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 Local news and information covering Blue Hill, Brooksville, Brooklin, Castine, Deer Isle, Isle au Haut, Penobscot, Sedgwick, Stonington and Surry, Maine. |
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Batten the Hatches
by Ralph Chapman Our need to reduce energy costs is brought into focus at this time of year as we contemplate fuel needs for winter. Home heating energy use can be difficult to understand because it involves factors that differ from house to house. In our area, heating oil, propane, or firewood is burned to replace heat that is lost through walls, windows, doors, and ceilings. Additional heat is lost through air exchange between inside and outside, and through hot water (from showers and dishwashing) that goes down the drain. Trained energy auditors can identify the most cost-effective measures for a specific home to lower energy costs, improve comfort, and maintain healthy indoor air quality. See the sidebar on page 21 for a way to determine how much room for improvement your home may have. Tips for weatherizing: • Insulate a heated basement exposed foundation wall. Insulating the exposed foundation wall of a heated basement can pay for itself very quickly. A rectangular 28’ x 34’ house with a full basement and a 2’ exposed foundation, has a heat loss from the foundation of approximately 380 gallons of oil, or about $1,400 per year (at today’s prices). The cost of insulation is approximately the same as the savings after one year (in this case), so the simple payback time is one year, and the annual rate of return on the investment is 100 percent. Most weatherization jobs result in payback times of four to six years, or annual rates of return around 20 percent. • Reduce the amount of hot water needed for showers. If three people each take a 10 minute shower every day, this will use 100 gallons of oil ($360) per year. If they have the water running for only three minutes per shower by shutting off the water during soaping between rinsing, they will save 70 gallons of oil ($250) per year. • For every degree that a thermostat is turned down at night, you can expect to save 1 percent of costs. So if you burn 1,000 gallons of oil per year and then turn down the thermostat by 5 degrees each night, you would save 50 gallons of oil per year. If the house is vacant during working hours and you can turn the thermostat down (the same amount) during the day, that would save another 50 gallons. • Window shades and curtains will reduce the heat loss through windows by about half. In terms of replacing windows, unless the old windows are single pane, broken, or rattling, the payback time for replacement windows will probably be much longer than other weatherization measures. Editor’s note: Ralph Chapman runs a Weatherization Training Center in Bangor, one of four in the state, set up by MaineHousing with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. He teaches adult education courses in home energy awareness, weatherization technician training, energy auditor training, and advanced building science. He can be reached by e-mail at rchapman.cea@gmail.com. |
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