Stimulus Funds for Home Weatherization

  • A fan is sized to the front door so they can de-pressurize the house. This helps them see where air is escaping - and where insulation may be needed. (Photo by Julie Grant)

The government stimulus package
included billions of new dollars
for home weatherization programs.
The money is used to help low income
folks make their homes more energy
efficient. But some critics say
it’s not a good use of federal tax
dollars. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

The government stimulus package included billions of new dollars for home weatherization programs. The money is used to help low income folks make their homes more energy efficient. But some critics say it’s not a good use of federal tax dollars. Julie Grant reports:

Chris Graham spends his days checking the energy efficiency of people’s homes.

Today he’s at Sandra Richards’ in Mogodore, Ohio.

Graham: “Hi Sandra.”

Sandra: “How are ya?”

Graham: “Wonderful. And you?”

Sandra: “Better.”

Graham: “Better?”

Sandra is 55. Her house is clean and neat. She was a nurse for many years, but today she’s sitting on the couch, watching TV. A broken foot spiraled into problems with her knee and hip – and other health problems.

“I mean I’ve just had so many things go on in such a little time. I was working 12 hour days, and one month later, I couldn’t work at all.”

Sandra qualified for the home weatherization program because she doesn’t have much in the way of income anymore.

Chris Graham says he’s been to a lot of homes where people are far worse off. They can’t get around, they don’t have money coming in, and their houses get cold in the winter.

Graham heads to the basement.

“The first thing we have to make sure is that the heating unit is not in terrible, dilapidated shape. And that it does not have more than a specified amount of carbon monoxide in the flu gasses.”

He turns on the furnace and sticks a probe into the flu pipe.

(sound of a tester)

Grant: “Looks like a receipt came out.”

Graham: “It kind of is. It tells you exactly what was going on there.”

Looks like Sandra’s furnace is running pretty well. 81% efficiency.

But Graham sees evidence of carbon monoxide on her old water heater.

“It’s 17 years old and it just plain needs changed. It’s got burnt, scorch all over it. So we’re gonna do that.”

That could cost more than $1,000.

But the home weatherization program can afford it these days. The stimulus packaged included $5-billion for this kind of work – compared with less than a quarter of a billion dollars last year. The new money has to be spent within two years.

And some people think that’s just too much money – too fast. Leslie Paige is with a taxpayer watchdog group called Citizens Against Government Waste.

“There’s always a lot of waste in government spending anyway, but when you spend it quickly and there’s very little oversight, that’s almost a prescription for seeing a lot of that money go for waste and fraud and losing to abuse.”

That kind of criticism is shocking to David Shea. He’s director the Community Action Council of Portage County, Ohio – the organization that hires inspector Chris Graham.
The weatherization program has been around since 1976 and Shea says they have to report their spending in about a hundred different ways.

“It’s not like money is being thrown out at agencies and just say, ‘oh go out and do it.’ There are volumes and volumes of written regulations that have been around for a long time. We do so much sophisticated reporting; they know how every dollar is being spent. Always. Always.”

Shea’s office used to have one crew out weatherizing homes around the county. Since the stimulus money’s come in, he’s hired a second crew. But there are so many people wanting their services, the waiting list is still years long.

(sound of a fan)

Back at Sandra Richards’ house, inspector Chris Graham has sized a big fan into the front door. He’s depressurizing the house – so he can see where air is escaping. Graham says she’s going to need some doors sealed and new insulation in the attic.

He says Sandra will feel more comfortable, so she won’t need to turn up the heat in the winter. That means she’ll save on energy costs, and will use less fossil fuels.

That’s the whole idea of this project – to use less energy in the future, and to help millions of families that couldn’t afford to improve things on their own.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Stimulus Dollars for Your House

  • A 1.4 ton geothermal heat pump unit at an elementary school. Stimulus credits did boost sales of geothermal systems – the most efficient systems out there. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

The Cash for Clunkers program is
not the only government incentive
for energy efficiency. The stimulus
package has incentives to make homes
more energy efficient. Mark Brush
took a look into the bigger part of
the tax credits – new home heating
and cooling systems:

Transcript

The Cash for Clunkers program is
not the only government incentive
for energy efficiency. The stimulus
package has incentives to make homes
more energy efficient. Mark Brush
took a look into the bigger part of
the tax credits – new home heating
and cooling systems:

Homeowners can get 30% of the cost of a new heating or cooling system refunded on their taxes. For most systems the government caps the refund at $1,500.

Trade groups say the credits didn’t do much for air conditioning sales this summer. They say the types of air conditioning systems eligible for the credit are just too expensive.

