What you need to know about green energy barrier scams

While making energy saving improvements to your home is backed by both APS, SRP and the Department of Energy's Home Performance With Energy Star Program there are many unethical companies out there that are taking advantage of these programs and making a bad name for those home performance companies that are doing things right. Many of the unethical companies are using the APS and SRP program as a cover, making it appear that they follow the strict guidelines of their program by simply using their logos, mixing the solar rebate program with the home performance rebates, and taking the rebates off the top of the costs so it appears you are getting the rebate when actually it is just a smoke and mirrors trick. These companies are hurting both homeowners and home performance contractors alike.

Here are some guidelines to help you spot a phony from a real home performance contractor.

1. The company has called you from a auto dialer blast.
2. The company rep does not go past the attic hatch in their inspection of your attic (the pros know this is where the majority of your problems lie and it's not just about adding insulation or radiant barriers)
3. The company rep does not do a blower door test on your home.
4. The green energy company rep is not BPI certified. This is the basic certification all energy consultants will have to know what to look for in your home and to give you energy saving recommendations based on what your home needs.
5. The company will start at a price point in the range of $20,000 for a solar/ solar water heater/ radiant barrier/ solar attic fan package.
6. The company will not perform a test-out audit with a blower door fan.

Here is what you can ask the green energy company to protect yourself from buying something that will not fix your hot and cold rooms or make your home more energy efficient.

1. The green energy companies BPI certification and make sure the energy consultant at your home is BPI certified.
2. Call APS and SRP at (602) 532-2991 to verify they are on the Home Performance With Energy Star Program.
3. Your energy consultant should talk to you about at a minimum hour air leakage, duct leakage, room pressure and duct static pressure. These are part of the required tests all APS and SRP certified companies need to do or their inspection.
4. You should complete a home performance authorization form found on APS and SRP's website.

Don't get us wrong, there is nothing wrong with solar electricity or solar hot water heaters. The danger or harm comes from homeowners thinking they are making their home more energy efficient when many issues are still left unfixed and things that were never tested for or addressed. Things like air balancing, high room pressures, high static pressure, insulation that is installed wrong, air barriers that leave the house uninsulated and thinking that radiant barriers suffice for insulation installed wrong. An additional benefit to using a home performance contractor is that the utility companies will audit our work, so you have another party watching your back.

Disclaimer: Green ID's energy auditors are all BPI Certified. Green ID's founder, David Byrnes, is a BPI trainer and LEED AP professional. We do not recommend radiant barrier products without first addressing a homes' priority needs by performing a whole home energy audit. For more information visit are website at  www.greenintegrateddesign.com

Help! I have to run my clothes dryer at least twice to dry my clothes – a story from a SRP energy audit

During my APS energy audits and SRP energy audits I occasionally run across a home that has high utility bills but as I am going through my inspection of the air leakage, duct leakage, insulation, room pressures, HVAC system and ductwork there is not a huge problem identified.  In one SRP home in Gilbert, I fell back on the homes motors, pumps and appliances and started exploring other options to pinpoint the cause.  During this home’s SRP energy audit the homeowner informed me that she was running the dryer three to four times just to dry a load of laundry.  It can be frustrating when it takes longer to dry your clothes than it does to wash them, especially if you have a couple loads of laundry to do.  I know what that’s like, having bought a 1995 home in Phoenix with all original appliances.  I hated having to run my dryer 3 or 4 times just to get my clothes dry!  If you are in the same situation or you may even have a new washer and dryer set – before you go out to buy a brand new dryer here is a quick tip I found can save you literally hundreds a year on drying costs. 

Your dryer is actually the second biggest energy using appliance after the refrigerator.  Plus if you are having to run the dryer twice or more to get your clothes dry then it is using even more energy.  The washer actually doesn't use that much energy, the costs for the washer come in when it needs to use hot water (try buying cold water detergent and seeing how your clothes come out).  Your dryer vents can be anywhere from a couple inches to 20 feet of ducting to get to the outside.  All that ducting collects lint inside and could clog the vent and decrease the efficiency of the dryer.  By cleaning dryer vents at least once a year you will increase the efficiency of the dryer and help prevent the risk of fire.  A good way to clean the dry vent is to use a shop vac or leaf blower and suck all the lint outside.  You want to be sure to snake the whole system to prevent a buildup.

In this case the SRP energy audit recommendations was mostly around the home’s pool pump run time, recirculation pump, 4 combined refrigerators and freezers and the clogged dryer rather than construction defect upgrades.  This homeowner was still able to take advantage of the SRP rebates available for the variable speed pool pump and the refrigeration recycling program as well as the duct sealing rebates.

