apperson energy management

                                               MORE ON REBATES

The last couple of columns we have been discussing the merits of the newest PG&E rebate program for upgrading the energy efficiency of your home. It is known as the “Energy Upgrade California” program and as much as $3,500 in rebates can be had if you correctly jump through the required hoops. We also have another rebate program to discuss, and while this may be putting a lot of people to sleep if you’ll bear with me I’m headed somewhere.

The other rebate program belongs to the City of Ukiah and while it’s technically not a new program they have added some items and increased the amounts on others. In order to be eligible for rebates on basic home weatherization items you must have electric heating or central air conditioning provided by the City of Ukiah’s electric utility. And while they have dropped the rebates on a few things they have added rebates for evaporative coolers, ground source heat pumps, variable speed pool pumps and even a $10.00 rebate for a string of LED Holiday lights.

They have also added rebates for blower door assisted air sealing, radiant roof barrier, and a once every three year chance to have your heat pump or A/C unit’s refrigerant charge level checked along with a tune-up. These are really good and forward thinking things to have done as it has been found that a large percentage of air conditioners have incorrect charge levels, which not only causes it to run inefficiently but can damage the compressor. In addition the City has added rebates for HVAC duct sealing, or reinsulating your ducts and even replacing them altogether, another excellent option as houses over 20 years old have very little to no duct insulation and replacing all the ducts with a new, tight, fully insulated duct system is showing a high percentage savings on the computer simulations.

Another thing the city did on this newest round of rebates is that they raised the rebate amount for wall and ceiling insulation, and this is where I have been heading.

If you happen to be one of the lucky people (for the sake of this situation) who have central A/C powered by City electric and you also happen to get your heating from natural gas supplied by PG&E, you can take advantage of both rebate programs and have your home’s insulation brought to current levels and your net investment can be very minimal. 

                                                         SOME SCENARIOS 

Lets look at a hypothetical case. Lets’ say you live in a home in the City of Ukiah and you have the prerequisite central A/C and a natural gas furnace powered by PG&E and your home is say 1,200 sq. ft.(30x40). And it’s older and has no attic insulation or wall insulation. Now different insulation contractors charge different prices so I’ll use prices from the 2008 Means Residential Remodeling Pricing Guidebook. The cost to bring the attic to R-38 would be$.94 sq ft or $1,128 and to drill and blow insulation into the outside walls it says the cost is $2.01 per sq. ft. or $2,026 based on your 30x40 foot house with 8’ tall walls. So you have your walls and attic fully insulated for a cost of $3,154 ( and I can tell you that is a higher price than you will probably pay around here). So, now let’s look at the rebates. For the attic the City will give you back $.65 and PG&E will kick in $.15 for $.80 sq. ft. which comes out to $960.For the walls, the City will rebate $.75 and PG&E is giving $.50 for a total rebate of $1.25 or $1,260, for a total rebate of $2,220. If you do the math you come up with your investment being  $1080. |And if you do this project this year you can get the 30% federal tax credit (on materials only) of $140. So now your net investment is down to $794. You had over $3,150 worth of insulation work done for only $794. And I can tell you those prices are inflated almost that much. And the amount you are now going to save monthly on your utility bill will recoup that $794 in 1-2 years.

If a person should happen to choose to use the newer PG&E EUC program the rebates get even better. Under their basic part of the program a contractor can insulate the attic, address some air infiltration issues (weather strip some doors and caulk plumbing penetrations), and seal your HVAC ducts, and the average cost per household would total maybe $2,000. You would get a $650 rebate from PG&E and another $980 from the City for a rebate total of $1,630 and a tax credit of $56 for a net investment of $314 for $2,000 worth of work, and of course the less than one year payback to recoup that $314.

Now every house is different and what each contractor charges is different but my point is that right now if a person has both City of Ukiah electric and PG&E gas heat you can get one heck of a lot of energy conservation work done for not much money. And the amount that’s left after the rebates and tax credits you should recoup in a short time in utility savings because of the improvements you just made. 

                                     NEW PG&E PROGRAM, PART TWO

Last time we were discussing the new rebate program offered by PG&E. As noted, there are two parts or “paths” a customer can follow in their pursuit of rebate dollars and energy efficiency. Last time we discussed the “Basic Path”, the starting point in the simple part of the program to be used by a person who wants to just do some basic simple upgrades to their attic, HVAC ducts, tighten up the air infiltration and wrap the water heater pipes. And get a thousand dollars to put back in the bank account. The “Advanced Path” is a more complicated and is used by the more by the committed energy saver. Why? Because it is completely results driven. You have to prove savings before you can install an item and testing must be done after to insure results and the rebate is only based on those results. Instead of the limited walk-thru audit, when using the Advance Path the site visit takes about half a day and another couple hours of computer work for the contractor. But the rewards and the energy savings are greater for the customer. 


Again it starts with a PG&E customer who has natural gas for heating calling a BPI certified contractor and this time the contractor will bring testing equipment along. Just a note here about BPI. The reason for the requirement to use a BPI contractor is we are tightening up houses to the point where someone can turn on a clothes dryer and make the water heater flue gasses draft back into the house. BPI contractors are trained to safety check every job after it’s complete to assure this can not happen. This certification does not come easy.

