Bob Thoreson of HomeRx (left) and Charlie Rogers of Habitat (right) at a home that took advantage of the CPW program

Community Power Works is a federally-funded program in Seattle that offers additional rebates to help you cover the cost of making energy efficiency upgrades to your home. Due to popular demand, the program recently expanded to serve the entire city! At the same time, Community Power Works (CPW) significantly increased their rebates. Amounts vary depending on the predicted energy savings of the upgrades. Improvements that cut your energy bill by 15%-20%, 21%-30% or 30%+, will get you $1,250, $2,000 or $2,500, respectively. If you have an older gas or oil furnace, you may also be eligible for a new heat pump rebate amounting to an additional $1,200! Pile on top of that extra utility rebates from Puget Sound Energy or Seattle City Light and you may be able to cut your project costs in half.

The first step is to sign up for the program online. Enter my company’s referral code (HABAUD) in the online application so CPW knows you heard about it from me and so they know I have already completed an audit for you:

http://www.communitypowerworks.org/

Once you sign up, I will upload your report to the program. Then you can choose a couple of contractor’s from CPW’s pool of top-notch home performance companies. You are in total control of the process and are not committed to anything until you sign a contract. If you have work done on your house, a third-party inspector from the program will check that the work is done right. How cool is that?! If you have any questions about this program or process please feel free to contact me directly. I’m here to help.

Oil Delivery Truck

Oil is an expensive way to heat your house, and those who heat with oil should consider some other options for replacing

this system. If you heat with oil, you are probably spending between $1000 and $2000 annually on oil to heat your home, and possibly more based on fluctuating crude prices.

To upgrade this system, three options generally include: a) keep maintaining the old furnace and replace it with a new oil furnace when it breaks; b) installing gas or c) install an inverter driven heat pump.

Option B could mean installing a high efficiency gas furnace that costs about $5k or a standard gas furnace that is 15% less efficient and costs about $3k.

Option C could mean installing a forced air or ductless heat pump. A forced air unit will be more expensive option ($8k) compared to $4k for the ductless unit. The forced air, however, will heat a larger area of the house than a ductless model. The ductless units are good for heating large open spaces like your living room/kitchen/entry area. Additional indoor units add $1.5k each to the initial $4k.

Old oil furnace

At current energy prices, a high efficiency gas furnace would cost half as much as an oil furnace and an inverter driven heat pump would cost about a third as much as an oil furnace.

Here are some other things to consider if you are on the fence about switching from oil:

Upfront v. Operating Costs. While the upfront costs of some of these options are significantly higher than others, the added efficiency of these more expensive heaters will pay for themselves over time.

Environment. The gas and oil furnace is a fossil fuel and the heat pump could run on renewable energy sources.

Price Security. Natural gas and oil furnaces would lock you into one fuel type; a heat pump could be powered by many different fuel types depending on what the utility chooses to generate.

Base Service Charges. Seattle City Light’s monthly base service charge is $3.30 and Puget Sound Energy’s is $10. Going with gas would cost you an additional $120/yr.

Contract. PSE’s deal to help cover the cost of bringing gas to your house may require you to change over your water heater and stove to gas. You may not be planning on replacing these other two appliances and doing so may cost a lot of money. Cooking does not account for a large amount of energy use, and an electric stove is about twice as efficient as a gas stove. If you want a gas stove for the better cooking experience, consider an induction stove top which is the not only the most efficient but also the top performing cooking appliance (yep, even better than gas). An induction stove top is, however, very expensive ~$2k. Cooking with gas releases more pollutants in the house and it would be best to have a better functioning kitchen exhaust fan in that scenario. A gas water heater is also less efficient than a heat pump water heater but may be less costly to operate than an existing electric water heater.

Safety & Liability. Bringing gas into the home or keeping oil presents risks for carbon monoxide poisoning and gas/oil leaks.

Air Conditioning. The heat pump can operate in reverse and provide cooling in the summer time.

Maintenance. Both the gas/oil furnace and heat pump will require a similar level of regular maintenance. A ductless heat pump requires the least amount of maintenance.

Noise. The heat pump’s outdoor unit, while quieter than traditional air conditioners, will be noisier than a gas furnace.

Comfort.  Inverter driven heat pumps can modulate their fans and heaters to perfectly match the heating demands of the house. This is in contrast to your oil furnace that is either on or off, which results in wide temperature swings in the house. High efficiency gas furnaces can modulate too but they are more expensive than standard models.

