Homeowners Are Hot On Energy Thieves' Trail

David and Susan Gaines live in a funky, 90-year-old bungalow in Arlington County with lots of charm. They like the wavy glass in the original windows. They love the high ceilings and period light fixtures. What they don't like, however, is feeling frozen in winter and cooked in summer and paying through the nose to the gas and electric companies for their discomfort.

They have forced-air vents in the ceilings for heating and cooling. But because of the laws of physics, hot air rises, so winter is a particular challenge.

"The heat is fine as long as you live on ladders," David Gaines said.

"Or walk around on stilts," Susan added.

They're the kind of people who grow their own vegetables, drive his and hers hybrids and ride battery-powered Segways to the farmer's market. Since buying the place in 1999, they've had a sinking feeling that their beloved, drafty old house may only be adding to the Earth's environmental woes.

So when Arlington County advertised a few months ago that it will give free home-energy audits to 20 lucky residents, they signed up immediately. "If we do this right, we may be able to single-handedly slow the effects of global warming," Gaines joked. "You have no idea how much energy we waste."

The free audits are part of Arlington's new initiative, announced this year, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 10 percent from 2000 to 2012 and do its small part to keep the Arctic ice floes frozen. The thinking with the free audits, according to Paul Ferguson, the initiative's author and Board of Supervisors chairman, is that if the 20 people see how much energy they waste and make changes, they'll tell two friends, who'll do the same and who'll tell two friends who'll tell two friends. And over time there will be an appreciable decrease in the county's "carbon footprint."

"This will help us do our part for the environment," Ferguson said. His own home-energy audit at his Fairlington condo was eye-opening. It found that the recessed can lights installed in the ceiling during a kitchen renovation a few years ago were leaking air. That made the house feel drafty in winter, so he and his family would turn the heat up; in the summer, it was humid, so they'd turn on the air conditioner. That used more energy and cost more money.

He could fix the problem by replacing the recessed lights with energy-efficient sealed versions -- which would require ripping out drywall -- or putting weatherstrips around the existing ones. He opted for the strips. "People will be lured at first by the financial savings of a home-energy audit," he said. "But then, when they become more efficient, they can feel good about what they're doing for the Earth."

Home-energy audits, which run about $300, primarily check for leaks and drafts. Companies in this new and rapidly growing field will also look at appliances, assess heating and cooling systems, and analyze energy bills. But just plugging the leaks in a house can often lead to the biggest energy and cost savings.

And that's how David and Susan Gaines came to find out, on a recent sweltering day after a three-hour energy audit, that their house has so many little holes and gaps that all its air escapes twice every hour. That's right, the auditor explained to the disbelieving Gaines: Every last molecule of expensively heated or cooled air in their house leaks out and is replaced and leaks out and is replaced again every hour, 24 times a day.

And their home is pretty typical.