wrappers such as Nabisco® and Keebler®. Unfortunately we do not accept the inner trays of cookie wrappers, so please remove them before sending your shipment.

We accept any brand and any size coffee bag.

We will accept any brand and size candy wrappers. Please keep in mind that we donate *$0.02 for all candy wrappers. We do not accept candy boxes or gum packaging. Please note: If you have gum packages, please join the Gum Package Brigade to send in your gum packaging.

We accept any kind of brand of drink pouches. We do not accept juice boxes (but they can be recycled in Medford's co-mingled residential recycling).

If you have any questions, please ask me, Jonathan Hunt.

Join Grace Church for a Weatherization Barn-Raising Party

Are you interested in learning how to save energy and money at home?  Come learn new skills while helping to weatherize Grace Church in Medford.

When: Monday, August 30th 4-8PM
Where: Grace Church, 160 High St, Medford, MA

Please sign up in advance

We will have experienced energy savers on hand to teach you techniques to save energy and conserve water. Learn hands on by applying these techniques on our church and then take your new skills home and apply them there.

Projects to be undertaken include:

• window & door air sealing
• water conservation
• programmable thermostats
• and more.

We can also use more leaders who are already skilled in these areas to help teach and coordinate others.

We will be joined by a group of incoming freshmen from the CAFE group at Tufts. After the afternoon of working together, we will all celebrate with some pizza in the common room.  Even if you cannot join us at the start, please sign up and come by after work on Monday.

On site childcare is available for those who request it in advance (through the registration system).

This barn-raising is organized in part by HEET Cambridge.  

Thanks,
Jonathan, Alicia and Rachael

Happy Earth Day!

Today we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.  I hope you will take a few minutes today to appreciate the wonderful gifts God has given us and think about what we can all do to help preserve and protect them for ourselves and future generations to come.

Last night's Earth Day Eve Movie Night was great.  We had a fun time learning and experiencing together over pizza, movies, popcorn and ice cream.

Be sure to sign up and join us for our GreenUp CleanUp project.  Our first clean up starts this Saturday at 10am in the Church Parking Lot when we will be helping to clean up the Mystic River.  Margaret is going to register us and get the supplies from the Friends of the Mystic River folks and then we'll head down as a group to the section of the Mystic River we overlook.  Advanced sign ups preferred, but don't let that stop you from coming over Saturday morning.

Happy Earth Day 2010!

Earth Day Eve Movie Night This Wednesday 6pm

Come join Al Gore or Eva & Wall-e at Grace Church for a night at the movies. Alicia and I will be hosting this environmentally focused movie night from 6-8pm on the evening before the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. We will be serving pizza and popcorn and start the movies shortly after 6pm in the Parish Hall and Common Room.

If you haven't let us know you are coming, please drop us a line so that we can plan the food, etc.  Email to jmhunt@mit.edu or iggy@mit.edu or call us at (781) 874-0493.  We'll plan on a little extra, so if you forget to let us know, come anyways.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 6pm to 8pm at Grace Church

Featuring

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

Wall-E

We look forward to seeing you Wednesday!
Jon & Alicia

Join Us Sunday 4/11 for GreenUp CleanUp Kick Off with Ice Cream

Grace Episcopal Church has embarked on an environmental stewardship program. This spring's "GreenUp CleanUp" effort aims to organize over 250 members of the community to clean up some of Medford's shared open spaces (such as parks and playgrounds).

The organizers will be holding an open information session about the spring "GreenUp CleanUp" at Grace Church at 160 High Street on Sunday, April 11th following the 10 o'clock service.
If you are interested in learning more, please come either to the 10 o'clock service or enter the church hall afterward at 11:30 to enjoy our special GREEN ice cream social!

Also, please visit our GreenUp CleanUp site to learn more about this project and to sign up in advance. One lucky person on the pre-sign-up list will be randomly drawn for a special prize!

Remember, get the '411' on 4/11!

Drip, Drip, Drip - Saving The Planet, One Faucet at a Time

Many of you have probably noticed the dripping faucet in the Parish Hall bathroom and realized that it is very difficult to turn the hot water completely off. I often found it trickling hot water because a kid or an adult didn't manage to turn it completely off.  Did you know that a dripping faucet typically wastes 1,000 gallons per year at the rate shown in the video below.  A slightly running toilet can waste even more.

The week before Easter we installed a new faucet that is easier to turn off and uses less water. We hope to see a noticable savings in the water bill, both by stopping the dripping and because it uses about 50% less water than the old faucet.

Some comments since the faucet was installed:

It is so easy to use.  I really like it.

I can't even tell the difference [in how the water feels].

Check out the new faucet with the easy to use handles:

The new faucet uses almost 50% less water when in use than the old faucet (1.2 gpm vs 2.2 gpm).

To save water, be sure to always turn off faucets all the way, especially when brushing your teeth. If you have a dripping faucet or toilet, be sure to get that fixed right away.  If you are replacing a faucet or toilet, be sure to look for the EPA WaterSense label (equivalent of EnergyStar). 

Happy Easter!  The Lord is Risen!
Jonathan