Going Green
Leave a CommentImprovements in technology have not just improved the machines we work with, they also have improved the efficiency of the building we work out of. Over the last few years, at Mid-West Screw Products we have taken the steps to “Go Green” and convert our facility to a productive and more cost-efficient one. While this was a big project, there were many incentives and grants available to us to make it worthwhile.
To improve and update our facility, we took advantage of a variety of different grants that were available. The city, county, state and trade associations and organizations all offer different grants that helped us to be able to afford to pay for the changes necessary to go green. Once we made these changes and upgrades, we 100% saw the cost savings coming back to us immediately. By using these grants we were able to make green upgrades at 50 cents on the dollar sometimes. Without these grants, making these changes would not have been possible for us, but the benefits since we have gone green have been great for us.
Using utilities and lighting grants that are available to us, we were able to install all new lighting and low powered ballasts. These new LED lights and fluorescent lights allowed us to reduce our energy costs significantly. We were also able to install a foam roof material with a white reflective coating that reflects the heat tremendously and makes the plant much cooler. This has allowed us to enhance our work productivity as we no longer have to send people home because it became too hot in the work place. In our office and quality control room, we now use a centrally controlled air conditioning system that keeps the temperature even and uniform in each room. We have also replaced all of our old windows with energy efficient windows that prevents us from losing hot and cold air depending on the season. Easy fixes, like installing exhaust fans to draw in fresh air and remove the hot air near the ceiling was significant. We installed energy efficient laminates in our sky light windows to improve the R rating insulation factor. All of these changes have led to big cost savings for us.
Without taking advantage of the green grants that are available to us, we would not have been able to make these enhancements to our facility. In our next blog we will explore some of the other grants that are available and the benefits that are just sitting there waiting to be taken advantage of by companies like Mid-West and yours.