Residential energy retrofit programs test ducts, insulation, air sealing, and combustion in existing homes and make recommendations for energy upgrades that can lead to as much as 25% overall energy savings.
Photo Credit: Mike Rogers
Last year, Florida Governor Charlie Crist set an ambitious goal for energy savings in new homes. In the next code cycle, he ordered a 15% cut in heating, cooling, and water heating energy consumption for every new home. More cuts will follow: by 2010, new Florida homes will have to use 20% less energy than today, and by 2019, 50% less.
In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is reading from the same script. The next version of California’s energy code will require a 15% savings compared with the current code. And the governors explain their policies with the same reasoning: they want to slow down the rate of climate change, and to limit America’s dependence on foreign oil.
There’s just one hitch, say energy experts: The tough new codes only apply to new houses. Phil Fairey, a researcher with the Florida Solar Energy Center, says, “If we only deal with new buildings, it’s going to take us a hundred years to turn over the housing stock. The energy-saving potential in the existing stock is much greater. The really big prize is in buildings that are already out there. It’s gigantic.”
That’s true in California also, according to Justin Dunning, program coordinator for the voluntary private-sector California Green Builder program. Dunning says that his group has estimated the benefits of tightening energy use in new homes by 35% over code, which qualifies the builder for a $2,000 state incentive and costs about $3,500 to implement. “By our calculations, that would save about a ton of carbon emissions a year per new home,” Dunning says. But spending that same $3,500 on an existing home, built in 1970, to upgrade the air conditioner to a modern unit and add R-38 insulation to the attic, would eliminate 5 to 8 tons of carbon dioxide annually, he says. “You could make the California building code 50% more efficient,” he adds, “and it wouldn’t have as much effect as if everybody in the state swapped out five incandescent bulbs for five compact fluorescents.”
Making it Happen
But how could a program of small, house-by-house upgrades be organized?
In the commercial world, Fairey says, there’s a whole industry that has sprung up around the need to upgrade big buildings. “They’re called ESCOs — energy service companies,” he says.
ESCOs target big corporate buildings where a major investment — in the half-million-dollar ballpark — will pay back with a 20% or greater annual energy savings. The ESCO puts up the capital for the upgrades, Fairey says, and takes a cut of the savings as its fee. The corporate owner gets the benefit of one-stop shopping. “The ESCO comes in with a turnkey operation, and blam blam, it’s done,” he says.
But that won’t happen in the residential market, he adds, without some kind of government support. The reason, Fairey points out, is two-fold: on the one hand, the transaction cost for thousands of small residential retrofits is a bigger portion of the cost, and on the other hand, someone needs to regulate the industry to make sure that contractors do the work right and deliver on their promises. Somebody has to provide some incentives to help cover the overhead, and then ride herd on the results, Fairey argues. “We need some kind of collaboration between government and industry.”
EPA Makes a Move
Some government agencies have caught on. A prime example is the Environmental Protection Agency, which has expanded its “Energy Star” concept for new houses into the market for energy upgrades on existing homes with its “Home Performance with Energy Star” program.
This program focuses on building an infrastructure of home-performance contractors that deliver a service in the home to improve efficiency,” says program director Dale Hoffmeyer. EPA promotes the program in cooperation with state and local agencies, utilities, and nonprofits. “They are the ones who actually run the program in the local market,” he says. "They set up training for contractors on home-performance assessments and, [how to] use diagnostic tools like a blower door or an infrared camera.” EPA sets criteria and quality standards, requiring that a whole-house assessment be done before the job begins and verification of the work take place after the job, to document the results.
Some states have already established a track record with the program. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) was the first state agency onboard and has overseen thousands of jobs since 2000, at an average cost of $5,000 to $8,000 per job. Contractors in the program come from all walks of life, Hoffmeyer says, and include energy raters, HVAC contractors, insulation contractors, and general remodelers.
Companies Climb on Board
As the program gains momentum, it’s attracting private investment. Mike Rogers, a former EPA employee who helped to develop the national program, is now in the private sector as a senior vice president for GreenHomes America, headquartered in Syracuse, N.Y. GreenHomes has thousands of energy-upgrade jobs under its belt in Syracuse, Rogers says. Now, with venture capital backing from The Link Group, GreenHomes is poised to go nationwide. “We’ll be launching an operation in New Jersey this fall, and we are in acquisition discussions in Texas, California, and Washington state,” Rogers says. The idea is to acquire successful contracting companies in suitable markets, adapt them to the strategy of “home-performance contracting,” and set about upgrading one home after another. Once the ball’s rolling, Rogers says, there’s “a huge inventory” of under-performing homes for his company to tackle.
GreenHomes America’s standard operating procedure conforms well to the EPA program’s philosophy. “We go in,” Rogers says, “we take a look at the entire house, and we do what we call a ‘test-in’ [using] a variety of diagnostic equipment — “blower doors, duct blasters, infrared cameras — and we do combustion-safety testing.” Then the GreenHomes “adviser” prioritizes what the house needs based on what the homeowner can afford. Almost every house gets careful air sealing, most get insulation, many get new HVAC equipment, and some get new windows. Occasionally, GreenHomes will even install a solar water heater or photovoltaic panels. “We do all the work in-house,” Rogers says. “We’re a one-stop shop for the homeowner.” Finally, the diagnostic tools come back to the job for a “test-out.” And if the homeowner follows all the recommendations, GreenHomes America, in most cases, is willing to guarantee a 25% energy-use reduction for the home, including heating, cooling, lights, and appliances.
Rogers says that there’s no reason why a general remodeler can’t do the same thing that GreenHomes America does. In fact, he says, “I think a general remodeling contractor is very well-positioned. Unlike any of the vertical trades — your window guy, your insulation guy, your heating and cooling guy — the general remodeler is used to managing more complex projects. With even a kitchen remodel, certainly with an addition, you are very often pulling together multiple trades already.” A homeowner on his own would struggle to put the pieces of a home-performance upgrade together, Rogers observes, “but a general remodeling contractor can be that one-stop shop.”
Getting with the Program
In Wisconsin (which, like New York, was an early adopter of the EPA home-performance program), Madison remodeler Chad Speight is doing just that. Speight rolls the home-performance pre-testing part of the protocol into the design phase of his design/build contracts, and he considers it part of any remodeler’s responsibility. “A quality builder or remodeler is going to do blower-door testing and check ventilation fans for airflow, and do safety checks because you could make major energy improvements to a home, completely alter the dynamics of moisture and heat flow and airflow, and cause some serious problems that were unintended consequences. If you’re a home improvement contractor, you should actually improve the home, and not take a chance on poisoning the occupants.”
Speight subs the pre-testing and post-testing out to certified home-performance testers in his market. “That has great value to my client as well as to me,” he says. “They get third-party verification of what has been accomplished at their home, and I have verification of what the subcontractors — as well as my own staff — have done.”
—Ted Cushman is a photojournalist in Great Barrington, Mass.