But energy efficient furnaces cost a lot less – so trade groups do expect the tax credits to boost furnace sales.

Francis Dietz is with the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute. He says the credits did boost sales of geothermal systems – the most efficient systems out there.

“That was a bright spot. That is a 30% uncapped tax credit. So basically a homeowner who has a geothermal heat pump installed can get back, as a credit, 30% of the cost of that.”

That’s a big help – because geothermal systems can cost between $15,000 to $28,000 to install.


For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Greenovation: Whole House Fan

  • Matthew Grocoff says a whole house fan gives the same comfort as you would have with an air conditioning system. (Photo courtesy of Greenovation TV)

Energy efficiency is on the mind
of a lot of homeowners. They’re
starting to question everything
about their homes, even the need
for air conditioning. Lester
Graham met with some homeowners
and an energy-efficiency expert
to talk about a different approach
to cooling a house:

Transcript

Energy efficiency is on the mind
of a lot of homeowners. They’re
starting to question everything
about their homes, even the need
for air conditioning. Lester
Graham met with some homeowners
and an energy-efficiency expert
to talk about a different approach
to cooling a house:

For some people, air-conditioning just feels a little unnatural. I mean, it’s a refrigerated room, right?

There are older ways of cooling a house that are cheaper and use a lot less electricity.

Matthew Grocoff is with Greenovation TV. His website suggests all kinds of ways to make homes more green.

We met at a house in a tree-lined neighborhood of century-old homes in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

(sounds of house and stairs)

He wanted to show me an idea that’s like throwing open the windows and pulling in a cool summer breeze.

It’s called a whole house fan.

Grocoff: “We’re at the home of Jacinta Beehner and Thore Bergman. Thore actually installed this fan himself. It cost about $250 – about $9500 less than the quote that they got to install an air conditioning system in their house. And, this summer, they have not had to turn on their window units at all.”

Now Thore is not a carpenter. He’s a university researcher who studies monkey vocalizations. But, he decided he’d try to install the big fan in his ceiling on his own.

Bergman: “It was fairly easy. It took a couple hours. The tricky thing was – we have an older house that had layers of plaster and wood in the ceiling. So, cutting through that to make the hole took a little more work that it might in some houses. But it wasn’t too bad.”

Beehner: “I have to admit, I didn’t really believe that maybe he could install it himself. And yet, he did a great job. And I am the biggest fan of the whole house fan.”

Grocoff: “So, you’ve got the Beehner-Bergman fan club here. And this is interesting, because the goal, for most homeowners, is to get the house to a comfortable 72 degree temperature. And, it’s kind of strange that when it’s 65 degrees outside, and it’s 80 degrees inside your house, that we’re turning on an air conditioning unit when the air outside is actually colder than the air conditioning unit.”

(sound of fan turning on)

Bergman: “One drawback is the noise. Which, we’ve gotten used to. We kind of like it for sleeping – it blocks some of the street noise. We’re standing right underneath it, and it’s kind of hard to talk.”

Beehner: “But, we also have a baby. So the whole house fan serves as white noise, which really helps us move around upstairs while he’s asleep.”

Grocoff: “Those people who are not looking for that white noise sound, like Jacinta and Thore are for their baby, they’re going to be able to get something that’s quieter, more efficient, more insulated, that’s going to be virtually silent, at the higher price points.”

There have been some surprises along the way.

Jacinta says, you have to keep in mind – anything in the night air will be drawn into the house.

Beehner: “One night, we actually did turn it on, and within about one minute, our entire house was filled with the smell of skunk.

Grocoff: “So, if you’ve got really good, deep skunk smell, you know the fan is working. Another possible drawback is, with the air, you’re bringing in any kind of dust, pollen, anything else like that.”

But, Grocoff says, overall, this big sorta-box fan in the ceiling really pulls the hot air out of the house and pulls the cool air from outdoors into the house.

Now, these fans don’t work everywhere.

If you live in an extremely humid area, or a region where it never really cools down at night or in the morning, it might not be a good fit.

But for areas that enjoy cooler mornings and evenings in the summer, Grocoff says this is a good alternative.

Grocoff: “With a whole house attic fan, you’re going to get the same comfort as you would with an air conditioning system. But, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the cost for running an air conditioning system is 20 cents to 30 cents every hour that you have that turned on. For a whole house attic fan, you’re talking about a penny to a nickel an hour.”

There are all kinds of designs besides the big box fan types.

