mbutts@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
DURHAM – They may be difficult to spot, but there are likely resource-wasting culprits hiding all around your home.
Holes in the attic floor? Goodbye heated or cooled air. An old-school thermostat? Energy’s being wasted when you’re not even home. Super-soaker showerheads? That’s just money down the drain.
For a little more than a year, the city/county Sustainability Office, with the help of nonprofit Clean Energy Durham, has worked to help hundreds of residents identify and correct hidden resource-wasters by providing expertise and slices of federal grant money.
In late December, the Sustainability Office and Clean Energy Durham celebrated the retrofitting of 380 homes, a feat marked by the installation of hundreds of programmable thermostats, carbon monoxide detectors and faucet aerators; the sealing of countless air leaks in attic floors and duct work; and the installation of blown-in cellulose attic insulation.
But they’re not done yet, said Tobin Freid, the city/county sustainability coordinator. Plans are to retrofit a total of more than 700 homes. The Sustainability Office is still accepting applications for the Home Energy Savings Program (HESP), the second of two programs involved in the effort.
The office will continue accepting applications until the money – about $992,000, some from the 2009 economic-stimulus bill, and the rest from a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant – runs out, with Freid expecting to wrap up by May.
Neighbors helping neighbors
The retrofitting efforts started with the so-called Neighborhood Energy Retrofit Program (NERP), which is no longer accepting applicants. NERP takes a neighbors-helping-neighbors approach to getting residents involved and informed about sustainability. Clean Energy Durham enlisted volunteer residents to recruit their neighbors for the retrofitting program and teach them about easy, low- or no-cost ways to save energy.
To be eligible for NERP, residents had to live in specific neighborhoods in the county. Each household was responsible for $200-$300 of the retrofit cost, while the rest was covered by the federal money. At the beginning of the project, organizers estimated that homeowners could reduce their energy consumption by an average of about 20 percent by making the changes.
Out of the 44 households represented at do-it-yourself workshops during which neighbors helped one another learn how to do such energy-saving tasks as caulking around windows, 89 percent went home and did at least one project they learned about and 72 percent reported some type of behavior change afterward, such as adjusting their thermostats or turning lights off in vacant rooms. And of the 44 households represented, 23 reported passing along their newfound knowledge to 118 other households.
That’s evidence that the neighbor-to-neighbor approach is working, said Lenora Smith, community outreach director for Clean Energy Durham.
“If we all do a little, teach one person, talk to somebody about it, it can really become viral in the effect it has on the community,” she said.
Beth Cranford, a resident of the Tuscaloosa-Lakewood community, volunteered with the neighborhood effort. She enjoyed getting to know her neighbors and igniting excitement over saving money, improving their homes and helping the environment.
“Because we had the neighborhood aspect, we had people talking over our listserv about things,” she said. “In the small trainings that we did, we had people talking about their own behavior and changes that they wanted to make, and I think that really added depth to the program.”
Individual homeowners
Once NERP was up and running, Freid realized that the Sustainability Office would have a hard time meeting its goal of improving more than 700 homes with that program alone, so in July 2011, they started accepting applications for HESP, which does not have a neighborhood requirement. Clean Energy Durham is not involved in HESP.
About five months into that program, the office has completed about 25 homes. HESP requires that homeowners pay $400 of the retrofit cost, and the Sustainability Office will pick up the tab for another $1,600. The retrofit process typically takes two trips by the contractor, typically over the course of two days, although not two full days.
To qualify, homes must be less than 2,300 square feet, and a former restriction that two-story homes must be the same dimensions on both floors was recently lifted. There are no income limitations for qualification.
The one part of qualifying that’s tricky is that there can be no unvented combustion appliances in the living space. Combustion appliances are those that burn something, like furnaces, stoves and space heaters that run on natural gas, fuel oil, propane, kerosene or wood. Some combustion appliances are vented, and those are OK, but those that are unvented – that are open to the air around them and can release harmful carbon monoxide into the living space – are not.
“If you have a lot of places were air is leaking into the house – holes in the attic or whatever – it’s very bad for your energy bill but good for getting fresh air in your house,” Freid explained. “If we seal your house up and make it nice and tight and snug, it’s great for your energy bill, but if any of these gases are escaping into your home, they’ll stay in your home because they won’t have a way to get out.”
The city and county have a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by the year 2030, and NERP and HESP is one step toward reaching that, Freid said. The programs also are good for the folks who participate in them and see lower energy bills.
She hopes the neighborhood program has helped to bring communities closer together. Neighbors have gone in together to buy project materials in bulk and have shared resources as simple as tubes of caulking, she said. In some cases, more able-bodied neighbors perform labor-intensive work.
“It seems to have formed a sense of community,” Freid said. “If we accomplished that, I would feel terrific.”
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