Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Editor's note: A version of this column has previously run on deseretnews.com and the authors' blog, renovationdesigngroup.com.

Energy-efficient updates are a good idea any time of the year. There is, however, a more measurable and meaningful reason to go green during the colder months. You can ease the pain of the winter heating bill by making a few simple changes to your outside doors. These simple changes can enhance the energy efficiency of your entire house, keeping you warmer and saving you money all winter long.

Doors and windows are basically large holes cut in the thermal envelope of your house. Even under the best of conditions, the R-value (the measure of the thermal resistance of a material or assembly) of doors and windows is significantly less than that of the wall in which they sit. Without the proper unit or correct installation, air and heat may be leaking out, driving up your energy bill.

There are three common types of exterior door materials: wood, fiberglass and steel. Of these, wood is the most beautiful, but it is also the least energy efficient. Insulated doors have a core of foam insulation, which increases thermal resistance. Any glass within the door frame should also be insulated, meaning two panes of glass at a minimum. This is especially important if the doors are mostly glass, such as patio (sliding) or French doors.

Energy.gov explains the energy efficiency of the different doors by the R-values:

"The R-values of most steel and fiberglass-clad entry doors range from R-5 to R-6 (not including the effects of a window). For example: A 1 inch (3.81 cm) thick insulated door without a window offers more than five times the insulating value of a solid wood door of the same size.

"Glass or 'patio' doors, especially sliding glass doors, lose heat much faster than other types of doors because glass is a very poor insulator. Most modern glass doors with metal frames have a thermal break, which is a plastic insulator between the inner and outer parts of the frame that interrupts the transfer of cold to the interior of the assembly."

"Models with several layers of glass, low-emissivity coatings, and/or low-conductivity gases between the glass panes are a good investment, especially in extreme climates," according to energy.gov.

Over the long run, the additional cost of the unit is paid back many times over in energy savings.

Once you have selected an energy-efficient door unit, care must be taken to install it correctly. Proper weatherstripping is critical to keeping air from leaking. Updating the weatherstripping on an existing front door is a useful exercise, even if you are not replacing the door.

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Renovation Solutions: Why upgrading your front door will help you save money on your energy bill

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From custom invitations to wedding cakes and DJs to photographers, the second annual Royal Gorge Region Bridal Expo on Sunday was a one-stop shop for brides-to-be planning their special day.

Thirty-one vendors filled the Abbey Events Center, displaying their offerings, giving out free samples and extending discounts on services.

Event co-organizers, Brenda McKay, sales and marketing for the Abbey Events Center, and Gillian Marriott, owner and operator of Sweet Cheek's Cakery, said there was more vender participation Sunday than last year's inaugural event, which featured 22 vendors. About 63 brides had registered at Sunday's event before its half-way point.

"It's been real steady," McKay said before the half-way mark of the expo. "I think we'll have even more brides this year than we had last year."

Vendors featured catering businesses, wedding dresses, carriage services, hair and makeup services and even event planning. Most were local, but there were some from Salida and Pueblo.

Johanna Patterson of Occasions By J, an independent, professional event planner, plans to utilize all businesses and venues for her clients' birthday parties, dinner parties, weddings, corporate events, fundraising events, theme parties and other special occasions. She is still building her new business, but she most recently organized the New Year's Gala at the Robison Mansion.

"A lot of what I am doing here is to connect," she said. "I do need to find the best fit for whatever the venue is. The connections with the other vendors is just as important as the brides themselves here."

Bride-to-be Christa Hansen-Gill on Sunday scheduled a consultation with Patterson. She is getting a head start on her March 2016 wedding.

"I wanted to give myself a year to plan a wedding, that way I am not rushing any details," she said.

As a mother of four children, Gill said using an event planner will alleviate a lot of pressure.

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By DAVID HALLFeb. 19, 2013, midnight

MELBOURNE swimming trio the Salty Seabathers took to the Illawarra and South Coast's ocean pools last week - and are convinced the area has the best ocean baths in Australia.

Ann Paul, Narelle Crux and Lucy Healey, from Victoria, form a group known as the Salty Seabathers. They were at Beverley Whitfield Pool at Shellharbour Village last Thursday. Picture: DYLAN ROBINSON

MELBOURNE swimming trio the Salty Seabathers took to the Illawarra and South Coast's ocean pools last week - and are convinced the area has the best ocean baths in Australia.

