Congratulations Green Team!

                                    On Saturday, April 17th, the Green Team began working with Empire Electric to install new ballasts and lights in all three of our Church buildings, and ended up completing this tough job on May 8th. We installed new, more efficient electronic ballasts, replaced older 4’ lamps with more cost efficient 28 watt lamps, reduced the number of lamps where light levels remain sufficient, and replaced incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent bulbs.  We still plan on installing occupancy sensors in restrooms when a cost effective and efficient device can be found. Details are:

• Over 28 Green Team members (including 3 women) worked (9) consecutive 4-hour weekly shifts to take out 249+ old ballasts (some over 40 years old) and 500+ 34 & 40 watt with 4’ fluorescent light bulbs from our 3 Church buildings, and replaced them with brand new electronic ballasts with ½ the number of light bulbs, each lamp having no more than 28 watts;
• We requested $8,942 in our Diocese Grant Request and received only $5,000 of it yet still kept within that new budget to perform the same work – we did this by “stepping up to this challenge” and by doing some hard and complex electric work;
• Obtained less than a 2-year Return on Investment (ROI) from our Grant with an annual electrical bill savings of $2,517 per year;
• And we eliminated a serious safety/fire hazard caused by our continuing use of leaking magnetic ballasts in the School and Church.

   Here are just 5 of the willing helpers that made this success happen!

Ev