You can go to a home improvement store, your heating and cooling installer, or do some research online at greenovation.TV or just type in whole house fan in Google. You’ll find plenty of places wanting to sell you there version of a newly popular old idea.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Portable Classrooms Get a Makeover

  • When schools run out of room, they often have to put students in portable buildings (Source: Motown31 at Wikimedia Commons)

When schools get too crowded, they often resort to sticking students in modular classrooms – cheap trailers, essentially. But Sheryl Rich-Kern reports some innovative architects are saying that the energy savings and efficiency of modulars make them an ideal, and often, permanent solution:

Transcript

When schools get too crowded, they often resort to sticking students in modular classrooms – cheap trailers, essentially. But Sheryl Rich-Kern reports some innovative architects are saying that the energy savings and efficiency of modulars make them an ideal, and often, permanent solution:

I’ve actually taught a class in one of those temporary, portable classrooms. It was in the early morning at a community college.

Students would walk in droopy-eyed. My job was to keep them engaged and awake.

Not an easy task – the room was either too hot or too cold. And the ventilation system made weird noises.

But, some experts say portables don’t have to be that way. They can be the kind of room that educators actually prefer.

Michelle Gould is a teacher and parent at the Carroll School in Lincoln, Massachusetts. And she teaches in a new kind of portable classroom.

“The air is very clean in here. It smells like the outside. It doesn’t smell like air conditioning or heating. The lighting is very good for not working under natural light. It seems like you’re outside. And it makes a big difference tutoring kids.”

Tutor: “Did you write your last name, Will? No? Very good, nice spacing. Close your books and put your pencil down.”

(sound of kids playing outdoors)

The Carroll School’s main building is a brick mansion from the early 1900s.

It is stately, elegant. The portable next to it is not. It’s boxy, and has a flat, white roof. Kind of ugly.

But, when you walk in to the portable you feel a change. It’s comfortable!

Cliff Cort is president of Triumph Modular, the firm that leases the country’s first green portable classroom.

“This is a vestibule, we think is a necessary ingredient to almost all buildings, because it controls the weather from the outside to the inside.”

Vestibules aren’t typically found in modular classrooms. Neither is the paperless drywall that eliminates mold, or the sensors that “learn” the best way to control the heating.

“If the teacher tends to come in early on Mondays, the building will begin to learn her habits, and then turn on the heating or A-C just before she gets here. And if they start to take off half a day on Wednesdays, the building would start to learn that no one is here in the afternoons, and then they can shut down. So it helps manage the use of the HVAC system.”

Cort points to the domed skylights known as sun tunnels, which bring in daylight.

“But they don’t bring it in a way that’s too harsh. As you can see, this is screened a bit. So it’s diffused light.”

Triumph Modular is just one of the companies making these more environmentally friendly modular classrooms.

Tom Hardiman is director of the Modular Building Institute, a trade association for dealers and manufacturers of commercial modular buildings.

“Improved acoustics. Improved daylighting. There are countless studies out there that show that it does improve the learning environment.”

Hardiman says many of the old-style portable classrooms end up being used for 20 or 30 years. The problem is they weren’t meant to.

But higher-end portables, like the one in Lincoln, Massachusetts, are built to last.

And, because of the modular construction, they’re greener.

“We typically produce much less construction waste material than site-built construction. Because our factories buy in bulk, they can resuse smaller pieces of material. If you’ve been on a construction site, you’ve seen dumpster after dumpster of two-by-fours and drywall and siding sticking out of the dumpster. There’s just not that much waste with modular construction.”

Hardiman says that green portables are the wave of the future.

They’re not the cheapest solution. But Hardiman says they do provide the best learning spaces on campus.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sheryl Rich-Kern.

Related Links

Dreaming Big, Despite Bankruptcy

  • One paint technology that GM is developing uses quantum dots - shown here irradiated with ultraviolet light (Source: Walkman16 at Wikimedia Commons)

Even though General Motors has filed for bankruptcy, Rebecca Williams reports the company is still dreaming big:

Transcript

Even though General Motors has filed for bankruptcy, Rebecca Williams reports the company is still dreaming big:

Someday you might be able to power your radio through your car’s paint.

Christopher Webb is GM’s senior creative designer.

He says GM’s research teams are giving some thought to solar powered paint. He says it might start with tiny solar cells called quantum dots.

“You could suspend these solar cells in a resin system or a waterborne or solvent carrier and spray it over the surface of the vehicle. Technically the entire surface of the vehicle could become almost a solar conductor.”

Webb says nobody knows exactly how this might work yet. But he says he’s confident that GM will continue their research into new technologies like this even with the bankruptcy announcement.