Easy DIY Energy Saving Tip

The APS and SRP energy audits have a prescribed set of standards each auditor has to check.  Outside the usual duct leakage, air leakage and insulation checks it is up to the auditor to decide what services they want to provide.  At Green ID, we pride ourselves on our quality work and customer satisfaction.  We think that our customers get a little more for their money when they use our services compared to other contractors, but there are some efficiency tests homeowners can do themselves to check on their efficiency.  Below is one DIY tip that is easy to do and not very well known.

Back east, bathroom toilets were occasionally piped with hot water rather than cold water.  It is easy to check if yours wasting hot water.   Water heating can be the second biggest energy user in your home and costs will dramatically increase every time you flush the toilet it replaces 3.5 gallons (average toilet water use) of hot water.  It is easy to check if your toilets are connected by turning on the corresponding sink’s hot water line.  Run it until hot water starts to come out.  By the way, this is a good time to take a thermometer and measure the actual temperature of your hot water.  Ideally it should be 125 – 130 degrees.  If it is higher, the water heater is overheating the water (130 degrees will begin to burn you) and don’t worry about the dishwasher, it uses its own heating element while running.  If it is lower, you risk Legionaries disease growing in the water pipes.  Anyway, once the water is hot, shut it off and flush the toilet.  As it refills, take off the top and put your hand in the water stream that’s refilling the tank (this is clean drinking water and you can touch it) and see if it is hot water coming out.  If it is, call Green ID at (602) 684-0462 and have our plumber change the supply to cold.  Your wallet will thank you as will your family when you take all out to dinner with the money you’ve saved.

What were they thinking!?

Crawling around in attics for APS and SRP's home energy audit program has given me a pretty good idea where I can expect to find hidden “inefficiency jewels”.  I feel like a kid at Christmas discovering open wall chases, uninsulated soffit drops, misaligned insulation and unconnected ductwork. It’s like finishing a marathon, reaching the river at the Grand Canyon or reaching the Seven Falls in Tucson… well, add a little sweat, being in a 140 degree box and a chiropractor and welcome to my world of home energy audits.  Once I do find these things I often say to myself, “what were these contractors thinking!?” 

Now a home performing as a system is a relatively new concept as are the APS and SRP rebates available for helping homeowners reduce their bills and make their homes more comfortable but some of the insulating contractors, framers and developers just left their common sense at home. When insulating a home, wouldn't you want all the interior walls insulated? Or why would insulation be installed with the paper facing inside on some kneewalls and have it facing the other way of kneewalls right next to it?  I would like to share some horror stories through pictures of common and not-so-common defects in homes.  I think all good energy auditors in Phoenix will have photos and stories similar to mine, so cheers!

This is a huge source of heat gain into the home, causing hot and cold rooms and driving up energy bills each month.

APS and SRP will help pay for the cost of fixing these insulation problems.

Through the APS and SRP home energy audit program, construction defects like these will be found and fixed.

Part of the enthusiasm in finding these inefficiencies is the potential to save money on energy bills and dramatically increase the homeowner’s comfort.  Another good thing about these construction defects is that APS and SRP offer $1,000 in rebates to fix these deficiencies.

Solar, hybrid and tankless water heaters and your choices

With triple digit temperatures last week, we have successfully made the jump right past spring into summer here in the Valley of the Sun.  Here a week of 110 degree weather is considered normal and hot water during the summer is not a choice, it’s the only choice.  Hot water heating can be the second or third biggest energy user in the home, right behind the air conditioner and saving on water heating can knock off up to 20% of your total utility bill.  Using the power of the sun to supply your hot water needs is an efficient method of heating water, but there are more cost effective technologies outlined below that will keep more green in your pocketbook.

A tankless water heater is preferable to solar water heaters for gas-fired tanks.  To prevent cold water sandwiches, tankless water heaters now feature a 20-gallon reserve tank and still heater the water only when needed.  Tankless heaters use a sealed combustion venting type that prevents carbon monoxide from backdrafting into the home or garage.

A hybrid water heater is ideal for Phoenix residents and preferable to solar water heaters if you have an existing electric water heater.  The hybrid water heater uses a heat pump, which sits on top of a traditional electric water heater to heat the water.  The heat pump works just like your refrigerator or AC condenser, but in reverse.  That is it takes the ambient heat out of the surrounding air and uses that to heat the water and expels a small amount of cool air (perfect for a garage application).  Your refrigerator will extract the surrounding cold air and circulate it to provide chilled food while giving off a small amount of heat on the bottom of the unit.  Hybrid water heaters are more than 50% efficient compared to solar water heaters for half the cost.

