Saving Money for More Ministry

Mike, our Maintenance Director, has been working diligently on saving Covenant Heights Camp money through energy efficiency and conservation in what is being called the Cut 90% Do More Project (Learn more, click the "About" tab above). These projects have the ultimate goal of cutting our energy costs by 90% which would free up significant funds for more "direct" ministry. I call it direct ministry here, because in reality, as we all know, you can't do ministry without heat, lights, running water, and other such necessities. That reality, though, is not stopping us from working to be more efficient and better stewards of what we have been given!

With that said, we want to celebrate a few of our volunteers who have given many hours and much expertise to camp in order to switch out all of our lighting ballasts. (Don't know what a ballast is? I didn't. It's a device intended to limit the amount of current in an electric circuit. A familiar and widely used example is the inductive ballast used in fluorescent lamps, to limit the current through the tube.)

This specific project was to switch all of the T12 ballasts on camp to T8 ballasts. This change alone will result in 43% savings on what we spend on lighting. We had a lot of people volunteering their time to help with project. Three that deserve special recognition are Arlie Lease, Jim Ramsey, and Jack Arnold who led the task of switching out 162 ballasts and 356 bulbs!

Thank you!

Want to Volunteer? Email Mike - Mike@CovenantHeights.org

Want to Invest? Donate Here.

Sealing it all up

In Longs Peak today we put spray foam on the walls in the crawl space. Now we have a R-16-20 insulation and an airtight seal. We will save money and Jesse and his family can stay warmer!!

Here is a cool link to see someone using it. Spray Foam in use

This is the best insulation for us to use, and we need a lot more!! *hint hint* We have a lot of work in the Dining Hall, Cabins 7 & 8, and Autumn still to do! This link will take you directly to the correct page if you would like to donate some!

Here is Jordan in action!

Excellent insulation, but you don't want to get it on you!

A visual example

I took a lot of pictures of all the buildings on camp with a thermal camera to see where the heat loss was. Black means cold (low heat loss) and white means warm (high heat loss). The first two are of Longs Peak, where you can see that the new window on left is black (not letting the inside heat escape) but the window on the right is white (the inside heat pouring out!). See what a big difference the new windows make?

 

                                         The picture above is the water treatment plant.
                                                      The picture below is the entry of Winter.

New window in Longs

We got a new window in Longs Peak! Now 2 out of 4 that need to be replaced are done.

Longs Peak Sealing

Jordan got the last spot on Longs Peak cabin sealed up! Now we will not have the problem of animals getting under it, or the wind blowing under it and causing it to be uncomfortable in the cabin We will also see a savings in the cost of heating.

BayWeb in Woman's side of bathhouse

Jordan put BayWeb in the woman's side of the bathhouse, so we can monitor it. Now we have it on both sides. We can save 25% or more on our heating for this building!

We are almost there!!!

We only have 13 more ballasts to go until camp is completely converted from T12 to T8. The new ballasts save us 43% on our lighting bill. Volunteers Jim and Jack are finishing it up!!!