Homeowners Are Hot On Energy Thieves' Trail

Most older houses leak as much, said auditor Justin Aruck of EMO Energy Solutions, one of the home-energy audit companies the county has hired. New homes, on average, leak all their air over about an hour. Energy-efficient homes leak about one-third of the air every hour. And that's about right, he said, because any tighter and the house wouldn't get enough fresh air.

"The most amazing thing to me," David Gaines said, "was to discover that basically as an impermeable membrane, the walls of our house, rather than holding us safe and secure like a little nest, it's actually like living in the middle of a piece of Swiss cheese."

The good news, Aruck told them, is that leaks are pretty easy and inexpensive to fix. Doing so can reduce heating and cooling costs by as much as 30 percent.

For the audit, Aruck first walked through the house. Up in the sweltering, unfinished attic, the temperature made it feel like a sauna. The insulation, where there was insulation, was haphazardly installed on the side walls under the eaves, some of it falling down.

"Um," Aruck began politely, "this insulation is not doing anything at all." There wasn't enough in the floor. The wall insulation was doing as much good as decoration. Unless insulation is flush against the wall, floor or ceiling, it is ineffective. The attic was so hot, it was warming the rest of the house.

The best thing they could do, Aruck suggested, would be to install a radiant barrier. A reflective barrier installed under the roof could lower the attic temperature by as much as 30 degrees by reflecting the heat back toward the roof rather than into the interior of the house. David Gaines, an actor, director and clown with the Big Apple Circus, looked struck, thinking that sounded expensive and complicated. "If you want to do it super cheap," Aruck told him, "just tape up aluminum foil. That can make a big difference."

"And keep the aliens out, too," Gaines muttered.

Next came the blower-door test. Aruck sealed every window and outside door and installed the giant blower in the front door's frame. The blower creates a vacuum inside, which lets the outside air rush in, to determine how much air leaks out of a house and, more important, where.

Susan Gaines, a sign language interpreter, spent the next hour feeling air rush in around her beloved old windows, under the shoe molding all around the hardwood floors, through light switches, electrical outlets and overhead light fixtures, and, most surprisingly, directly through her kitchen cabinets. "It's blowing like the wind through here," she said, stunned. "Who needs air conditioning when you can just turn on your cabinets like this?"

Finally came the moment of truth. What could they do about this leaky old boat? Gaines, who had been scared away from making energy-efficient improvements after a contractor told him it would cost $20,000 to replace his windows, braced for the worst.

Then Aruck came up with his list. Put toddler-proof plugs in the electrical outlets. Pull out the caulk gun and run it along the floorboards under the shoe molding and under the kitchen cabinets. Buy a can of spray foam to plug some holes. Think about using weatherstripping or rope caulk to better seal the windows. When the fireplace isn't being used, make sure the chimney damper is closed. Install the radiant barrier in the attic and more insulation in the attic floors.

Their old air conditioner will probably last a few more years, Aruck told the couple, but when its time comes, they should think about getting an energy-efficient one. But don't worry too much about it. "People think air conditioning is a big energy cost, but it's really not," Aruck explained. "The biggest energy user in a house is heat. It runs 35 to 55 percent of the total energy cost."

Aruck checked their annual energy bills and found that they spend about $200 a year on air conditioning and $1,400 a year on heating.

The Gaines looked relieved. "These are doable things," David Gaines said. "We can do them in little increments, and we won't have to go out and get a car loan to do it."

And, his wife added, they won't have to feel quite so guilty the next time they watch Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."