Home weatherization can pay off big
Reporter Sam Eaton turns his home into a model of energy efficiency, and talks about the ways home weatherization can pay off big financially.
Reporter Sam Eaton. (Marketplace)
TEXT OF STORY
TESS VIGELAND: Green jobs have gotten an ongoing push from the Obama administration. And they came up again in this week's State of the Union address.
President Barack Obama: We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities. And give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient, which supports clean energy jobs.
Rebates like those would be music to the ears of Marketplace Sustainability reporter Sam Eaton. He recently did some simple improvements on his home to plug energy leaks. And here's what happened.
Sam Eaton: Turns out my 1921 Los Angeles bungalow could win awards. The problem is they're not the kind you want to brag about. Here's what Trey Muffet with home weatherization company Recurve told me last spring:
Trey Muffet: Your home is performing on the lower end of this home performance index. And your air leakage is off the charts right now.
That was the verdict after Recurve performed a home energy audit. They found out that my house not only lacked insulation, it also leaked energy like a sieve. So I decided to fix it, which in the words of Recurve's retrofit manager, Robert Mitchell, comes down to this:
Robert Mitchell: It's the simple stuff. We're plugging the holes. We're putting insulation in.
Starting with my attic, which accounted for about a third of my house's energy loss.
Eaton: So what's happening here?
Mitchell: All right. Let me get this mask off so I can talk. So what he's doing is is he's blowing the cellulose in through the three-inch tube right now.
Eaton: When we talk about the heat we feel on those hot summer days here in L.A., this is really going to make the biggest difference.
Mitchell: When the attic's 160 degrees on the hot summer days, it transfers through the wood framing and into the lath and plaster. And then it's cool in the afternoon, but your house is still crazy hot, it's 'cause it stored heat all day. This is going to stop that.
Add to that new insulation in the walls and floors along with sealing all the cracks and leaks, and winter heat loss will also become a thing of the past. All for just under $10,000, which is actually at the high end of what it costs to weatherize a home. And even at that price, my investment will gradually pay off in energy savings and cut my carbon emissions in half. Kind of makes it a no brainer -- if you've got the cash to do it. And that's a big if.
Matt Golden is Recurve's founder and president.
Matt Golden: The biggest impediment right now is consumer demand, because of the fact that the economy is really in a very difficult place and homeowners don't have a lot of spare capital lying around.
But Golden says that obstacle also represents an enormous political opportunity.
Golden: The most effective tool to increase demand is a direct consumer incentive. And the most recent example of this is Cash for Clunkers, where we saw how quickly a consumer incentive changed behavior, and you saw people turning in their old clunkers and buying much more efficient cars.
Which explains why Congress's home weatherization proposal has been dubbed "Cash for Caulkers." Its real name is "Home Star" and it would rebate up to 50 percent of the cost of weatherizing a house. Golden, who's played a central role in designing the program, says Home Star would put tens of thousands of unemployed construction workers back to work and cut U.S. carbon emissions. He says residential buildings generate nearly a quarter of the nation's carbon footprint.
Golden: Using just really simple measures that can be done quickly and using local resources, we find that we can abate an equivalent amount of carbon as taking half of all passenger cars off the road. So this is a huge opportunity.
And a relatively painless one. After just four days of work my house already feels different. The cold pockets are gone, and even with the heat off, it's a consistent 68 degrees. Recurve's chief building scientist Trey Muffet performed the final test. He fitted an orange tarp with a large fan in the middle of it onto the front door frame.
Muffet: So right now we're about ready to run the blower door, and what we're going to look at is the actual final test out number on the tightness of the home.
Sound of blower running
Muffet turns on the fan which sucks air into the house, pressurizing it. Then, he measures how fast the air leaks back out through the walls and windows.
Muffet: All right, so we have 1,994 cubic feet per minute at minus-50 pascals.
I ask Muffet for a translation. And it turns out, we're blowing right past the Joneses.
Muffet: Your house is probably one of the highest performing houses on the block and probably in the neighborhood.
By insulating and sealing leaks Recurve was able to boost the overall efficiency of my house by more than 70 percent. And that correlates directly with the amount of savings I'll see on my energy bill. But because I live in temperate L.A. that bill was pretty low to begin with and that means the payback time is a lot longer than a house in say, Fargo, N.D. -- about 15 years in my case.
The good news is that while I wait for those savings to turn into profits, my house is also 70 percent more comfortable. And that's a hard thing to put a price on.
In Los Angeles, I'm Sam Eaton for Marketplace Money.
Comments
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From Chester, PA, 04/12/2010
You can attempt to weatherize a home all you want but when you have crew chiefs in positions of authority asking other experienced trade workers what is and how do you operater the BLOWER DOOR, you have a major problem.
From Chester, PA, 04/12/2010
I work for the weatherization program in Media and frankly the workers are severly underpaid for the kind of work that is performed not to mention inexperienced especially in the trade sector especially when it comes to the installation of the windows.
From PORTAGE, IN, 03/15/2010
I also had my house installated through the program and now have mold in attic and have now money to fix and my son has athsma and sevear allergies and is getting sick
From Baltimore, MD, 02/10/2010
Elaine,
Likely your contractor was not BPI Certified. The danger of DIY, or 'hire my brother' weatherization is that hidden indoor air quality problems must be detected and solved first.
