Q–I got a call recently from someone who said he was an energy auditor, and he had a special price for analyzing homes in the winter. Can energy auditors help me?
A–I believe they can. Take a look at your energy bills for the last six months or so. Are they higher than you would like them to be? Then take a look around your house. Do you see places that might be wasting energy? Maybe there is a drafty spot in the living room near a window. Or maybe that 30-year-old freezer in the garage you use once in a while is an energy-guzzler.
A thorough energy audit could identify problem areas in your home, suggest solutions and let you know what you might do to lower those energy bills and make your home more comfortable. There are a couple of ways to go about this.
– You can conduct your own energy audit. You’ll get lots of good advice on how to do it by contacting the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Clearinghouse at 1-800-363-3732 and asking for free materials to guide you. If you have the time and want to save money, this is a great way to start.
– Contact your local utility company. Many utilities around the country offer free or low-cost energy audits for their customers. These auditors are highly trained and will give your home a thorough inspection, maybe even performing some diagnostic tests and measurements.
– You can have an audit done by one of the many “house doctors” around the country, such as the home audit company that called you. The cost will be more than the first two options, but you’ll be getting a detailed audit by experts who will use special equipment to check for air leaks, thermometers and other tools to study your home in detail. Many of them will even do some energy-improvement measures while they are in the home.
The result of an energy audit will be a detailed report with a lot of suggestions for improving your home. Your job then will be to prioritize what you want to do, based on a number of factors. What kind of budget do you have for home improvements? Are there areas in the home that you want fixed up now? How long do you plan to live in the home (to help you justify long-term savings)? Consider other factors that will make your decision on what to do after you get the audit results.
More of you will be hearing about home energy audits in the coming years. In more than a dozen states, home energy ratings are being used for buyers to qualify for larger mortgages at lower interest rates, reduced closing costs, etc.
Q–We visited our cousins in Austin, Texas, recently and read something about a “green” building program. What do you know about it?
A–There has long been a strong movement toward saving energy and helping the environment in Austin, and this new building program is one more example of what you find there.The Green Builder Program was started by the city to promote the use of environmentally friendly building practices in new homes. Such factors as energy, water, building materials and solid waste are considered as homes are rated on their environmental soundness.
According to the National Association of Home Builders, eight custom-home builders in Austin joined the program during last summer’s parade of homes by putting in a number of innovative energy and engineering features in their homes. These included high-efficiency cooling systems, water-conserving grasses, attic radiant barriers and many recycled components used in construction materials. Since 1992, in fact, when the program started, more than 400 homes have been built and certified in this program.
One final note: Although homes with these features usually cost a little more to buy, lower utility and maintenance costs and higher home value usually offset this higher purchase price quickly. As a result, occupants live in a house that costs less to live in and is actually a healthier place to be.
Q–I don’t believe that energy-efficient light bulbs will save as much money as you claim. Although the cost of using a compact fluorescent is roughly one-third as much as for an incandescent, this relatively small savings is much more than overcome by the initial cost of the fluorescent. These bulbs might be practical but not for household use.
A–I have mailed you details on the economics of energy-efficient light bulbs. This information should show why they are more economical than you realize. I’ll repeat some of the highlights.
A standard 60-watt incandescent bulb lasts for about 750 hours. The equivalent compact fluorescent bulb would draw only 15 watts and should last for 10,000 hours (and this estimate is based on frequent switching on and off during an average daily use of about three hours). A number of studies have verified the accuracy of these numbers, so let’s start there.
Let’s assume that I convince you this is the way to go, and you buy a compact fluorescent energy-efficient bulb for your favorite living room lamp. You pay $15 for the bulb, which is the price I’ve seen in various hardware stores.
You install the bulb, but it doesn’t last as long as it’s supposed to–say, only 9,000 hours. Using the bulb three hours each night, this bulb will last a little more than eight years.
During the same time period, you’ve had to purchase 12 incandescent bulbs for a similar lamp that you’ve used the same amount of time. You bought the bulbs for 33 cents each at a local discount store. So you’ve spent only $4 for all those bulbs, $15 versus $4. So far, your argument makes a lot of sense.
However, let’s see how much it has cost you to operate these bulbs during this time period.
We’ll figure the cost at the current national average home electricity rate of around 8.4 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh).
Your 60-watt incandescent bulbs will use 540 kwh of power during these 9,000 hours, costing you $45.36. Meanwhile, that compact fluorescent bulb in your lamp used only 135 kwh at a cost of $11.34. Now we see that the conventional bulbs, when you figure the purchase price and the energy cost, cost you a total of $49.36. The energy-efficient bulb would have cost only $26.34–a savings of $23.02.
The small savings from one energy-efficient product gets multiplied by the number of products, and you can save hundreds of dollars during the years.
