Wellness Wednesday: Home Energy Tune Up

As a first-time homeowner of an older home I couldn't pass up the opportunity for an energy audit courtesy of the City of Fresno’s Home Energy Tune Up program. My parents and the majority of my coworkers, including Courtney, participated in the program and absolutely loved it! Essentially it is like a wellness visit to the doctor but for your house - a little poking and prodding to make sure all is as it should be – and that is why this post deserves a spot on Wellness Wednesday. Besides, there’s nothing better than a free educational opportunity that can potentially put money back in your pocket.

The Home Energy Tune Up program once tested the duct work within a home, but due to low program funds that has been eliminated from the inspection. (Readers, please note that a little birdie told me additional funding will be pumped into the program in the new year so you may want to wait to sign up for your audit until after January.) I was looking forward to that part, but the gentlemen ensured me for the age of the house and from the initial readings that the duct work was likely in tip top shape – phew! They did inspect our appliances, including the rooftop HVAC unit; took a peek in the attic and below the house; checked out the PG&E meter; performed a blower door test; and took thermography images using an infrared camera. The blower test and thermography both serve to figure out where there is heat loss and air leakage. We should receive the thorough results within 2-3 weeks.

My home is on the smaller side so I could sit with our kitties in their carriers* and watch as the men went to work. I spent a long time chatting with them (the workers not the cats) about where one begins when wanting to do energy efficiency projects on an older home like ours. Even though I already know most of the information it was good reinforcement to keep me on track instead of jumping on the bandwagon of purchasing the latest and greatest EE gadgets (repeat: must resist Nest for time being). Low and no cost solutions, such as weatherization and turning off/unplugging appliances when not in use, are the first steps in becoming more energy efficient. If you are a visual person, check out this video from Southern California Edison’s Carl and Eddy. Once these steps have been conquered you can move on to insulation, windows, appliances, and maybe even solar.

Unfortunately, these more expensive EE options are not always financially feasible at the moment you may need/want to buy. Case in point: our home did not come with a washer or dryer and while my mom’s folding skills are pretty incredible, I didn't think it was fair or fun to haul our dirty clothes to my parents’ house every weekend. It was totally against my original plan, but we bit the bullet and made our first (non energy efficient) appliance purchase. While I would have loved to purchase an Energy Star model, it was absolutely out of our budget! Yes, it would have been an investment and I would have reaped the rewards later; however, I could barely afford the pretty stands for the units let alone the actual washer and dryer! We opted for a pair that was rated high by customers and my wallet. The good news is we can still be energy efficient when doing our laundry by following a few simple tips from the EPA: utilize the cold setting on the washing machine; only wash and dry full loads (and not too full loads), remember to clean the lint trap after every load; and opt for air drying when possible.

Moral of the story?

‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’ – John Lennon

Get to know the in’s and out’s of your home; educate and arm yourself with energy efficiency knowledge; and do what you can, when you can. Having a plan is great, but I am learning that having patience and flexibility is key!

Kitten Translation: this is BS.

*If you have pets and can take them outside or elsewhere during your audit I would highly recommend it for your own sanity! Although Fig and Olive did okay for the most part and enjoyed the company of the two men, the blower test sent them over the edge – maybe due to noise or pressure changes. They are young and spry so the 45 minute disruption in their day wasn't too stressful in the end and they resumed their roles as Prince and Princess of the kingdom.

photo credit: Green Energy Futures via photopin cc

Wellness Wednesday: Indoor Air Quality and Energy Efficiency

It’s official: escrow closed and the fiancé, two kitties, and I are now in our new house. Phew! There was a gap of about a week and a half from when we vacated our apartment and moved into the house. (Note to readers: when you tell your apartment complex you plan to be out on a certain day they will take you seriously! Shout out to the U-haul of Mid City in Fresno for having a truck available last minute.) My über generous parents took all four of us in and we took the opportunity to make a few repairs and clean every nook and cranny before settling in.

Low-VOC Paint: So long stench!

The 1949 home had been vacant for a few years because the previous owners (the one and only owners before us) had passed away and left their five children in charge. The place is in pretty good condition for its age and while it was empty for a few years, it was kept up nicely; however, one thing I couldn't get past was the smell of ‘old’ – that would be the technical term. Throwing out the frilly curtains definitely helped but I knew fresh paint would make the place feel clean and personalized to fit our style. We used Valspar Signature interior paint and primer which is one of the options on the market for a low odor, low-VOC paint. I was absolutely adamant that our paint choice be low or no VOC – like I have said before, control the controllables! Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are released from solids or liquids, such as paint, and can result in both short-term and long-term adverse health effects including dizziness, fatigue, headache, nausea, damage to internal organs and the central nervous system, and possibly even cancer. These toxins are often a more significant factor in indoor air pollution than outdoor air pollution! It is a frightening thought that the comfort of our own homes may not be any better than the hazy Central Valley skyline.