Something else that’s being talked about is using volcanic rock in paint. It could be a coating that would reduce a car’s interior temperature by reflecting heat – so you could use the air conditioning less often.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Saving Energy: Simple Changes, Big Impact

  • Jack Brown is an Outreach Technician for Community Resource Project, helping to spread the word about weatherization services that families may be eligible for. In his 23 years at Community Resource, Brown says he’s assessed about 5,000 homes. (Photo by Amy Standen)

Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:

Transcript

Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save
energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining
a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:

Sure, I’ve thought about buying solar panels to put on my roof. There’s a perfect spot on
the south-facing slope – maybe we could power the whole house. But there are some
easier things we could do first – like insulate the attic or weather strip the doors. And yet,
somehow I never quite get around to them.

Why is that? Well James Sweeney directs the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at
Stanford, and he has a theory.

“Energy efficiency turns out to have low salience to people.”

Which is to say, it’s maybe… a little bit boring?

“It’s very boring.”

But if your eyes start to glaze over at the mere mention of the word “efficiency,” consider
the compact fluorescent light bulb.

“The easiest thing everyone can do is change their lighting.”

If everyone in the U.S. traded in their old incandescent light bulbs for compact
fluorescents, we’d cut electricity use by about 2%.

Which, maybe, doesn’t sound so impressive – until you consider the fact that all the solar
and all the wind power combined in the entire country amounts to point .4% of our total
energy use. That’s 0.4.

“The cleanest energy is the energy you don’t need in the first place.”

That fact has not been lost on the Obama White House. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act is pouring approximately 20 billion dollars into efficiency projects.

Five billion of that will fund what’s called the Weatherization Assistance Program, which
helps low-income families weatherproof their homes. To qualify, a family of four must
make less than $44 thousand dollars a year.

(sound of someone giving directions – “Take 25 and go to El Paso Road”)

That stimulus cash funds local non-profits like Community Resource Project, in
Sacramento, California. Since January, Community Resource’s budget has tripled, from
1.3 to 4.5 million dollars a year. They’re buying new trucks, hiring at all levels, and
going to more and more homes.

(sound of knocking at a door)

Like this one – a five-bedroom stucco ranch house in a newer suburban development
outside of Sacramento.

(sound of door opening)

“Hello, how are you doing?”

At the door is TinaMarie Dunn, a family friend who’s showing us around today. She
gives a squeeze to two-year old Anaya, one of ten children who live here.

“Look Anaya, say cheese!” (Anaya: Cheese!)

Dunn says utility bills here can hit $500 dollars a month. She says the house just doesn’t
work right.

“When the heat is on, downstairs is hot, downstairs is cold. When the air’s on, the
upstairs is cold, the downstairs is hot.”

Community Resource’s Dana Gonzalez walks into the kitchen, and pauses to take a look
around.

Standen: “So when you walked in, what was the first thing you saw?”

Gonzalez: “It’s funny. You see this door shoe and you see, actually the bottom rubber
is gone.”

He points to a two-inch gap under the front door.

“And if you put your hand here, you can actually feel the air. Anytime they kick on
their heat and cool, that’s definitely affecting their house, and in the long run, affects
their bill.”

Community Resource will spend about $1500 here, aiming to cut monthly utility bills by
as much as 20%.

They’ll weather strip the doors, patch up holes in the walls, install CFL bulbs. We’re not
talking solar panels or radiant heating – just small, mostly inexpensive adjustments that
cumulatively, have a huge impact.

The White House says these efficiency projects will create thousands of jobs, but there’s
also concern that the huge cash infusion is a recipe for fraud and mismanagement.

Department of Energy officials have called for extra vigilance in the disbursement of
weatherization cash. But, they say, the benefits, both environmental and economic, far
outweigh the risks.

For The Environment Report, I’m Amy Standen.

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The Giving Shade Tree

  • If you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home, those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent (Photo by Jessi Ziegler)

Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Economists looked at utility bills of homes in California on the hottest days
of the year.

Geoffrey Donovan is with the Forest Service Research Station.

He says, if you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home,
those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent.

“So putting a tree somewhere it’s going to cast shadows at the warmest time
of the day. The other thing you want to think about is winter sunshine.
Particularly on the south side of a house you may want to put a deciduous
tree as opposed to an evergreen tree so in wintertime you’ll get some
sunshine through that.”

Donovan says how close you put those trees to your house matters too. For
the most energy savings, shade trees should be within 40 to 60 feet of your
home.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Cooling Concerns About Air Conditioning

  • For some, a ceiling fan just isn't enough to cool down. (Photo by Tarrer Pace)

As the hot weather settles in, air conditioners are being wedged into windows everywhere. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly usually tries not to use one. But she finds as the temperatures rise, her concerns for the environment evaporate:

Transcript

As the hot weather settles in, air conditioners are
being wedged into windows everywhere. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly usually tries not to use one. But
she finds as the temperatures rise, her concerns for the
environment evaporate.