Group spokesperson and former Port Kembla woman Narelle Crux said the group's week-long odyssey highlighted things that locals probably don't realise.

"Ocean pools are such an important part of the community and landscape," Mrs Crux said.

"In fact, I think a lot of people who live on the coast don't appreciate just how lucky they are to have such a beautiful facility, often in walking distance from their homes."

She organised the salty adventure as a bit of fun and was joined by two good friends from Victoria, as well as a number of Wollongong swimmers.

They dove into two pools a day, aiming to swim at least a kilometre in each.

The group, who are on holiday in the Illawarra, are visiting every ocean bath from the northern Illawarra to Kiama and never thought they would generate such publicity.

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Pools get thumbs up

Spring Hill has been named the fourth best city in Tennessee for young families, according to NerdWallet, a website that promotes consumer financial literacy, giving transparent information to help consumers make big financial decisions.

Spencer Tierney, an analyst with NerdWallet, said, Spring Hills strong performance was bolstered by its high GreatSchools rating of 9 out of 10, as well as its high median family income ($82,378) and the large percentage of its population with children.

The 2015 report and methodology was created by NerdWallets data analyst, Kamran Rosen, who wrote, with over 30,000 residents, Spring Hill is the most populous community in our top 10. Families living here will find a lot of company: Nearly half, 41.2 percent, of the citys population includes families with children. The city just 35 minutes south of Nashville is proud of its industrial sector that it balances with its natural beauty.

He added, for many young couples, buying their first house when they are also starting their family is a daunting prospect. Even though quality of life matters to all future homeowners, young families may have tighter finances that limit their options.

The analysis considered several factors including home affordability, prosperity and growth, quality of education and family friendliness. With that information, they came up with the top 99 placed in Tennessee that they consider the Best Cities for Young Families in Tennessee. While Spring Hill is fourth, Arlington, Atoka and Mount Carmel make up the top three in the list.

Spring Hill Mayor Rick Graham isnt surprised by the ranking, he said.

Spring Hill has long attracted a uniquely high number of young families, he said. People have moved here for affordable housing and good schools in a friendly place where they feel safe raising children while still being close to their jobs in Nashville and Cool Springs. But Spring Hills job landscape is changing, and we are now evolving into a city that offers its own good-paying jobs and quality of life for those young families. That has further fueled the influx of young families.

He said he believes the city will remain at the tops of these types of lists for years to come.

Creating the environment that attracts young families with children is what we have concentrated on for so long, and because of quality of life aspects we are adding each year, I suspect Spring Hill will remain on these types of lists for the foreseeable future, he said.

Key factors make Spring Hill a good place for young families, Graham noted.

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Spring Hill earns top families ranking

By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - A slightly fuzzy, zoomed-in screen grab from question period took a brewing controversy for Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq, and crystallized it into a tale of callous indifference.

"Leona Aglukkaq reads newspaper, ignores questions about people looking for food in dump," read the headline last month by Press Progress, a social-media focused news organization funded by the Broadbent Institute.

From there the story was touched on by mainstream news organizations, who appeared to miss the fleeting visual during the House of Commons broadcast. Aglukkaq had been fending off criticism that the government's Nutrition North program hasn't helped reduce grocery costs in the territories.

Press Progress is snarky, easy-to-read, unabashedly left-wing and opinionated, and part of a new group of digital media organizations covering politics on Parliament Hill.

Vice, The Tyee, the Vancouver Observer, Blacklock's Reporter, and rabble.ca now have correspondents or small teams in Ottawa. The digital outlets iPolitics and Huffington Post were the first of the new wave.

In the United States, such news sites as Politico, Talking Points Memo, Roll Call and Buzzfeed Politics have been making their mark for years.

The new Canadian players with different funding models are filling in some of the empty chairs in the press gallery left by shrinking traditional media outlets. And they're challenging some of the notions about what political reporting looks like.

In the case of Press Progress, the content could be dismissed by some as NDP partisan advertising. It is run within the Broadbent Institute, an independent, non-partisan think-tank founded by former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent and initially run by a former aide to the late Jack Layton.

Founding editor Sarah Schmidt, a former national reporter with Postmedia News, says there is nothing in the content that is partisan, and accuracy is still a central tenet. The outlet is run independently of the institute.

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New faces changing political reporting landscape

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