As Halloween approaches at Heronswood Garden in Kingston here on the Kitsap Peninsula, the ancestral land of the S’Klallam people, a 9-foot-tall ogress named Slapu, with long claws and sharp teeth, will be on the prowl. During Haunted Heronswood, from Oct. 20-21, the garden’s trails will come alive with skeletons and goblins including six larger-than-life S’Klallam cultural...
A serious electrician shortage in the U.S. is proving to be one of the biggest barriers for Americans seeking to make an energy transition from traditional fossil fuels to renewables. How can changes be implemented without enough people with the technical skills to implement them? In August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) included climate legislation...
Hottest Days on Record: Derr Heating Offers Financing Options to Help Kitsap Homeowners Beat the Heat When Derr Heating and Cooling opened its doors on the Olympic Peninsula in Western Washington less than one year ago, it did not expect to be serving homeowners and businesses on some of the hottest days in Earth’s history. Founder...
It’s that honorary time of year when graduation ceremonies dot the homeland and we all celebrate one of the greatest gifts we can pass along from one generation to the next — the gift of education. For more than half a century, the Derr family has transferred its HVAC knowledge and skills from one branch...
Theres nothing quite as a powerful as the solution to a major problem. Air conditioning was one of those problems for the people on our planet for well over a thousand years. Before the days of AC, ancient civilizations had developed their own methods for cooling down during hot summer days. The Persians had underground...
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced a nearly $11 billion investment to help bring affordable clean energy to rural communities throughout the country. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said it was the largest single federal investment in rural electrification since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936 as...
The City of Seattle Heat Safety webpage is full of tips and resources to stay safe and comfortable when the Seattle area experiences a heat wave. Visit the page and learn more about the following topics. How to stay safe at area cooling centers, beaches, community and senior centers, and public libraries. Managing your activity level during...
Meteorologist Cliff Mass, the American professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, is one of the “go-to” experts for anyone interested in weather modeling and prediction in the Pacific Northwest. His recent reporting has concluded that April 2023 has been starkly cool over the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the second coolest on record...
Before the Christmas power outage of 2021, investor-owned utility PSE had experienced 160 hours of service downtime across its Washington state service areas due to major weather disturbances that year. The total outage hours were almost three times more than the number of outage hours due to severe weather in 2020. Will that trend continue in 2022? Following...
Can increasing your home’s energy efficiency raise its market value? The short answer is “Yes!’ In a new set of studies reported by E, the environmental magazine, the experts at Energy Star found that an eight percent increase in home value correlated with Energy Star certified homes across Oregon, Idaho and Washington simply because they were deemed energy efficient. The same pattern has been observed across the U.S. A six percent increase was seen in...