Ducts. Gas and oil require you to keep your ductwork. A ductless heat pump would allow you to remove all the ductwork in the basement and reclaim some headroom and space including the closet the furnace is currently in.

Local Heating. One benefit to the ductless system is that you can locally heat one part of the house instead of heating the entire house with a forced air system. Locally heating is more efficient than heating the entire house.

Resale Value. Many homeowners do not want to buy homes that have oil heat.

Rebates. Gas and electric utilities, such as Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light, often offer rebates for insulation to help keep the heat inside your home. If you convert to electricity or gas, you may become eligible for additional incentives to weatherize your home.

Insulate & Air Seal. Oftentimes it makes more financial sense to improve the insulation and air seal your home so that your costly oil furnace runs less often. A house that needs less heat also requires a smaller furnace so you can save money by buying a smaller heater if you have already done work to keep heat inside the house.

A switch from oil provides tremendous positive opportunities for homeowners. Saving money is just one of them.

A final version of this article will appear on the Community Power Works blog

You may have heard that the federal government is banning the incandescent light bulb. This is half true. In partnership with major lighting manufacturers, the government instead created new energy efficiency standards for our regular ‘ol Edison light bulbs. The 100 Watt, 75 Watt and 60 Watt bulbs would need to be 28% more efficient by 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively. The older style bulbs can still be sold, but they can not be manufactured or imported. The last-minute spending bill Congress passed in December of last year stripped away funding to enforce the new law.

Regular 'ol light bulb

New halogen light saves 28% electricity

These newer energy efficient incandescent light bulbs are a type of halogen lights. Not all halogens are more efficient, however, and you will need to look for specific language on the packaging to identify the energy saving models. You should look for text that says something like “72 W = 100 W”, indicating that it only uses 72 watts, but puts out the same amount of light as an old 100 W incandescent light. These special halogen lights do not get very hot like regular halogens, and they look and feel just like the incandescents we are so used to.

Compact fluorescent lights are still a go-to energy efficient light source because they save 75% of electricity and they can be purchased at low prices or acquired from your local utility for free. These newer halogen incandescents may have a place in your home where you have dimmer switches, need instant-on light, or just prefer the incandescent glow. They are not too expensive, often costing $2 to $8 per bulb. Right now, Philips has the best line of products readily available through Home Depot. Philips has two product lines called “EcoVantage” and “Halogena Energy Saver”. Search for these names in Home Depot’s site to find products you can buy there. They come in most of the shapes and sizes you will need.

Community Power Works’ $500 Fall incentive expires in 10 days! When you sign up, use my referral code: HABAUD

Community Power Works is a federally funded program in South and Central Seattle and it offers additional rebates, a simple low-interest loan product, vetted contractors and third party quality assurance. If you live in one of the eligible neighborhoods, I recommend you take advantage of it:

http://www.communitypowerworks.org/

The rebate amounts are variable depending on the expected carbon reductions of the work. They are also offering a new $500 incentive to new participants. They are also giving auditors (like myself) a $100 bonus and I have asked them to pass that savings along to you. The option loan product’s fee ($400) is also being waived. Seattle City Light also offers additional incentives that can be bundled into your other Community Power Works rebates. Consult with a contractor to get definitive rebate amounts.

Signing up does not commit you to anything at this point, but you will need to do it by Thanksgiving to lock in your eligibility for the extra $500 bonus. In order to fully qualify, you would then need to sign a bid by February 15th and then have the work finished by April 1st. The deal is limited to 500 people.

Don’t live in this part of town? Tell your friends and family who do live in these neighborhoods know about one of Seattle’s best conservation programs! Eligible neighborhoods include:

• Beacon Hill
• Capitol Hill (part)
• Central District
• Columbia City

  

  CPW Eligible Neighborhoods

• First Hill
• Genesee
• Georgetown
• Hillman City
• International District
• Judkins Park
• Lakeridge
• Leschi
• Madison Park
• Madison Valley (Part)
• Madrona
• Mt. Baker
• New Holly
• Othello
• Rainier Beach
• Rainier Valley
• Seward Park
• SODO
• South Lake
• Washington Park

Supple ventilation duct with motorized damper

A lot of newer homes have code-required whole-house ventilation. Oftentimes this is a duct that goes between the furnace’s cold air return duct and the outside. So when the furnace fan turns on, it sucks some of its air from the great outdoors.