                                       A MORE EXTENSIVE ENERGY ASSESSMENT

 Anyway, he will have to do a blower door test, which is a pressure test of the whole house to check for air leakage, he’ll do a HVAC duct pressure test to see how much your ducts leak, and also do the “CAZ” (combustion appliance zone) testing for combustion  appliance safety as mentioned above. He will then look at every area and item in the home that consumes or affects energy usage. All insulation levels, where the windows are located and what type, name rank and serial number for furnace, A/C unit, water heater, stove, refer, etc. He’ll measure the whole house and do a scale drawing. For one or even two people this takes half a day. The information is taken back to the contractors office and entered into a computer modeling  program. It has all the weather information in it for every climate zone in the State. The computer builds a model of your home and determines how much energy it should be using, for every hour of every day of the year. It then compares that to your actual usage (the contractor asked and received 12 months of PG&E bills from you). The computer than takes the contractor’s suggestions for upgrades to the home. And they can be pretty much anything. The program eventually gives us a list of things that can be done to the home to decrease its utility usage, in the order of cost effectiveness. The homeowner can then pick what items to install from the list but the potential savings must show at least 20% to start. At the 20% savings level, if those items are installed, the rebate would be $2,000. And as you move down the list as the savings increase the rebate increases also, so that a 40% savings gets you a $3,500 rebate. After the agreed upon items are installed the contractor must do all the testing again because, as we said, the results must be there for the rebate to be paid.

And that’s about it. Any work done between now and the end of the year should be eligible for the 30% federal tax credit for any amount over the rebate amount.

Because of the large amount of work required by the contractor with no assurance that work will result, and considering the fact that even if no work is contracted the customer has value in the computer generated assessment of their home, most contractors will be charging a fee to do the assessment and modeling, so make sure that is discussed upfront.

Also, just got word that very soon all electric homes will be included in this program.

                                                     SOME CHANGES

On another topic. I find I have covered the energy topics that come easy to me, meaning future columns have to be researched, which takes a lot more time. So we have decided to write the column only once every other week, and we are going to open the topics up to minor home repairs. It will be simple things for the person who maybe didn’t have anyone to show them, live, how to change a faucet or figure how much paint to buy for a room. We would also welcome guest columns from any builders or contractors or material suppliers out there who have something educational to share. Any takers please email me at jvapperson@pacific.net. 

                 MORE ON NEW ENERGY PROGRAMS

A few weeks ago in this space I brought out some preliminary information about a new PG&E rebate program. At that time the program was brand new and not all the guidelines and rules were in place, which caused me to give out some information that has now changed, which is to be expected in a pilot program such as this. Since some of these changes are what I would term “major”, I think we need to update the ratepayers so everyone has accurate information. 

Initially there was some confusion concerning who would be eligible. I indicated any household having City of Ukiah electrical service, or any home with a propane tank in their yard could not participate. A “rewording” of the eligibility standards qualifies many more homes. The new guidelines say only that the house must have PG&E natural gas for heating, meaning City of Ukiah folks can participate if they have natural gas heat supplied by PG&E. And it’s the same for County residents. You can have a propane tank in your yard as long as you use PG&E natural gas for heating. This opens the doors for many more people to participate, as it should since these programs are financed by everyone who pays a PG&E bill. The only drawback is the City folks will only receive 65-70% of the full rebate amount, but that’s O.K. as we’ll discuss later.

                                                    TWO PATHS TO FOLLOW

 While the rebates available through this new program are quite generous, both the homeowner and the Contractor have to jump through a number of hoops to make it happen. The program has two separate options or “paths” a homeowner can choose from. The simplest is called the “Basic Path” (how original) and here is how it works. A home owner contacts a participating Contractor (must be BPI certified or have a BPI certified Building Analyst on staff, check BPI.org “Silver Star” tab) who comes out and does a brief walk through and inspection of the home, probably takes about an hour. He/she will be looking for a basic package of eligible energy improvements. If possible the following items must be upgraded as a package. Attic insulation at R-19 or below (aprox. 6” or less), to be brought to R-38, your HVAC ducts need to be tested and sealed to 10% or less air leakage, air infiltration must be reduced to .35 ACH (that’s one complete air change every 3 hours), showers must get low flow heads (most have them already), and both pipes from the hot water heater must be wrapped for 5’ if accessible. After the site visit the Contractor feeds all the information gathered from your home into a special form provided by PG&E, and it is sent off electronically. In a couple of days an email response should come from PG&E giving permission to proceed. You and your Contractor then discuss pricing, sign the appropriate papers and he schedules the work. Before the work actually starts there are a few “test-in” procedures. A blower door, a duct pressure test and combustion appliance safety test will be done. The improvements are completed and the tests are repeated to make sure the improvements are actually doing their job. And the safety testing is repeated to make sure no unhealthy or dangerous situations were inadvertently created by the improvements. You and your Contractor then settle up. The contractor fills in some more paperwork and in a few weeks the homeowner gets a check for $1,000! 

                                    THESE REBATES GO A LONG WAY

The cool part of this is that in smaller homes this $1,000 could possibly cover all, or very close to all of the cost. As far as we know right now there is no limit on percentage ratio to job cost. So if the improvements cost $1,000 you get the full $1,000 rebate. Now remember City of Ukiah natural gas users get a reduced rebate of around $650, however, if a person also has electric central A/C the City of Ukiah rebate program can also be used to pick up some of the slack. The City offers a rebate for attic insulation based on the square footage that can be teamed with the PG&E offering. You can’t get more money back than you paid but using both programs can go a long way towards covering the cost. So we are good to go unless someone from either one of the programs decides it’s just too good a deal for the ratepayers and changes the rules, which does happen. Another aspect to consider is the Federal Energy Tax Credit. If you have the work done before the end of this year, any amount not covered by the rebates should be eligible for the 30% Federal Tax Credit. So, you may want to call a BPI certified contractor and get on their list as there will probably be a rush to get jobs completed by year end. Next time we’ll discuss the “Advanced Path” approach to the new PG&E program where there is another $3,500 in rebates available, some serious money.