WHOLE HOUSE ENERGY ASSESSMENTS
First of all, a note pertaining to our last column, questioning why no more money was channeled to such a good and successful a program as the MIST/CHF low interest loan program and why it was allowed to simply die. I was able to email that column to a Mr. Robert Oglesby, the Executive Director of the California Energy Commission as an open letter and asked for his response. So far haven’t heard back.
There is something that needs to be mentioned here regarding politicians we elect. When it was getting down to the wire for the CEC to make it’s decision as to how much money (if any) was to go to the CHF program, people in the industry tried to get any available politician to take a stand and nudge the CEC in the correct direction. We reached out to the offices of Congressmen Mike Thompson, who actually returned our call and was genuinely interested in our plight. Unfortunately it was on the “wrong side of the isle” and there was nothing he could do, but referred us to State Senator Noreen Evans’s Ukiah office who also called us back and asked what they could do to help. Since the vote was the next day and in Sacramento, the timing was all wrong and they just couldn’t do anything, but I think it’s worth mentioning that these elected officials did take the time to actually try to understand the issue and were willing to help if they could have. A nice surprise.
HOME ENERGY AUDITS
A lot of the energy incentive programs available right now sponsored by utility companies require some type of energy audit or assessment prior or after the work is complete to justify the incentive amount. We used to call these “Audits” but we have been asked not to use that term. They (whoever that may be) feel the connotation is too close to an IRS function, so we have been asked to use the much bigger word, “assessment”. But it’s all the same and it is the best place to start if you are serious about doing an energy upgrade on your home. As we’ve said so many times here, it can be counterproductive to approach the replacement and upgrading of the many energy systems in a building without some kind of plan or roadmap, which give you some assurance that everything will end up working together as a unit.
It’s been proven that the “Whole-House Concept” of energy upgrades is by far the most cost-effective path, and an energy assessment is the first step. A good one will take one or two guys 2-4 hours onsite to do the testing and gather all the information needed. The basic one required for PG&E’s EUC rebate program requires pressure testing your duct system as well as pressure testing the whole house. The technicians will also gather information on all your gas fired appliances, as well as doing safety testing on them. They will also do basic safety testing on the house as a whole to make sure you don’t start out with some kind of back drafting problem of some kind. They will look at everything in your home that produces, consumes or is affected by energy.
They then take all this information back to their lair and feed it into a computer program that builds a model of your house inside it, and subjects it to all the weather conditions it has in its library, for every hour of the day of the year, for whatever climate zone you are in. It then lists upgrades and improvements and calculates how much each of those will save, both as a percentage and as a monetary amount. These percentages are used to determine rebate amounts in the PG&E EUC rebate program.
The technician should also ask you for 12 months of utility usage and input that into the program also, and in the end a 12 page custom report is issued with some very good information, tailored just for your home. Upgrades are listed in the order of their “cost-effectiveness” meaning the most “bang for the buck” listed first. Unless the home was built within the last 10 years, we almost always see 15-20% by installing a few simple items and a 30-50% savings by getting more aggressive (new dual pane windows, new furnace), and you can get an 80-85% if you add solar P.V.
The drawback is these assessments take a lot of time, as you can see, 10-15 man hours, so most companies must charge for the service. But people hesitate to pay because they don’t know what they are going to get in advance, and since most utility programs have minimums, if their savings doesn’t measure up on the audit the money spent is then wasted.
However, we now have an answer. We now have a $500 rebate from a CEC grant administered by a group called Ecology Action. You can Google “Energyupgradecalifornia” put in your zip code and look for the $500 “Whole House Energy Rating Rebate”. You fill out a form and you have an option of selecting a rating company to come out and do the rating on your home. The first part is called the “test-in” and that’s where you’ll find what upgrades are recommended and for that part the reimbursement is $300. Then after the work is done (if you have work done, it’s not mandatory) you have the rater come back and do a “test-out” and for that you get a $200 reimbursement. When you call or email to schedule your audit make sure you ask how much it’s going to cost, you’ll get $300 back for the assessment but every auditing company can charge what they want.
A good home energy audit or assessment is a valuable tool in fighting high utility costs and if you can take advantage of this CEC grant to get it done at little or no cost you should consider it before the grants are gone.