Solar water heaters may be good for a large family who like to take long showers (most of the energy used to heater water goes to showers).  An 80 gallon tank or two 50 gallon tanks will be installed with solar water heaters, so there will never be a shortage of hot water but can be overkill for most homes.

Some homeowners are even switching from gas water heaters to electric because they are putting solar panels to generate their own electricity.  The thought is that a big enough solar array will cover the energy needed to heat the water.  Solar hot water proponents will argue that homeowners should have both – a solar water heater and a smaller solar electric system because the efficiency of the solar water heaters (1.2 efficiency factor) is greater than the efficiency of a conventional electric (0.89 efficiency factor) or gas tank.  I definitely agree that efficiency steps should be done to stretch that solar electricity dollar, but the cost of a solar water heater makes other water heating options such as a tankless water heater or hybrid water heater a smarter choice (which are all more efficient than using solar electricity).



Bottom line if you are considering solar hot water:

-  Homeowners with gas water heaters and families with children should go with a tankless water heater with a 20 gallon reserve

- Homeowners with electric water heaters should go with a hybrid water heater

- Homeowners should consider solar hot water if they are planning on living in the same house for more than 13 years

How much will solar save?

The Valley of the Sun doesn’t get any better for solar energy production if you are thinking about installing solar panels on your home.  In fact, southern Arizona is the best location for solar in the nation.  APS, SRP and TEP still provide rebates for solar electricity and producing your own energy to spin your meter backwards is an attractive idea to many homeowners and businesses. But how many solar panels do you need to do so? 

Part of the equation is limited to the amount of panels you can fit on your roof, house orientation and external shading and aesthetics.  A good southern exposure is ideal for solar power, however solar panels can be west-facing or on a west-facing slope and angled towards the south.  Some homeowners want to completely zero out their energy bills for the whole year.  Other homeowners go with smaller systems to zero out just their winter energy bills and a lower summer bill.  To calculate the size of photovoltaic’s you will need to accomplish either goal you are going to need your electricity bills for the past 12 months. 

Once you have that, add all the kWh you used each month for the entire year and divide that by 1.7.  The number you get will be the total system size needed to take your annual usage down to zero (if you divide that number by 1,000, you get kW).  So let’s say after I added all the kWh’s used for the year and came up with 23,480 kWh/year (a large home).  Take 23,480 / 1.7 = 13,812 watts.  So I would need 13.8 kW’s of solar panels to completely zero out my energy bills.  Now I can go with half of that number (7 kW system) to reduce my bills by approximately half also. 

The 1.7 factor is an estimate for only a particular type and efficiency of panel, but it will give you a good idea for starters.  If you are a visual person, feel free to contact me and I can send you a spreadsheet where you can enter in your monthly kWh usage, and a nice graph will visually show you what you are spending now on energy bills, and what they would like with a 5 or 10 kW solar electricity system.

For more information visit http://www.dsireusa.org/ to find current APS/SRP or TEP rebates and federal tax incentives for going solar.  Visit APS’s website here, SRP’s website here and TEP’s website here for more tips and information.  Michael Blue Jay also has a great website and solar calculator here.  You can schedule a free site assessment on your home with Green ID to discuss possible options for solar.  For certain homes, coupling solar with efficiency upgrades will stretch your dollar spent 30-40% compared to solar alone.

Solar leasing has become popular, how about leasing an electric car battery?

The average costs for electricity from APS or SRP is around $0.12 per kWh.  Imagine paying $450 per kWh for electricity.  That’s what most of today’s electric vehicle (EV) owners are paying for a battery to power their cars.  To put this into perspective, the Chevy Volt will cost owners 2 cents per mile to drive compared to the 12 cents per mile on gasoline at a price of $3.60 a gallon.  Or a trip from Phoenix to Tucson would run a measly $1.98 on electricity or almost 6 times that at $11.88 on gas.

 Shocking as the $450 per kWh may be, a decrease to $300 per kWh is considered the tipping point to mass market uptake.  An article published by webtech company, GigaOm, sites that leasing the battery is one solution to bring down the battery costs.  If you have thought about installing solar panels for your home, you’ve probably heard about solar leasing programs or PPA’s for larger solar applications, some groups are applying this concept to the electric car market.  It will be interesting to watch if and how automakers and startup companies adopt the electric vehicle lease; and also how the EV infrastructure is built-up to meet demand.

