How deep is it here?

In what now seems like a past life I was a tour guide in the USVI for a company called Aqua Action. We ran scuba tours in what was often the clearest water you could imagine. The most common question from our customers was "How deep is it here?" because it was so clean you couldn't tell. Our standard answer was 18' no matter how deep it was. Kind of an insider's joke amongst divers. The analogy I am reaching for is regarding deep energy retrofits. A stretch, perhaps. Here's my point. A clip board walk through usually results in Air Sealing, Duct repairs and Insulation Upgrades. Gets you to 18'. A performance audit with pressure and CO tests will recommend more extensive repairs to the home. (Deep energy retrofits) Our dive tourists rarely caught on, I suspect our homeowners don't know the difference either.
If I do a walk through audit on a home and leave behind a list of suggested repairs, there is no guarantee what the homeowner will do. Money, contractor "advice" and 1/2 measures can lead to some serious trouble. Where is the liability if air sealing leads to CO contamination or moisture and mold? At what point do we get to make-up air and humidity controls and who is responsible for commissioning? At what juncture in the repair process do we cross the line between simple energy upgrades and significant impacts on Indoor Air Quality. I have been involved in enough high performance home building to know that a really tight home takes some "tuning" to get the air quality, moisture control and thermal comfort working properly. This is a lot harder to do with existing homes. I see so many leaky homes sitting on festering crawl spaces with trampled insulation and porous duct systems. Of course I want them to do "everything" but not everyone can afford to do the work. Some of these houses are truly unhealthy.
Back to the 18' analogy. Is it good enough to hit just the Big 3?(Air Seal, Ducts and Insulation) or should we be chasing every Watt and retrofitting these buildings to the point of make-up air and humidity control. The former will impact the most homes the later is the more complete solution. Somewhere in the middle is potential for some bad building science.

REEP and HomeStar

Currently in the hands of the US Senate: HR 1778 is an energy bill that includes a comprehensive energy conservation program to be wielded by Secretary Cheu and the DOE. Named in the bill (along with some mega dollars) are existing programs from RESNET and BPI and programs titled REEP (Residential Energy Efficiency Program)also titled HomeStar. Tax and cash incentives for home owners interested in becoming more efficient and less carbon creating are the happy part. The not so happy part is the attached cap and trade proposals. Our august Senators are, seemingly, taking a dim view of the "trade" portion of the bill. Not unlike the Health Bill there is now an effort to segment 1778 and send the "Homes" portion to a vote, I hope they do. Cap and Trade is a tricky sell to "smaller government" folks and has not been terrifically successful in the EU model. The Home component is an excellent tool for carbon reduction in the residential housing world while providing work for the construction workforce now relatively idol. I was fortunate to be invited to DC with a group of Green carbon cap advocates and met with House and Senate members from ET. Nothing conclusive, this is politics after all, but a good sense of understanding the value of energy efficiency in residential housing. There is tremendous good sense in more efficient housing, it is a "no regrets" legislation in the "Right if you are wrong, Right if you are right" concept.

Homes are Rockets?

Rocket science or building science? While I am in love with the lab guys and all the great stuff that comes from our dollars and their hard work it seems like we are missing the point throwing science dollars at existing homes. The majority of our residential housing stock is suffering from a lack of common sense. Leaky envelopes, missing and trampled insulation, duct leakage, wrong sized HVAC are the issue. It is a problem best solved by the application of readily available existing technology and some elbow grease. While I am thoroughlyamazed by the potentials of phase change insulation, smart meters and smart appliances, the simpler, basic construction practices that we are so guilty of not applying are the real root of our energy consumption dilemma. Had we done the work carefully and correctly the first time our existing homes wouldn't be so inefficient today. But we didn't do the work right, homes hog energy and we need more than anything to go back in and fix the mistakes. Air sealing, upgrading insulation, duct sealing are a common thread in all my CSG reports over the last 3 months. I have not yet seen 100 homes, more like 70 for KUB, but nearly every home suffers from these basic problems. I think we need to repair these faults before we go on to applying any new tech to our homes.

Code? What Code?

So, when (not if) we get to the point where all of our favorite best practices become code, what happens to all the current energy programs that now survive on voluntary clients? Energy Star / LEED / EarthCraft, etc. are all proscriptive processes that a builder/homeowner pays to participate in. Code is the law. There is not a choice, big ol' building inspectors show up and you either pass or fail. By 2014 I hear that typical Energy Star standards will be in the building code and inspected. Where does that leave Energy Star and it's battalion of HERS raters and QA / Providers?