First of all, a note pertaining to our last column, questioning why no more money was channeled to such a good and successful a program as the MIST/CHF low interest loan program and why it was allowed to simply die. I was able to email that column to a Mr. Robert Oglesby, the Executive Director of the California Energy Commission as an open letter and asked for his response. So far haven’t heard back.
There is something that needs to be mentioned here regarding politicians we elect. When it was getting down to the wire for the CEC to make it’s decision as to how much money (if any) was to go to the CHF program, people in the industry tried to get any available politician to take a stand and nudge the CEC in the correct direction. We reached out to the offices of Congressmen Mike Thompson, who actually returned our call and was genuinely interested in our plight. Unfortunately it was on the “wrong side of the isle” and there was nothing he could do, but referred us to State Senator Noreen Evans’s Ukiah office who also called us back and asked what they could do to help. Since the vote was the next day and in Sacramento, the timing was all wrong and they just couldn’t do anything, but I think it’s worth mentioning that these elected officials did take the time to actually try to understand the issue and were willing to help if they could have. A nice surprise.
HOME ENERGY AUDITS
A lot of the energy incentive programs available right now sponsored by utility companies require some type of energy audit or assessment prior or after the work is complete to justify the incentive amount. We used to call these “Audits” but we have been asked not to use that term. They (whoever that may be) feel the connotation is too close to an IRS function, so we have been asked to use the much bigger word, “assessment”. But it’s all the same and it is the best place to start if you are serious about doing an energy upgrade on your home. As we’ve said so many times here, it can be counterproductive to approach the replacement and upgrading of the many energy systems in a building without some kind of plan or roadmap, which give you some assurance that everything will end up working together as a unit.
It’s been proven that the “Whole-House Concept” of energy upgrades is by far the most cost-effective path, and an energy assessment is the first step. A good one will take one or two guys 2-4 hours onsite to do the testing and gather all the information needed. The basic one required for PG&E’s EUC rebate program requires pressure testing your duct system as well as pressure testing the whole house. The technicians will also gather information on all your gas fired appliances, as well as doing safety testing on them. They will also do basic safety testing on the house as a whole to make sure you don’t start out with some kind of back drafting problem of some kind. They will look at everything in your home that produces, consumes or is affected by energy.
They then take all this information back to their lair and feed it into a computer program that builds a model of your house inside it, and subjects it to all the weather conditions it has in its library, for every hour of the day of the year, for whatever climate zone you are in. It then lists upgrades and improvements and calculates how much each of those will save, both as a percentage and as a monetary amount. These percentages are used to determine rebate amounts in the PG&E EUC rebate program.
The technician should also ask you for 12 months of utility usage and input that into the program also, and in the end a 12 page custom report is issued with some very good information, tailored just for your home. Upgrades are listed in the order of their “cost-effectiveness” meaning the most “bang for the buck” listed first. Unless the home was built within the last 10 years, we almost always see 15-20% by installing a few simple items and a 30-50% savings by getting more aggressive (new dual pane windows, new furnace), and you can get an 80-85% if you add solar P.V.
The drawback is these assessments take a lot of time, as you can see, 10-15 man hours, so most companies must charge for the service. But people hesitate to pay because they don’t know what they are going to get in advance, and since most utility programs have minimums, if their savings doesn’t measure up on the audit the money spent is then wasted.
However, we now have an answer. We now have a $500 rebate from a CEC grant administered by a group called Ecology Action. You can Google “Energyupgradecalifornia” put in your zip code and look for the $500 “Whole House Energy Rating Rebate”. You fill out a form and you have an option of selecting a rating company to come out and do the rating on your home. The first part is called the “test-in” and that’s where you’ll find what upgrades are recommended and for that part the reimbursement is $300. Then after the work is done (if you have work done, it’s not mandatory) you have the rater come back and do a “test-out” and for that you get a $200 reimbursement. When you call or email to schedule your audit make sure you ask how much it’s going to cost, you’ll get $300 back for the assessment but every auditing company can charge what they want.
A good home energy audit or assessment is a valuable tool in fighting high utility costs and if you can take advantage of this CEC grant to get it done at little or no cost you should consider it before the grants are gone.
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