HOME ENERGY AUDITS
Audit is first step in energy efficiency
Mary Beth Blatner and her husband Richard have always been energy conscious. When they built their Lancaster home 23 years ago, they piled on extra insulation, keeping the cold Western New York winters in mind.
So a few months ago, with rising energy prices and environmental concerns looming, they decided to get a checkup.
“We wondered after 23 years whether anything was still efficient,” said Mary Beth Blatner.
Enter Martin Bakowski, owner of Home Performance Professionals in the Town of Tonawanda.
Using specialized tools — a blower door, smoke pen, digital manometer, duct blaster, furnace- deficiency tester and thermal- imaging camera — he conducted an audit, rating the house on its energy efficiency. Bakowski scoured the Blatner home looking for weak spots where energy — and money — could be escaping.
He paid special attention to areas near exhaust fans, recessed lights, baseboards, light switches and the cathedral ceiling — the likely places where improper weather stripping could cause heat to leak.
The verdict?
“Our house is pretty tight and efficient,” said Blatner. “We were lucky.”
The Blatners were especially lucky when one considers they had planned to replace their windows before the home energy audit, assuming that was where their heat was going.
Contractors said that is a common mistake and the reason it’s so important to do a home audit before deciding on home improvements.
Usually, attic and wall insulation as well as air sealing provide the biggest bang for the buck, with windows ending up at the bottom of the list as being the most expensive items to replace with the lowest dollar-value return.
“A lot of people say, ‘I need new windows,’ ” said Bakowski. “Windows take up about 12 percent of the wall area. It makes more sense to insulate the other 88 percent around it.”
The Blatners ended up keeping the windows, which rated well, and replaced instead the nearly quarter-century-old furnace with two new energy-efficient ones. They added an electric heat pump, which attaches to the house’s central air conditioning unit to redistribute heat back into the home.
The result is a more evenly heated, comfortable home, lower gas and electricity bills and more environmentally friendly consumption of natural resources.
“It was definitely worth it,” Blatner said. “I’d do it again.”
Another component of the “holistic home” approach taken by energy auditors is health and safety. Auditors conduct carbon monoxide testing and also test for natural gas leaks.
“It’s like a tune-up for your car,” said Ryan Moore, a project manager at the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency. “Contractors check every area of energy and money savings, health, safety and indoor air quality. Consumers are surprised by what they find.”
Contractors said more than half the homes they test have gas leaks the owners were unaware of. Once found, it’s usually an easy $30 fix to take care of an improperly sealed pipe.
Audits check to make sure homes are tight enough to contain energy, but properly ventilated to release harmful fumes or toxins and prevent growth of mold and bacteria, resulting in better indoor air quality.
Audits are especially important for people in Western New Yorker, Moore said, where homes are older, the weather is more extreme and energy costs are high.
Rates vary, but locally, a basic energy audit costs about $350. Darin Hughes, owner of Hughesco in Amherst, conducts free energy audits before giving estimates on home improvement projects.
“If you don’t know the other issues in a house, the estimate is worthless,” Hughes said.
Bakowski agreed.
“Any new equipment is only going to be as efficient as the house around it, he said. “A properly sealed house is the only way you’re going to get the true value of what you paid for something like a furnace.”
Once an energy audit determines what improvements should be made, there’s a sizable chunk of money available to homeowners willing to make them.
National Fuel will give rebates of up to $400 to consumers who install more efficient furnaces, boilers and hot water tanks.
The state offers low-interest loans of up to $30,000 (New York Energy Smart Loan Fund); up to $3,000 in cash back on energy improvement expenditures (10 percent homeowner financing incentive from NYSERDA); or up to $10,000 in income-qualified subsidies (Energy Star). Visit GetEnergySmart. org for more details.
“It’s the smartest investment you can make right now. Where else are you going to get that kind of payback?” said Hughes.
Landlords of multiunit buildings can even qualify for improvement subsidies based on tenant incomes — allowing them to increase tenant quality of life while reducing their cost of living.
According to Hughes, when the average homeowner addresses the most energy efficient projects first — usually insulation, air sealing or replacing an old furnace, depending on the audit results — they see a 50 percent reduction in their monthly energy bills.
That means — even on the average unsubsidized $8,000 job — the monthly financing bill (about $85) will be dwarfed by up to hundreds of dollars in savings per month, year-round. That’s without including the summertime benefits of reduced cooling costs.
A subsidized homeowner could save even more.
For example, that same $8,000 project would cost the consumer about $4,000 after government financial assistance, a roughly $40 monthly payment if financed, with energy bills reduced indefinitely.
“The positive cash flow is amazing. People can’t believe it,” Hughes said. “You’re saving more than the cost of the project.”
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments