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The first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol and Seattle city hall, PubliCola has been called a “must-read” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and a hot “New Media Mover and Shaker” by Seattle Magazine—which also cited our own Erica C. Barnett as the city's No. 1 news nerd.

Why Seattle’s Home Retrofit Grant Is Cool

News   April 26, 2010 at 3:14 pm Jane Hodges

As the Seattle Times reported last week, the city just snagged a $20 million grant for energy-efficiency home retrofits, part of the federal “Retrofit Ramp Up” awards program, which gave grants to 25 cities. The grant will pay for inexpensive ($95) home energy audits for thousands of houses, condos, and apartments.

While builders of new construction frequently incorporate the latest and greatest methods to curb leaked air, water,  gas and heat, the vast majority of homes in Seattle, as in most cities, are old and inefficient. According to Yahoo! Real Estate, the median age of a house in Seattle is 48. So there’s plenty of retrofitting to go around.Energy audits and efficiency improvements are one of the least sexy but most important aspects of the debate about green housing. No, the proud homeowner who’s improved their insulation or caulked or puttied or added weather stripping may not have much to show for it, the way the owner of a spanking-new green home can show off their semi-solar heating system or low-impact natural fiber carpet or their low-flow potty. But no one ever said doing the right thing was sexy.

Am I biased about the importance of audits? Yes. I had my home audited by four separate practitioners in 2008, as part of a story on variations among so-called energy auditors and the availability of the tests.

Done right, and thoroughly, the audit process is expensive ($500) and technically complex. The fellow who came to our home used a giant fan to de-pressurize all 2,200 square feet of it and measure its air leakage level in what’s known as a “blower door” test. Then he trolled the home with an infrared camera that spots temperature variations around windows and doors and other nooks and crannies, which indicates where insulation maybe necessary. Then he repeated those two processes. He eyeballed our joists, attic, our home’s “outer envelope,” and poked around like crazy.

Sure, $500 is a lot to pay for a guy to bring some geeky gear into your home. (And it definitely makes $95 look like a deal). But considering that half of our energy leaks were $10 fixes (putting some weather-stripping behind a door to the attic, adding insulation here and there, using a special caulk called ”mastic” on ducts), the expense is worth it. For some homeowners, it can prevent unnecessary energy upgrades (some of which can be quite pricey) and pinpoint the most critical ones.




  • Repeat Pete

    The last time they did this (in the late '70's, early 80's) it was a joke: Lots of make work, lots of over charging, lots of shoddy work.

    Now that all of that original stuff has reached the end of its useful age, are we just going to go back and retrofit the original retrofits?

    I'm all for energy efficiency, but if it's anything like last time I won't let those clowns anywhere near my house.

    Why don't we just get smart metering instead, and have people make their own decisions about energy use?

  • Anc

    Wise decisions can only be made when all (or as much as possible) information is present. Total costs are a very important aspect of that, but knowing where those costs come from are as well. I don't see how an audit if done correctly (as Jane describes) can be a bad thing.

  • N8

    I don't believe that Seattle City Light employees will be doing the work. It will probably be registered contractors or the homeowner doing the work.

  • Repeat Pete

    Smart metering is one of the best ways to give consumers the most complete information available, in real time, about their electrical usage and costs.

    I would argue that access to that information, much more than an audit, would open consumer's eyes. Then they might realize that running that baseboard heater all days does really cost them five bucks a day, or that that old refrigerator in the basement really does run all the time.

    Plus, it's an ongoing conservation investment that will continue to provide feedback long after the caulking has dried up or the wall insulation has compressed or the current resident has moved on.

    Audits are important, and retrofitting is important, but we need to step into the new century to achieve real efficiencies – not just recycle Carter Administration ideas.

  • Gontumono

    Knowing that your furnace costs $5 a day to run is good, I suppose, but it doesn't tell you how you could lower the cost. That's what the energy audits are about.
    I'm skeptical, because the knowledge of how to remedy home energy losses is technical and much more complex than it appears. It will be very easy for someone to pose as an expert, perform audits, and give bad advice to homeowners. If truly high-quality information was being given out I think it would be a good idea.
    I'd say the auditors should be required to get a certification in building science, but as far as I know there are no programs to certify that, because the knowledge is specialized and not widespread.

  • Repeat Pete

    It's like this: There are people who are motivated to save energy, and will call for an audit, but there's not that many, and not all of them will follow through on the recommendations. When all it said and done, probably 20% of the participants will be affluent, and 80% of them will be low-income folks who will have it forced on them by agencies like the SHA.

    Which is a pity, because there's a much bigger pool of people who get their power bill and want it to be lower – but they have no connection to that thing that registers who much power they're using (except to gripe about how it must be running fast)

    If you can reach those people through smart metering (which has a consumer interface showing them their usage and running total to be billed), and they can make the connection between their inefficient appliances, drafty windows, bad habits, etc, then you can change behavior on a larger scale, and achieve some real savings. But this program won't reach them.

    Again, I'm not saying audits or retrofitting are bad, but they appeal to a limited audience – particularly when they are charging almost a hundred bucks for the audit. But if you can get consumers interested by showing them how/when/why their bill is high, you're going to attract the interest of a lot more people, and get a lot more participation in the program.

    Unfortunately, this will be mostly for show, with numbers manipulated to meet some grant writer's projections. Just like last time.