Other products that contain VOCs include paint thinners, cleaning supplies, permanent markers,  and glues and adhesives, to name a few. While you might not always be able to completely avoid these and other products, I try to search for the low and no VOC varieties and more natural alternatives. Side note: I recently have started to make my own natural cleaning supplies (like these here) with basic pantry supplies to save money and to save the health of myself, my family (including pets), and our environment. This also allows me to reuse containers to help save energy that would have been used in the production of the plastic.

A word of caution when painting no matter what level VOC: ventilate, ventilate, ventilate! Even the greener and more natural products can be hazardous to your health if you trap yourself indoors with them. Lucky for us our home needs some serious weatherization so while we froze painting at all hours of the night, the large one and two inch gaps around our doors (check out the one in the pic on the right) kept the stench at bay and allowed for decent airflow. Who would have thought a serious flaw would be so beneficial?

Home Energy Tune Up

In all seriousness and now that most of the painting is complete we will definitely be taking care of those gaps to ensure an energy efficient home. While I enjoy being very hands-on with my home improvement projects it is important to have qualified professionals assess and work on your home because, as I read in a 2011 online article, ‘Energy-Tight is Chemical-Tight’. It’s important not to go overboard with the way you caulk and seal up your home because you could be doing more harm than good. In order to avoid testing each bowl of porridge I decided to go straight for the professional opinion so I could get it just right.

I recently signed up for the FREE Home Energy Tune Up program offered through the City of Fresno. FREE: music to my ears! The program offers Fresno and Madera county residents a professional, whole house energy audit to help identify where homeowners can make improvements and save on their energy bills. The audit includes a detailed report, low and no cost solutions for saving energy and helps point a homeowner in the right direction if and when he or she chooses to make improvements to their home. Did I mention this is FREE? My parents not too long along had this done on their home and discovered they had duct work that was completely detached! No wonder they had such sky high utility bills! Our very own CourtneyKalashian went through the program as well and I too look forward to sharing my own experience.

Here’s to a happy, healthy, energy-efficient home!

--Maureen 

photo credit: melissajonas via photopin cc

photo credit: Maureen Hoff

photo credit: http://www.fresno.gov/Government/DepartmentDirectory/DARM/HomeTuneUp/Default.htm

City of Fresno Buttons Me Up

*Editors Note: this post ran on a personal blog in October 2011.  The Home Energy Tune Up program is in a ramp down period for the remainder of 2012 but will return in full-force in 2013 through funding from Pacific Gas & Electric Company, the California Public Utilities Commission and California Rate Payers.  To track the status of this program you can check in here on our blog and at the City of Fresno website.  Now, on to the home-shaming. 

I carry an albatross of inefficiency.

My home was built in 1977 and for 33 years sat untouched by the hands of my husband's grandmother. To her credit, she did install shutters on the eastern facing windows, but I'm fairly certain that was more aesthetic than for cooling purposes.

Looking pretty and leaking $

Upon moving in our first priority was making the house livable--and for us that meant replacing every square of plaid linoleum and fiber of "goldenrod" carpet and drapery. We wanted our home to look pretty, and paid little attention to running pretty. The very little credit we deserve is that we installed ceiling fans in every room and replaced all our lighting with cfl bulbs, inside and out. That was it.

Now, as one who is compensated for evangelizing energy efficiency you would expect that my own home's efficiency was a top priority. Especially given that our monthly electric and gas bill exceeded our mortgage costs six months out of the year. It wasn't until this spring that we even started thinking about "buttoning up the house". 

California, despite the boondoggle of a PACE program, has introduced some rather enticing mechanisms to incentivize homeowners to make efficiency upgrades to their home. After sitting through no less than 17 presentations on Energy Upgrade California/Residential Retrofit/Weatherization I decided that our home was ready for a makeover!

My husband immediately wanted solar. However, I knew we would be paying an arm and a leg for an over-sized solar array if we didn't get the house tuned up first. And, like we say to every city manager and public works director up and down the Valley--solar isn't worth a penny until you address your inefficiency first.

Now, here is where I profess I have a work-crush on Steven Chu. Yup, that's right Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. Mostly because he isn't afraid to speak out about gas prices, touts efficiency as a saving grace, and because he can tie-in energy storage with the latest Harry Potter release. I also really respect his personal efforts to make his home a pinnacle of energy savings. Secretary Chu has insulated, sealed and gone tankless; resulting in big time savings. So, I figured if the Secretary of Energy of the United States can take the time to insulate his pipes, the least I can do is pay someone to do it for me!

