The first in the Green Footprint series, Home Performance 101 focuses on your home as a system and presents ways to cost-effectively improve your home’s energy efficiency.
This video features one of Recurve’s Home Performance Specialists, Daniel Bell.
Green Footprint: Home Performance 101 from Foster City TV on Vimeo.
When we presented Recurve home performance software at the 2010 ACI Conference, we introduced a next generation application.
In case you haven’t seen it, check out our software demo: http://software.recurve.com/demo
Since we introduced Recurve software at ACI, our developers have been hard at work on additions to the software that will allow our users to:
Interested in learning the latest on Recurve Software? Register for our next webinar on August 11 at 9-10AM PDT: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/487007865
Here’s something to bear in mind the next time you reach for your duct blaster: At Recurve, we’ve found that using a duct blaster to diagnose leaks isn’t always time well spent. And we all know that in the Home Performance business, time is money.
The problem is that you can spend hours in cramped spaces sealing ducts only to find that there’s little real improvement in leakage levels, and using a duct blaster to locate leaks is a slow process. The alternative? Using a pressure pan in conjunction with a blower door can help you quickly zero in on leaky duct runs that need the most attention, so you can achieve good results in much less time.
Assuming you’re already running a blower door on most of your projects (or have one easily accessible), a pressure pan can take the place of a duct blaster for determining the highest priority areas to seal. With the house prioritized to 50 Pa by the blower door, record the pressure drop with the pressure pan when it covers the register. A large pressure drop (3-6 Pa) indicates that significant leakage is occurring close to that location. A small pressure drop will indicate there is no leakage in that duct run, or that the leakage is far away.
Don’t get us wrong—duct blasters are essential equipment in situations where you need to perform a rigorous leak test. But this quick pressure pan test can save an hour or more compared to taping off the registers and running a duct blaster test, and anything you can do to achieve the desired results in less time will benefit both you and your clients. The bottom line: Knowing where to focus your energy to save your clients’ energy can give you a real competitive advantage.
At Recurve, we’ve found that every technician who performs home energy audits is also a sales person. And the first rule of sales is, “When you’re talking, you’re not selling.” In other words, if you’re not a good listener, you won’t truly understand your customer’s needs and concerns.
When I first started at Recurve, I was so excited about building science that I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. I found myself talking nonstop to customers about some pretty technical stuff—like the complex physics behind duct leakage, or the finer points of buoyancy forces and the stack effect. But over time, I realized that all of my lecturing about building science wasn’t motivating many customers to buy. It became clear to me that most customers buy retrofits to address specific problems they are experiencing with the comfort, energy efficiency or indoor air quality of their homes—not because they’re worried about pressure differentials in their heating ducts.
To accelerate sales, you need to do what I did: Stop talking at your customers and start asking more questions. And bear in mind that not all kinds of questions are equally effective. Asking open-ended questions (questions that can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”) is the best way to gain trust.
Here’s an example of the kind of closed question we avoid asking our customers:
Q: Is your home uncomfortable in the winter? A: Yes
An open question goes more like this:
Q: How would you describe your comfort level during the winter? A: It’s terrible! We’re all bundled up half the time, and the house is very drafty, but we don’t like to run the heater too much because the heat doesn’t seem to stay inside anyway.
Notice that with the open-ended approach, you’ll end up gathering a great deal of information that can be used later to support your recommendations to the homeowner. “We’re going to seal up and insulate your attic. What that’s going to do is cut down on the drafts you told me you feel in the winter, and help your home hold the heat longer. You’ll be more comfortable, and you’ll save on your heating bills.”
The more you can get your customers to open up, the more you’ll learn about their real motivations. We’ve found that the majority of homeowners will tell us at the beginning of the process that they want to achieve X, and end up making a decision to buy because of Y and Z. The key to getting to these “real” motivating factors is to ask open-ended questions that will reveal more about what the customer is experiencing. We have found that linking one open-ended question to next in a natural, conversational tone builds trust—and trust leads to good relationships.
Are you listening yet?
Berkeley’s ME2 Program (Money for Energy Efficiency) program provides up to $5,000 in rebates to qualifying homeowners in single-family residences and duplexes. Rebates go up to $8,500 in conjunction with a PG&E program (PG&E’s Comprehensive Residential Retrofit Pilot Program).
How Does the ME2 Program Work?
When is the ME2 Program Available?
Sign up for a home energy audit now. The ME2 Program is taking applications for the lottery July 6 – 20, 2010. It’s likely the money will run out during these 2 weeks, but if it doesn’t, they’ll accept applications on a first come, first serve basis after the 20th. The PG&E Pilot Program will have money available for a longer timeframe.
Full details here: http://www.recurve.com/what-we-do/financing/berkeley1/
Here’s another question we hear from customers all the time:
What’s the difference between a free energy audit from a utility company like PG&E, and one that you pay for?
