Facilities Construction & Maintenance
Energy Efficiency Initiatives
In 2007, Facilities Construction & Maintenance began a comprehensive program to improve theenergy efficiency of our existing facilities.
Our first step was to replace incandescent and higher wattage light bulbs with more efficient fluorescent or LED lighting. Additional timers were installed for parking lot lighting and unnecessary lights were disconnected. Timer systems or motion sensors were also installed in county buildings in order to ensure that all lights are shut off during unoccupied times. We installed programmable thermostats to all county facilities in order to reduce the run times of the air conditioning systems. Temperature settings were also adjusted to decrease the run time of the air conditioning during occupied times.
Currently, all buildings in the county are being evaluated with energy audits in order to determine inefficiencies and to repair, replace or improve the inefficiency that was identified. Possible areas of inefficiency can include: ineffective building insulation, air leaking through windows or doors, air leaking through roof penetrations, inefficient AC systems, unbalanced AC systems, high wattage lighting, and unnecessary lighting.
Another key component to energy efficiency is education and training. Many efficiency measures also include the cooperation of building occupants. Reminders such as turning off the lights when not needed, not propping open doors from one area to another, turning computers off at the end of the day. All of these behavioral elements and many others can also reduce energy consumption and save money spent on electricity.
All areas of energy conservation are currently under evaluation and/or implementation in order to continuously reduce the county’s energy consumption. Additionally, all energy conservation products including solar, thermal, low-flow plumbing fixtures, high efficiency lighting, etc. will be installed on a continuous basis where feasible and appropriate.
Our goal is to implement an evolving energy efficiency and conservation program that will benefit Charlotte County both environmentally and monetarily and adhere to our value of Stewardship- committed to being good stewards of our resources.
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