And so it began. I made my own list of "to-do's":

1. insulate the attic and lee walls 
2. duct inspection and sealing 
3. AC tune-up 
4. Insulate hot water heater  Replace hot water heater with tankless hot water heater
5. solar shade on transom windows

In a chicken/egg scenario I can't say whether I made my list because I wanted to be more efficient or because the City of Fresno was launching a "Home Energy Tune-Up" program, free to homeowners (disclaimer: my Organization is was a sub-sub-contractor to the City on this project.  We assist in outreach to local governments.).  Likely, a little of both.  

Regardless of professional involvement, the steps of the program are so incredibly simple! 

1. Schedule a free home energy survey by calling (855) 621-3733 or filling out an online form
2. Be home during a 3-4 hour walk-thru survey to determine where energy is wasted
3. Receive a detailed report from your  inspector with no-cost and low-cost ideas to improvement

There is even assistance for accessing rebates and incentives, as well as financing option for advanced upgrades.  

Our survey was completed on a Friday morning by Nathaniel Zayas of AmeriSpec, and took a little longer than four hours, but mostly because I asked him a zillion questions at every step, and because he was being assisted by this guy:

Dutch, our St. Bernard and Assistant Inspector

To my great surprise, our house wasn't in as bad shape as I thought it was.  The average home inspected has a 20% duct leakage.  After the blower test, it turned out that ours were leaking less than 10%. Our AC, as it turns out, is functioning better than expected given that it is original to the home.  We're pretty diligent about having it checked, but who's to say what Grandma did all those years so that was indeed a nice surprise.  The unit is way too big, but in all honesty that's something that I'm willing to pay extra because come July and that 20 day streak above 100 degrees I'll be glad for the chill.  

The real offenders are the furnace, the hot water heater, and the windows. 

Because we're not opting into the Energy Upgrade California program (although EUCA is awesome and if you're considering major efficiency improvements I strongly recommend you look into it) we'll be paying for each improvement upfront, in full.   With those financial realities I set up something SJVCEO recommended to local governments as gospel--a revolving energy loan fund.  Here's how it works: 

• you have an upfront amount of money that you decide you're willing to spend on upgrades.  In our case that was $1,000.  
• Next, you determine your project, and what your rebate is and what you can expect for a payback on the investment.  For us, we wanted to do insulation first.  One, the whole house and lee walls could be insulted within our budget.  Two, we had Z-E-R-O insulation in our home and it gets cold...and hot.  PG&E was offering a $300 rebate on the work, so in the end our cost was $900.  Pre-insulation our combined electric and gas bill on an average month was $400.  The insulation saves approximately 10% each month, so the payback would be about 18 months.  We liked that. 

• Once you know your project, do it.  In our case we went with Masterguard Insulation and Windows and they were fantastic.  Quick, clean, and considerate.  I'm not sure Dutch got to help out, but he seems pretty happy with the end product.  In the months of post-insulation bills the project is actually saving an average of 18% per month!  That means the project paid itself off in five and a half months!  
• Finally, take your rebate and the money you've saved on utility bills and reinvest in your next project! Ours is probably going to be a tankless hot water heater.  I expect it will be another $1,000 project with the product and installation 
• Repeat as necessary until you've got your home buttoned up and running smooth! 

Have I loosened that albatross? Not quite; I still have a ways to go before I can feel like our home is pinnacle of efficiency, but at least I no longer feel like there's a dirty secret I'm hiding!  The truth is, energy upgrading your home is no different than any other DIY/home improvement project: it just takes time and commitment to making a better quality of living for you and your family...our your Saint Bernard. 

photo credits: all photos property of Courtney Kalashian

Reduce your carbon footprint, just $940

Cruising through Twitter, I stumbled on a tweet from Mark Grossi, a former coworker at the Fresno Bee who has the environmental beat.

Grossi's tweet asked, "How big is your carbon footprint?" Intrigued, I clicked on the site. Nature Conservancy.

So far, so good. I took the bait, entered the information for a four-person household, three-bedroom home in California. The brief survey asked questions about heat and home efficiency, lighting, use of Energy Star appliances and measures taken to reduce hot water use.

Not the most illuminating. But, I guess, not bad.

The survey also asked for a list of our cars, how fuel efficient they were and how many miles driven in a year. Other questions included how often an air filter on the furnace/AC was replaced and how often tire pressure is monitored.

The final question boosted my family's footprint. We took the equivalent of six short flights in the past year. Peg and I went to Vegas, she and I to Bellingham, Wash. to visit our latest grandchild and she and Calvin, our oldest son, went to check out two colleges in Seattle.