A home energy audit is the first step in understanding how to make your home more energy efficient by uncovering how it uses energy and where it is losing energy. You have a few options when it comes to energy audits:
• Simple do-it-yourself audit: Utilizing a tool such as the ENERGY STAR Home Energy Yardstick, which compares your home’s energy use with others across the country and provides suggestions on improvements
• Free audits offered by utilities, organizations, or companies: A basic assessment conducted by a technician that looks at some of the areas in your home that affect your energy usage and carbon footprint
• Professional audits by home energy companies or raters: A comprehensive assessment performed by a certified auditor that identifies the most cost-effective improvements to address root causes of your concerns and provide long-term solutions
Both DIY and free energy audits are good starting points but vary greatly in process and goals from professional audits. Here’s an illustrative example of how they differ:
Acterra, a local nonprofit organization, offers free audits to homeowners in select areas of the South Bay. Conducted by a team of two trained volunteers over two and a half hours, the “HouseCall” is an introduction to basic energy efficiency and conservation measures. It includes simple upgrades such as changing out light bulbs to compact fluorescents, optimizing refrigerator and water heater temperatures, and installing faucet aerators. Additionally, the volunteers will suggest other tips on other energy-saving upgrades. For renters and homeowners alike, it’s a great first step if you are looking for a simple, no-cost way to reduce your energy usage by up to 10%.
Recurve’s energy audit includes a 20+ point inspection of your home, including blower door testing to assess the leakiness of your home, attic and crawlspace inspections, utility bill data analysis, heating and cooling load calculations (i.e. how much energy it takes to heat and cool your home on the coldest and hottest days of the year, respectively), lighting and appliance audits, and heating, cooling and water heating systems analyses. The result is a comprehensive report on how your home is currently using energy and a roadmap to making your home more healthy, comfortable and efficient. And if you move forward with the improvements, you will often see significant results – most of our customers see upwards of 30-50% in energy reductions.
In sum, free energy audits are a great way to identify easy, DIY fixes to your home and can be utilized by renters and homeowners alike. Professional audits offer a much more thorough look at how your home uses energy and the specific steps you can take to significantly improve efficiency in the most cost-effective path possible.
To clear a few questions/myths up:
• PG&E only offers free audits to businesses, not homes
• If you decide to do the energy upgrades, some professional companies will credit part or all of the audit cost back – making it essentially free
• Beware of free audits offered by companies that are just trying to lure in buyers of their product, instead of relying on a comprehensive whole-home approach
Remember, energy audits alone don’t save energy. Use the information you glean from your home audit to identify the improvements that make the most sense for your energy needs and your budget.
Resources:
• Energy Star’s take on home energy audits: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_improvement.hm_improvement_audits
• Home Energy Yardstick: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=HOME_ENERGY_YARDSTICK.showGetStarted
• Acterra’s Green@Home program: http://www.acterra.org/programs/greenathome/housecalls.html
Today, President Obama is traveling to Savannah, GA to outline some of the details of the Home Star program (aka Cash for Caulkers) that Recurve founder Matt Golden has been instrumental in composing.
Obama has previously said that shifting the U.S. toward cleaner, renewable sources of energy and making homes — particularly older houses — more energy-efficient will help accomplish three goals: reducing America’s dependence on foreign energy sources, creating much-needed jobs and saving consumers money on their utility bills.
Under the first level of energy rebates, Silver Star, consumers would be eligible for rebates between $1,000-$1,500 for a variety of home upgrades, including adding insulation, sealing leaky ducts and replacing water heaters, HVAC units, windows, roofing and doors. There would be a maximum rebate of $3,000 per home.
Under the second level, Gold Star, consumers who get home energy audits and then make changes designed to reduce energy costs by at least 20 percent would be eligible for a $3,000 rebate. Additional rebates would be available for savings above 20 percent.
The administration expects household demand for energy upgrades to be boosted once the program is underway, similar to how Cash for Clunkers boosted demand for fuel-efficient vehicles.
Former St. Elsewhere star emphasizes the importance of ‘low-hanging fruit’ in home energy conservation
Celebrated actor and environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. has been translating his green lifestyle into family entertainment with the revival of Living With Ed, a reality series now showing on the Planet Green television network. The show touches on a wide range of topics – from eco-friendly gardening and interior design to electric cars and home energy conservation – and has even featured an energy audit of model Cheryl Tiegs’ Bel Air estate. In a recent Q&A posted on the Planet Green Web site, Begley summed up the value of energy audits while answering a question about what kind of green businesses are most needed:
I think the key is to provide services that people need at the very ground level – the low hanging fruit so to speak. Solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars – all good things but not ground level things. What people really need these days is a home energy audit – one that can create a game plan for energy efficiency in each home. It looks at insulation, windows, ducting, lighting, HVAC, etc., and creates a full plan to bring each house up to a high level of energy efficiency. If I were to start a business, it would be doing home energy audits and doing the work that follows from them.
And here’s what Begley had to say to a viewer who was troubled by the high cost of residential solar, wind and geothermal systems:
Please don’t focus on energy PRODUCTION technologies. Try instead to focus on the low hanging fruit of energy and resource CONSERVATION. A kilowatt SAVED is so much cheaper than a kilowatt PRODUCED. I always recommend starting with a home energy audit – it will create a great game plan of things to do where you will get your fastest and largest return on investment. I didn’t get solar electric until 20 years after I started this stuff!
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
More information about Living With Ed, including broadcast schedules and video clips from the show, is available here: www.planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/living-with-ed/
1. Test your home’s energy IQ: Get an energy audit to determine the best roadmap to a healthy, comfortable and energy efficient home.
2. Unplug energy vampires: In the average home, 40% of all electricity is used to power home appliances while they’re turned off.
3. Insulate yourself against rising energy costs: Well-installed green insulation is the biggest bang-for-your-buck improvement you can make.
4. Get your ducts in order: In California, duct leakage accounts for a loss of 30% of heating and cooling energy.
5. Reduce, then produce: Before installing an expensive solar array, make your home a lean, efficient machine — then pay a lot less for your sun collectors.