Rebuilding for Cash, Comfort and the Economy
Economic stimulus and other rewards are built into a local program for residential energy upgrades
By David Leff
There is no mistaking the fact that we are in the midst of a vast paradigm shift. Our tendency is to adapt to novel trends and let go of past habits bit by bit as we struggle to see what lies just ahead.
We will eventually come out of this recession and many in the residential construction industry are wondering what form the recovery will take for them. Will it be a return to the old practices of building new homes and remodeling older homes with little regard for energy efficiency or environmental quality? Will the value of a home be more a function of its aesthetic appeal and the expense of the finish materials than of the comfort and health of its occupants and its impact on the environment?
If current trends hold, the value of our homes will be measured by how little energy they use, how good the quality of the indoor air is, and how they impact the environment. In this new paradigm, the emphasis will be on the home’s life-cycle issues related to energy use, durability and air quality more than on initial building costs. The opportunity is there for all of us to make this shift an easier transition.
Whether we are builder or homeowner, we can no longer avoid paying attention to these issues as we contemplate building or remodeling. As builders, we must take the lead in refocusing the way buildings are constructed. As consumers, we have an equally important responsibility to educate ourselves about the role our homes play in consuming energy and other resources. The payoff extends well beyond immediate personal cost-savings.
A house is a cohesive system with each of its components serving a unique purpose while at the same time having an impact on many other components in the house. Energy use is connected to indoor air quality is connected to water use. All of it is connected to durability, comfort, and the cost of operation for the homeowner.
For example, the amount of insulation in a house and the care with which it is installed is important when sizing the heating system. If the house is tightly air sealed in an effort to reduce the size of the furnace to keep utility expenses low, then indoor air quality can become compromised and a system to ventilate the house becomes necessary.
The components in the house related to water also impact energy use and air quality. Conserving domestic water with low flow faucets and low flush toilets is now part of the building code and most people are aware of the need to avoid wasting water. Energy use and costs associated with heating water in a home, however, are often unnecessarily high.
The remedy can be found in a plethora of high efficiency water heaters, tankless water heaters or heat-pump hot water heaters now on the market. Proper insulation on hot water pipes helps to reduce the amount of energy needed to get hot water to the fixtures. With on-demand re-circulating pumps, there’s no wasting of water while waiting for it to arrive hot at a fixture some distance from the water heater. The improvement of these interconnected building components is what makes up a typical energy upgrade project.
In the past, there has been little incentive for homeowners to look beyond initial costs when considering an energy retrofit. Since a quick payback period has been a prerequisite, these kinds of home improvements have been few and far between. But that’s no longer the case now that we have the Sonoma County Energy Independence Program (SCEIP).
SCEIP reduces the initial costs by amortizing the cost of an energy retrofit over 20 years, combined with federal tax credits, other local and utility company incentive programs, and a growing understanding by the general public of the value of improving the performance of buildings. Momentum is building to dramatically increase the number of energy efficient homes.
SCEIP reported that as of November 2009, $14 million had been injected into the local economy through the energy upgrade program. Although there were varying reports as to what the actual numbers for job creation were as a result of this funding, it is clear that the program is creating jobs and is causing money to circulate in the local economy.
Sonoma County was the first jurisdiction in the country to put together all the parts necessary for a successful program: public policy encouraging energy upgrades, a funding source, and an outreach program to educate homeowners. The only thing missing was a pool of trained building performance contractors. That is changing as more contractors are enrolling in the many workshops and trainings now available to them.
National organizations such as the Building Performance Institute (BPI) and Efficiency First are working with contractors’ associations and with State and Federal government agencies to develop standards and protocol for residential and commercial energy retrofits and to train the thousands of Building Performance Contractors necessary to do the work of retrofitting.
There are close to 130 million existing homes in the United States. As funding programs similar to SCEIP arise in other California counties and in other states, and if just five to 10 percent of those homes are retrofit, then over $100 billion will be spent and many jobs will be created. As a result, occupants of those upgraded homes will enjoy significant energy and utility cost reductions as well as dramatic improvements to indoor air quality and comfort.
Published in Homes & Lifestlyes, Sonoma West Publishers, April 2010 issue