Air sealing buildings, and lighting retrofits are the lowest hanging fruit in the US right now -- The greatest potential return for least investment. But tightening up a home with mold, a structural defect or IAQ sickness is like starting a full body fitness program with a broken ankle and open bleeding.
Hire a BPI certified auditor first. Follow prioritized recommendations. With investment, old or even new buildings can become high performance models.
From Media, PA, 02/09/2010
In an earlier comment "Tom" states, "...The right way is hire a lot of unemployed people just as in the 1930s WPA programs to do the insulation at a reasonable cost (labor and materials)..."
Really Tom? The people that work for our company are trained in building science so they understand where and why and how to insulate properly. It takes an average employee 2 to 3 months to fully understand and operate on a semi-independent basis. The inexperienced/uneducated person can create a thermal boundary that doesn't align with the air boundary and then the homeowner just paid for a halfway done house that will not improve comfort or bills and potentially cause the client can have issues with mold, radon, or other hazardous materials.
My understanding is that the Homestar Program rewards homeowners with higher financial incentives who have had an energy audit and can verify/prove savings with a test out.
Tom, you may want to educate yourself more about the science and safety before you speak.
This program would allow us to hire and train more unemployed workers and make it safe for our clients.
From Eastsound, WA, 02/02/2010
The issues raised here are very critical to home efficiency. It is critical that if you are going to weatherize, you have an audit done that takes into ALL of the factors. Simply sealing a home is not enough. A BPI certified Building Performance Anaylist is a key starting point, as they will audit the house "As a system".
It is important that all parts of the home are tested and examined. All combustion appliances should be tested and reviewed, and when you are done, you may need to install systems to ADD air back into the house. As important as sealing the leaks is, it is equally important to make sure you maintain proper indoor air quality AFTER the weatherization.
A BPI Auditor will also be able to calculate savings due to heat loss from both sealing leaks and adding insulation, as well as payback and ROI numbers.
Most audits run $300-$400, but will pay back that cost in less than a year.
From Danbury, CT, 02/01/2010
Getting my home weatherizized only costs $75 in Connecticut (included sealing ductwork and house air leaks, 14 CFL light bulbs, low flow shower head and sink aerators, pipe wrap PLUS a kill-a-watt meter and rebates for insulation and appliances!) However adding cellulose attic insulation was an extra fee. A weatherization company (www.gogreenstar.com) did the work and wasn't a problem - my total cost after insulation rebate and Federal tax credit was only $875 - less than last December's heating oil bill! Its been cold in CT and we can already feel a big difference, but not sure how much we will save on energy bills. Any suggestions how to figure that out?
Thanks
From Los Angeles, CA, 02/01/2010
How about homeowners who are handy and want advice on how to weatherize 1927 wall? What do I use to inject into walls between the studs and the blocking studs? Do I have to punch halls into every one square foot of wall?
From Kennewick, WA, 02/01/2010
Usually a good idea. One possible complication is Radon levels in household air. This could be a problem in Los Angeles and elsewhere. The concern is that radon can buildup in the structure. Radon is radioactive and can produce lung cancer (even without cigarettes). You cannot really tell if there is a problem without measurements.
01/31/2010
Weatherizing (insulating and plugging leaks) residential buildings is an excellent idea. But using "cash for clunkers" as a model is abusrd because of all the loopholes, fraud and pointlessness that engendered. The right way is hire a lot of unemployed people just as in the 1930s WPA programs to do the insulation at a reasonable cost (labor and materials). This may involve temporary nationalization of insulation manufacturers. In the case of owner occupied homes the work is done for free but becomes a lien against the house. If the house does not sell after, say, ten years then the owners must begin paying off the cost of the work. In the mean time they will presumably saved a considerable amount on their heating and cooling costs. The nation's residential heating and cooling costs will have been reduced. The need for coal fired electrical generation will not have risen. The need for natural gas fired peak load capacity will be ameliorated. The benefits to home owners will immediately accrue. Jobs will be immediately be created. Growth in America's carbon emissions would be held back. This would have to be done nationally and on a massive scale. The catch is that team obama, congress, the Fed and FDIC have printed and handed over trillions of our dollars to their financial cronies at Goldman, GMAC, GE capital, Discover Card, and so on. The investment banks and even the travel arm of Bank America have become bank holding companies or financial holding companies and are _continuing_ to receive billions of dollars from the Fed's discount lending window at near zero percent. Despite the greatest transfer of wealth of all time Americans and small businesses cannot get loans to, say, weatherize their buildings !!
From Charlotte, NC, 01/30/2010
I agree with Richard. Check for a moisture problem, eliminate the source or the path through the use of drainage, pumps, moisture barriers, fixing leaks, etc. Short-term, use a dehumidifier. Also do a blower door test and measure the amount of air exchange you are getting.
From Rockland, ME, 01/30/2010
Your mold problem is linked to moisture not insulation. In some cases, sealing up air leaks can lead to more noticeable moisture problems. This is why it is important to get help from a home performance contractor that looks at the moisture as well as insulation and air leakage. Moisture control should always be done first before tightening up a home.
Sorry to hear about your mold problem. Do you have moisture in the basement?
From NY, 01/30/2010
HI,
I had my 1875 year old home insulated and now I have mold growing on my dinning room furniture. I would have never had it done if I knew this was going to happen.
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