Efficiency Experts Help Members Cut Energy Waste

By Scott Gates

Clad in jeans and a knit shirt, Jim Bennett walks confidently into a dark kitchen, puts a clipboard on the table, and waits. His eyes scan the room, darting from one appliance to another. Within minutes the home’s owner walks in and flips on the light.

“Good morning,” Bennett greets him warmly. Leaning over the counter, he points to a sheet of paper showing columns of numbers. “So if you look right here at 2009, you’ll see your electricity use went up — that’s because last winter was 25 percent colder than the others here …”

Bennett, an energy management technician with Fredericksburg, Va.-based Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, provides expert advice through an energy audit service offered to members by the vast majority of the nation’s electric co-ops.

“If you track kilowatt-hour [kWh] use it tells the story,” he explains.

The main trick to lowering winter electric use involves keeping drafts out and warm air in. The process, called weatherization — sealing drafty windows and doors, and adding insulation where it’s needed — gets houses in top form to withstand the elements.

On average, weatherization reduces heating bills by 32 percent and overall energy bills by about $350 per year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The upfront investment in energy efficient upgrades can vary, although an energy advisor like Bennett can ensure money gets spent wisely.

Expert Advice

Energy advisors, also called energy auditors, are professionals trained to find specific inefficiencies in a home or business. Working through a checklist of tests, they can determine what upgrades would offer the most bang for the buck in each particular case.

“All homes are unique,” Bennett relates. “It’s just a matter of evaluation. I’ll talk to a member, find out what they do, how they use energy, and narrow things down from there.”

Recognizing the money-saving value in energy audits, electric cooperatives are long-time champions of the process. A majority of electric co-ops nationwide, 77 percent, offer residential energy audits to their consumers. A full 92 percent sponsor energy efficiency education programs, according to the Arlington, Va.-based Cooperative Research Network (CRN), the research arm of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

“Within two to four hours, an energy auditor can go through a home and work up a full list of recommended energy efficiency upgrades,” Brian Sloboda, CRN senior advisor, points out. “With an arsenal of tools at their disposal to find even the slightest draft-some technical, some as simple as a candle-energy auditors are well worth the expense, typically at or under $300, and in some cases free to co-op members.”

A standard energy auditor’s tool kit includes a variety of equipment to determine the energy efficiency of a structure. Thorough audits often use blower doors, which measure the extent of leaks in a building, and infrared cameras, which reveal hard-to-detect drafts and missing insulation.

“A blower door is essentially a powerful fan that can be mounted to an exterior door,” Sloboda remarks. “The fan draws air out of the home, dropping air pressure inside. The higher outside air pressure then flows in through all unsealed cracks and openings. Auditors may use a smoke pencil or candle to detect those leaks.”

Infrared cameras can be used both inside and out to spot a range of inefficiencies, including air leaks, insulation effectiveness, and even abnormally hot electrical or mechanical components.

“Infrared scanning is often used with a blower door running, which helps exaggerate leaking air,” Sloboda says. “The air leaks appear as black streaks in the infrared camera’s viewfinder-quicker to spot than wisps of smoke from a candle.”

An auditor will also pay close attention to how lighting is used, the age and number of appliances, and any other details that may be adjusted to improve a home’s energy efficiency.

A Little Help from Uncle Sam

Although most electric co-ops provide energy audits or access to an energy advisor of some kind, some homeowners may not be able to afford the more expensive improvements recommended. Identifying that a home needs extra insulation or new windows is one thing, but actually paying for and installing these upgrades involves some financial commitment on the part of the homeowner.

For this reason, the U.S. Department of Energy established its Weatherization Assistance Program in 1976. The program helps low-income families increase energy efficiency in their homes by providing both an energy audit and funds to make the upgrades.

The Weatherization Assistance Program has provided services to more than 6.2 million families over the last three decades, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. With a boost from the federal stimulus package, that number keeps steadily increasing, creating a need for more energy advisors in the process.

“We’re going to be investing $5 billion in helping low- and middle-income families weatherize up to a million homes,” U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu asserts.

Households with incomes at or below 200 percent of the national poverty level are eligible for the program. For a family of four, that’s an income limit of $44,100. The stimulus bill allows for an average of $6,500 to be spent on each home. Program participants receive professional energy consultation; workers then arrive to insulate walls and roofs, seal air leaks and install more efficient heating and cooling systems.

The program covers all of those under the set income limit, whether they own or rent, live in a single-family home, multi-family housing complex or a mobile home. Those wishing to participate should contact the local Illinois county Community Action Agency. Information can be found at www.ildceo.net, then clicking on Business Assistance, then LIHEAP and Weatherization.

“You’re most likely to find the problems and the inefficiencies in the tightest, nasty parts of the attic and crawlspace, the spots where most homeowners just don’t know to look,” Bennett says. “We’ll get in there. If there’s a problem, we’ll find it.”

Scott Gates writes on consumer and cooperative affairs for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.