The current bottleneck caused by the lack of qualified home energy raters is a community college gold rush, much like the wave of home inspectors created by the state mandated inspections a couple of years back. Of course they are all sitting on their hands at the moment because no body is building much of anything right now. Just ask the permit guys how busy they are. So what will happen to all these soon to be newly minted HERS raters? It is still great training but are we destined to become the code inspectors of the future? Certainly the new construction will go that way. One big question is how to put a fair efficiency rating number on existing homes? What kind of point-of-sale rating will appear on MLS? Seems like more and more real estate agents are waking up to the idea that home buyers are looking at energy efficiency ahead of the beloved granite counter top and fresh daisies in the window box. I hope that there will be a mandate to rate and upgrade existing homes to some energy standard at point of sale. How about a cash for clunkers program for the existing home inventory?

Energy Advisor

Having spent the last month on board with CSG, I have to admit it has been a pretty fast track. There is no doubt the program is working and the response has been good. Nothing like a cash incentive to bring the customers out of the woodwork. While there are several power distributors on line throughout the TVA grid, currently KUB is the only PD in the E. TN region using CSG auditors. It is a daunting challenge when you look at the numbers. Let's imagine that 50% of the homes in the TVA grid make the call and schedule an audit. That's roughly 4.5 Million homes. The auditors are targeted to see 3 homes a day. Given holidays and sick leave suppose they work 200 days. That's 600 homes per year per rater. One rater would take 7500 years to see them all. 100 raters would take 75 years. 1000 raters would take 7.5 years. There are about 190,000 homes within the KUB umbrella. It would take me 316.66 years. Methuselah where's your blower door? You get the point, there needs to be A LOT more raters. I am not aware of the rater training schedule for CSG but I think there will be more auditor trainings before long. This is the first wave of green collar jobs everyone has been hoping for. The energy conservation repairs that follow will be the second. Every home I have seen needs air sealing, insulation and duct repair. Many need HVAC equipment upgrades. This is really good news for a dormant construction industry. I guess I always knew it woild take utility incentives to get the pubic interested in conservation, it is nice to see it starting to work.

TVA & CSG

The Gorilla is in the room and will be noticed pretty soon. Conservation Services Group, the TVA subcontractor responsible for their home energy conservation program, is in launch mode here in East TN. Currently hiring energy advisers (yes I will be one) to run the program here. CSG has a system in place to help homeowners save a buck on utility bills. Here's how it will work: Power Distributors (KUB, LCUB, etc.) will stuff billing envelopes announcing $150 home energy audits. Once complete the home owner will get a visit from a CSG rep who will recommend improvements utilizing CSG approved contractors. If the homeowner spends $1000 the program will refund the $150 audit fee and rebate $500 of the $1000. Also, a CSG rater will return to the home to approve the work done. Obviously most homes will need more than $1k of improvements but it is a good start. This is not a performance test, no blower door, yet. The CSG goal is to get to the Home Performance with Energy Star level of home analysis. This is a good idea given a couple of things yet to be determined. The current state of affairs with BPI and RESNET seems to be unraveling as Energy Star and RESNET are preparing their own set of combustion appliance standards thus rendering BPI less than effective on their own. Energy Star is also in the process of changing their standards so it all becomes something of a moving target for those of us trying to get residential housing on a sound path towards conservation.

Hopefully the raters involved will be conscientious and the work we be done right as there is going to be little chance to get back in the home once we're done, like, how many times do you want the cable guy around?

1st Steps to Conservation

These days we hear a lot about Solar as an alternative energy source. The cost question always seems to diffuse the conversation. "Costs too much, ROI is too long." I always struggle with the payback mentality as short sighted. Ground source geothermal gets the same gaff.

What is missing in this conversation is the Whole House concept of home energy conservation. There are 5 basic steps for new and existing homes that need to be accomplished before we look at alternative energy sources:

1.) Tight building envelope - If your home leaks you are paying to heat and cool your neighborhood. Caulking or air-sealing all of the penetrations in the skin of your home is, usually without acception, the first step towards a healthy efficient home. 

2.) Ducts in conditioned space - Duct leakage commonly is responsible for 15% of your energy bills. Sealing crawlspaces and attics  will bring the HVAC system within the conditioned space. Energy loss is reduced because, even if the air handling system leaks it is in the house not outside.

3.) Insulation - Super insulation (R-50 Attic, R-30 Walls) is a tested and time proven method. There have been homes built in this fashion for over 40 years that are still models of comfort and efficiency.

4.) Good quality windows and doors - We tend to have more, bigger windows than we really need. Older homes with single pane and metal attached storms are good opportunities for window replacement. New homes can be designed with double pane, gas filled low "E" glass that is very efficient.

5.) Make-up air - This is an important piece of the Whole House puzzle. This is the home's source for fresh air. Most homes today leak enough to provide sufficient air changes per hour (ACH) , trouble is they loose energy in the process. A really efficient, tight home is no longer voluntarily ventilated and needs a filtered, controlled air change system. There are several methods to accomplish this. The best of them exchange out going air temperature with incoming air and are over 90% efficient.

 Once these steps are completed Solar and Geothermal become a more reasonable proposition. The home's energy needs are greatly reduced and the system size and cost can be reduced as well. Using a trained energy rater to help you through this process will guarantee  a safe, healthy and efficient home.