And I plan to fly back after dumping him off at Seattle University this fall.

In total, and perhaps a little short, our footprint amounted to 47 tons of carbon dioxide a year. Not bad when compared with the U.S. average of 110 tons, but it's more than twice the world average of 22 tons for a family of four.

And we do pretty decently. I insulated my floor last winter. I've installed double-pane windows with coatings to reduce the sun's rays during hot summer days. I have all Energy Star appliances, and I just cleaned the dust from the fridge's cooling coils. They get nasty by the way.

My electric bill was $200 in June. Not great but I know people who would kill for one so low in our super-heated San Joaquin Valley.

And I'm always on the lookout for more things I can do. This encouraged me to click on the "Offset your carbon footprint" link.

I expected tips on insulating, driving less, riding bikes, maybe purchasing pieces of the Rain Forest.

What you get is a pitch: "Offset your footprint with The Nature Conservancy, you'll help protect land, plant trees and sequester carbon over the next 70 years. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference for our lives, our environment and future generations."

Cost: $940.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. The Nature Conservancy is a worthy organization, deserving of donations.

But I envisioned a more mathematically precise calculation. I'll have to keep working on that.

Cost cutting energy audits to go mainstream?

There are a couple of ways to create wealth: cut costs or make more.

The faltering economy has boosted cost cutting in corporate energy use, leading a growing number of companies to install efficiency retrofits in their commercial and industrial facilities.

Makes sense to save on utility bills. Not every CEO has the money-generating potential of a Jay Z or Warren Buffett.

Colin Davis is watching the trend closely. The founder and CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based kWhOURS Inc. just released a new product he hopes will take off. kW-Field is a software-based management platform that enables energy auditors to handle the huge and diverse amounts data collected when they scan big buildings for retrofit opportunities.

Davis said the commercial market has been growing consistently over the past several years. Green, he said, doesn't have to be sexy to make financial sense. The sector has been led by sustainability-minded Walmart.

"You can make great money on efficiency," Davis said.

Investments can pay off in a matter of a few years and cut energy bills from anywhere to 10 percent to 30 percent or more. Energy is a huge cost for many companies.

The energy auditing process is tough. I've done it. Counting thousands of lights is not fun or interesting and remembering whether Room 222 has T12 34 watt 4-lamp fluorescent or already has several 28 watt T8s with digital ballasts is near impossible with a messy notebook.

Davis' product loads all an auditor's information on a laptop, including photos and even audio files. It also stores thermal images, utility bills and "reams of notes on operating conditions, schedules, light levels, air and power quality readings." The software then manipulates the data in whatever format is required.

Davis said in the couple weeks since his product has launched, "a ton of people" have signed up for the two-week trial and bigger players have shown interest.

Other companies venturing into the energy efficiency market offer verification of its big potential.

Eric Wesoff of Greentechmedia.com gave an indication when he wrote of a conversation with Solar City executives at the Solar Power International Show this week in Los Angeles.

Wesoff said Solar City officials told him their company's going big into the audit market, "offering a home tune-up free with every solar lease or solar purchase in California," for a limited time.

And the movement is likely coming to a house near you. In California, for instance, the state is set to adopt rules expanding the scope of the Home Energy Rating System, or HERS. HERS inspectors check the building "envelope," looking for anything that wastes energy.

Davis isn't convinced homeowners will pony up the willpower and cash necessary to make energy audits the next big thing in the residential market.

But who knows? Other players like Recurve and Energy Doctors are betting on the residential sector.

If my experience is any indication, energy upgrades make sense. My new air conditioner coupled with new doors, added attic insulation, improved ductwork and new double-pane treated windows generated low utility bills. I had some envious friends.

But my house is small, 1,278 square feet. I had an evaporative, or "swamp," cooler until this year. It's good for making the house bayou-like when the outside temp heats up past 95 degrees. My neighbor Juan convinced me a new AC wouldn't cost too much more in monthly electricity bills, explaining that he keeps his at 68 degrees and pays less than $300 per month. Juan lays asphalt and says he needs it cold after working on 130-degree blacktop all day. His house is about 200 square feet smaller than mine, however, and has lower ceilings.

The key to lower energy payments is looking at the whole building. One energy-saving element benefits another. Insulated floors, for instance, are a worthy upgrade, said John White, an Internet savvy AC contractor in North Carolina.

"Floor insulation is perhaps the most overlooked yet unbelievably best energy saving investments to be made," White wrote on his site, johnwhite.net. "An uninsulated 1500 Sq. Ft. floor over a crawl space located in an average climate ... will return about $300 per year savings when insulated to R-19."

It's all about the return. And these days any savings is a very good thing.

Photo: kW-Field software screen grab.