On February 16th, the Capitol Hill Energy Coop hosted a meeting with Jim Conlon of Elysian Energy to discuss the aggregate findings of home energy audits conducted on Capitol Hill since March of last year. Elysian is one of two companies the District Department of the Environment uses to conduct the audits, which are free to District residents. To learn more about how to get a home energy audit you can attend tonight’s Preservation Cafe with Conlon at Ebenezer’s, 6:30-7:15 PM at the corner of 2nd and F Streets, NE, or visit DDOE’s website.
The audits are done in accordance with a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) which identifies efficiencies and makes recommendations for improvements. Recommendations are made with an eye toward focusing on improvements that have a payback of seven years or less. The assessment addresses six categories, in order of importance, to the average 100-year-old (+/- 20 years) Capitol Hill row house:
1. Air exchange (drafts)
2. Insulation
3. Heating and cooling equipment
4. Hot water equipment
5. Windows
6. Lights and appliances
Overall, comparing a Capitol Hill home to a geometrically identical home built to today’s code, the median Hill home is 34% worse than the optimum. Based on the age and, by extension, construction practices and design protocols used when building homes on the Hill, Conlon said the primary challenge is air exchange (drafts). “There’s a 96-97% certainty this is a problem” with your Hill home. In fact, our homes are, on average, two times more leaky than the standard. For that new house built to code, 35% of the air indoors is exchanged for fresh air from outdoors every hour. In a Hill home that percentage is closer to 70% per hour, resulting in $350-450 lost from all those drafts. “Sealing air exchange is by far the most cost effective thing people can do on Capitol Hill,” advised Conlon.
Other advice included insulating foundation walls and attics (we went in with our neighbors a few years ago to rent a cellulose blower from Frager’s, which was relatively easy and cost effective). He also recommended sealing duct work since there can be a 20-30% heating loss otherwise. If you have a relatively new gas water heater then you’re probably fine. Conlon was “perfectly ambivalent” about on-demand water heaters, which are more efficient and smaller but have a higher installed cost and demand a lot of fuel when they are used. Here was the big surprise to me: “Windows are the least cost effective home improvement” from the perspective of energy efficiency, according to Conlon. “Even the best windows make bad walls,” he said. From an efficiency standpoint, windows only need to be replaced if they are single pane with a metal frame, or if they won’t close or latch.
Once you’ve received the results of your free home energy audit, there are many improvements you can make yourself. Since you’ll most certainly be dealing with air leaks, Conlon recommended checking out this Energy Star DIY guide or take a class at the Green Building Institute. You can also learn about the various state incentives from DSIRE to reward all your hard work.