Every year – late spring – I start my annual denial of the fact that I need air conditioning.
The problem is, I really relate to the people who wave it away and say, all you need is a ceiling fan and nice cold glass of water.


Like my friend Ross, who has no air conditioning on the job as a home renovator, and no air conditioner at home, either.


“Well, it’s not really anything ethical. I just find that recycled air, it sort of smells bad. And I would prefer breathing steamy but clean air to cooled but stale air.”


Ross is one of those people who thinks it’s silly to use air conditioning where we live, which is in Ottawa, Canada. I mean, come on, we might only have a couple of weeks of hot weather. And in the beginning, I try to do without.


I have fans. I drink iced lattes. I take cool baths.


But the truth is, I can’t take it. My brain just stops functioning properly. Like the time my husband came home to find me trying to work at the computer in tears, because I was so hot. Meanwhile, the air conditioner is in the window, but I was refusing to turn it on.


Part of it is that I’m worried about the impact on the environment. I talked to Corey Diamond at the Clean Air Foundation in Toronto and asked him how bad is air conditioning really?
He agreed it uses a lot of electricity, but even worse, he says we’re all using it at the same time.


“Everybody sort of comes home at five o’clock, turns on their air conditioning, and we get to a point where the electricity grid is at the peak demand that it can access. What ends up happening is when people are demanding more power, they have to use as much coal as they can to meet that demand.”


And that means more pollution, which leads to smog, health problems and maybe even climate change.
Despite that, I recently decided I had to have air conditioning in my car – both for my own comfort and the safety of other drivers.


I tend to get disoriented in the heat. I usually relied on a bottle of ice water between my knees and the windows wide open. About an hour later, I’d be taking the wrong exit off the highway.


So, I recently took my 1990 Honda Accord into the shop to find out if they could fix it. I was prepared to spend a few hundred dollars, maybe more. Then they call back with a quote of one thousand eight hundred dollars.


That’s probably more than my car is worth. The guy on the phone says at that price, he won’t let me get it fixed, even if I want to. So the car is out of the question. But at home, the heat creeps into my living room, and the temptation becomes too great.


Third day of plus 85 temperatures… What more do I have to say?


(Sound of air conditioning)


My 18 month old daughter stands in front of the air conditioner. She reaches her arms towards it. She basks in its coolness.


“How does that feel? Good… good…good!”


I’ve given in to my weaker self. But I’m still determined to use the air conditioner sparingly.
Corey Diamond at the Clean Air Foundation gave me a bunch of ideas on how to do that.


“Keep the blinds drawn during the day. You want to install some ceiling fans if you have some. And lastly, you can add a timer to your air conditioner. You sort of set it to come on at four o’clock and if you get home at five o’clock from work, your house is cool, but it hasn’t been cooled all day.”


At first, Diamond’s group tried to get people to stop using air conditioning. That didn’t work. So they switched gears. They started a program in Toronto where you can trade in your old, inefficient air conditioner for a rebate on a new one. Diamond says the newer ones use as much as 70 percent less electricity.


So as I sit here, telling you this story, I have a new air conditioner with an Energy Star sticker on it.
Which means either the Canadian or American government deemed it more efficient. I do kind of feel like I’m working in a wind tunnel. And I miss the sounds of the birds and squirrels outside my window. But yet, I feel comfortable.


Now I’m reluctant to turn the air conditioner off.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

New Rule Takes Aim at Fish Kills

Environmental groups and attorneys general in six states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over a new rule that regulates cooling water intake at power plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Environmental groups and attorneys general in six states are suing the Environmental
Protection Agency over a new rule that regulates cooling water intake at power plants.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports.


Power plants take in billions of gallons of water a day from lakes or rivers to keep
their
turbines cool. That process kills fish and other aquatic organisms. The new rule
by the
EPA requires power plants to reduce fish kills by at least 60 percent. But critics
say the
government can easily require a much larger reduction.


Reed Super is an attorney for the environmental group River Keeper. He says a process
called “closed-cycle cooling” can achieve a 95 percent reduction in fish kills. But
he says
power companies don’t want to pay for it.


“Industry gets a good hearing by its representatives in Washington these days, and we
basically have the Office of Management and Budget and the White House and political
appointees at EPA once again caving into industry to give them exactly what they
want.”


Attorneys general of six Northeastern states have also filed suit against the EPA. The
new rule is set to take effect September 7th.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

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