Save energy while you cook – energy saving tips in the kitchen

Kitchen appliances can account for up to 15% of your home energy usage and how you choose to cook will impact your energy bill.  By following some energy savings tips, you can reduce your bills and here's how.

There is more than one way to skin a cat:

If you took an inventory of all the appliances you use to cook with the list might look something like this: oven, stovetop, slow cooker or crockpot, microwave and toaster oven.

As you can already guess, each of these appliances uses a different amount of energy but what is not so obvious is how much energy each one uses.  When you can choose between making a baked potato in the oven or in the microwave, which one uses less energy?  How about cooking a soup or stew over the stovetop, or using the slowcooker?  Meatloaf in the oven or toaster oven?   Just like if you lived in a smaller house, it would take less time to cool the inside of the home with the same sized AC unit than if you lived in a larger house; it takes less energy to heat a smaller space than a larger one.  So what would use less energy if you could put that meatloaf in a toaster oven compared to the conventional oven?  How much less?  You would be cutting your energy use by more than half! (and reducing the temperature in the kitchen as well).

Of course, each appliance is “specialized” to cook certain foods but when you can choose, I encourage you to do so.  Below is a table showing the energy costs of various cooking methods.

Other energy saving tips in the kitchen include:

-          When using the electric stovetops it is important to match the pan size to the element size, otherwise you will be wasting almost half the heat produced from the element.-          The ideal pan also has a concave bottom to maximize the conduction in the pan.
-          A pressure cooker will also cook stovetop items faster and with less energy because the built-up pressure drops the boiling point of water thus cooking the food faster.
-          Cleaning your appliances increases their efficiency.
-          Avoid peeking into the oven while baking.
-          Double portions when using the oven to save energy on cooking.
-          Remove foil on the bottom of ovens to improve air circulation.

Update on Tax Incentives for Energy Efficiency

The 2011 tax incentive is greatly reduced compared to last year, however there are several efforts to extend residential energy efficiency credits for measures such as water heaters, heat pumps and windows that are no longer available. Green Parent Chicago gives some great resources to keep up to date on the tax credits and I've posted a 2011 federal tax credit summary for energy efficiency improvements here as well.

Phoenix Energy Audits and the Energize Phoenix Program

There is no lack of variety of housing types in the City of Phoenix.  Phoenix neighborhoods include the idyllic Arcadia District, the lively Camelback Corridor, the newly formed Lightrail Corridor and the beautiful historic district to name a few.  In addition to a great weatherization program, The City of Phoenix has developed a new Energy Efficiency program, Energize Phoenix.  The City of Phoenix is offering huge cash incentives to make your home more energy efficient.  Energize Phoenix is a large scale rebate program for residents who live along the Lightrail Corridor.  Residents receive APS-matching rebates from the City of Phoenix and for qualifying residents, a 60% Federal grant with no upper limit is available to fund efficiency upgrades like energy efficient AC units and furnaces, duct sealing, air sealing, shade screens and insulation.  If you live along the Lightrail Corridor, Energize Phoenix is making going green as easy with little upfront money, reduced utility bills and a more comfortable home.  There has never been a better time to go green

 Program Overview:

1. Have a home energy audit performed to identify the largest sources of energy waste.

2. Your Energize Phoenix approved contractor will walk you through each recommendation, its costs and offsetting rebates and cash incentives available through APS and Energize Phoenix.

3. Complete and submit the Energize Phoenix paperwork and your Energize Phoenix contractor will complete any work you requested and facilitate the rebates on your behalf.Rebate Overview:Rebates are available upon 6-8 weeks of completion of install and include the following.

- 10 free CFLs
- 2 free low flow faucet aerators
- 1 free low flow showerhead
- 1 free low flow kitchen sink aerator

- Home energy audit - discounted to $99

- Duct sealing - 75% off net costs up to $250 rebate per HVAC system from APS; matching rebates up to $250 from the City of Phoenix

- Air sealing - $250 rebate from APS; matching rebates up to $250 from the City of Phoenix

- R-38 insulation - 75% off net costs up to $250 rebate from APS; matching rebates up to $250 from the City of Phoenix

- Shade screens - $1 per sq ft rebate up to $250 from APS; matching rebates up to $250 from the City of Phoenix

- High efficiency AC units and furnaces - $175 to $525 rebate from APS; matching rebates up to $525 from the City of Phoenix


Visit Energize Phoenix's homepage and the AZ Home Performance With Energy Star for more information.