This supply ventilation system is great for tighter homes, because it gives the occupants a way to bring more fresh air inside. But we don’t want too much cold air!

To control how much fresh air comes into the house, there will usually be some kind of damper. In its most crude form, there is a damper inside the duct that can be manually adjusted by loosening a wing nut. Typically the installer will write “25%, 50%, 75% and OPEN” on the side of the duct so you know what setting it is at. More commonly,

Supply ventilation duct with manual damper

there is a motorized damper that is wired to a pin timer mounted on the furnace. Each pin timer represents 15 minutes out of a 24-hour period. When the timer comes a to a “open” pin, the motorized damper opens and the furnace fan kicks on, thus delivering fresh air.

Most homeowner’s who have these systems do not even realize it. The ones that do are baffled because the builder or home inspector could never give them accurate information about how to set the controls. To do that you would need to measure how leaky the house is. Oftentimes I find that the houses are so leaky these systems were never necessary in the first place!

Usually these systems are in homes built in the last 3 decades when code started to require whole-house ventilation. So I was surprised to find a supply-side ventilation system on this 1948 home in North Seattle.

Supply ventilation with no damper control

After inspecting it for a while, I realized the darn thing had no damper whatsoever. So whenever this furnace kicks on, it is sucking a huge amount of cold air from outside. This makes it a lot harder for the furnace to bring the house up to a warmer temperature. Disabling this duct is going to make the neighbors’ heating bills go down!

Water heater that spilled its exhaust in house under normal conditions

While going to the store and buying some Great Stuff spray foam to seal up holes in your may seem simple and harmless enough, there are a couple potential hazards you could create by doing this work yourself. For starters, you could make the house too tight. Under-ventilated houses not only trap and concentrate existing pollutants inside the home, they also can have higher levels of humidity that can result in condensation and even possibly mold growth. I will talk about this in a later post.

What I want to focus on today is the possibility of something else: changing the way your existing gas water heater or gas furnace drafts. Remember the fire triangle (heat, fuel, oxygen!). All of these gas appliances need to draw in air to help burn the fuel. If you tighten up the house to the point that it chokes off the appliance’s ability to get air, then the exhaust could spill into the house instead of going up the flue pipe. Have you ever started wood fire that did not draft up the chimney? These two problems are very similar, except the exhaust from the water heater and furnace is not “smokey” so you cannot really see or smell it. This happens and it is sometimes a danger even before air sealing work is done on a house.

Oftentimes houses have deliberate vents to the outside, crawl space or attic to provide oxygen to the water heater or furnace. These are intentionally installed to ensure the exhaust can draft up the flue. You definitely should not seal up these holes without first testing the appliances or having them replaced with direct-vent models. These types of holes are common in houses that have the furnace or water heater in a closet inside the house.

Example of hole in floor intended to provide air to an oil furnace

Why is this dangerous? Well, the most immediate concern is carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. CO is an odorless, colorless gas that is a byproduct of burning any fossil fuel (think: car exhaust). When inhaled, it mimics oxygen and binds to the hemoglobin in your blood, thus cutting off oxygen to your brain. At low concentrations it can cause fatigue; and at higher levels it causes impaired vision, headaches, dizziness, flue-like symptoms, etc. At very high levels it can cause you to die. Prolonged exposure to CO and other byproducts of combustion process may also cause long-term health effects.

Not all water heaters and furnaces are equally susceptible to this problem. Some of the low- and mid-efficiency models pull this air from inside the house while higher efficiency models get their oxygen from outside. The latter category is called “direct vent” or “sealed combustion”. The former category is the one to be worried about. You can distinguish which type you have by looking at the vent pipe. The safer ones that get their from outside have two PVC vents. The more dangerous types that get their air from inside the house have sheet metal vents.

What’s the solution? If you have a water heater or furnace that burns a fossil fuel (gas, oil, wood, propane, etc.) you should consult with a Building Performance Institute (BPI) certified energy auditor. BPI has a strict protocol for evaluating the whether or not a water heater or furnace presents any back-drafting danger. Ideally you should have the appliance evaluated before and after air sealing work takes place.

Charlie checks CO levels in a water heater

Welcome to my new home energy blog! I see over 200 homes a year and encounter all sorts of funny, perplexing and down right gross situations you can’t wait to hear about. I plan to write you from where no blogger has has blogged before: the far reaches of a crawl space, the depths of attic insulation and the guts of an HVAC system. Check in later for my first post!

Until then, – Charlie