Energy Pros Hunt Down Power Waste
Give Sheree McKenna half an hour in your home and you’ll find out just how much it really costs to operate that old refrigerator in the garage.
McKenna, a home energy auditor, also might tell you that your swimming pool pump is running three times longer than it needs to--that’s something she often finds. Or that the water bed you love to snuggle up in is costing $10 to $20 a month to heat.
Even if you don’t have a pool, water bed or second refrigerator, it’s a good bet in these days of soaring energy costs that a home audit can help you figure out how much energy your home consumes and where to start saving.
And McKenna’s advice is the best kind--it’s free.
As coordinator of Southern California Edison’s home energy survey program, she heads a six-person staff that does 10,000 in-home and telephone audits a year in the utility’s service area.
In most cases, the auditors work like private detectives to track down leaky window and door seals, too-bright lights and other energy wasters in a home. Then, in their final report, they recommend steps that homeowners and renters can take to slash energy consumption. The U.S. Energy Department says savings can reach 50%.
“There’s tremendous savings out there for people,” McKenna says. “They just don’t realize it.”
Popular in the 1970s and 1980s, in-home audits began to fade as demand dropped and utilities deemed them an overly expensive service to offer, said Don Cunningham, director of efficiency solutions for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Southern California Gas Co., for example, no longer offers in-home audits, although an online energy survey has just been added to its Web site, https://www.socalgas.com .
But California’s energy crisis is spurring renewed interest in the audits.
“We’re expecting several times the normal level of interest this summer,” Cunningham said.
In response, the DWP has developed a new, mail-in audit. That’s in addition to an online program ( https://www.greenla.com ), and a free CD-ROM the department mails out to computer users interested in a more personalized audit. The agency’s in-home audits, though, are provided only for those with unusual equipment, such as a home pottery kiln, that is unlikely to be covered in the other programs, Cunningham said. DWP customers can call (800) 473-3652 for information.
SCE customers, however, can choose online, mail-in, telephone or in-home surveys by calling (800) 278-8585 or by using the utility’s Web site , https://www.sce.com .
Edison’s in-home auditors conduct a visual survey. They don’t carry equipment with them to measure energy use or heating and cooling losses. But they are trained to identify problem areas and to make recommendations. Their suggestions can range from the inexpensive--weatherstripping the doors and windows that provide escape routes responsible for a third of a home’s heat loss--to costly cures such as adding insulation to older homes or installing new, energy-conserving double-paned windows.
The utilities’ energy detectives show you how to read your meter and explain how to measure an appliance’s energy consumption. (Use the meter to measure the home’s normal electricity use for several days, then turn off the appliance for 24 hours and use the new reading to see the difference).
They advocate cleaning refrigerator condenser coils and buying an appliance thermometer to take your refrigerator’s temperature. If the fresh-food compartment is colder than 37 degrees or the freezer is colder than 5 degrees, they recommend turning the temperature up to save energy.
Energy auditors also offer energy-saving lifestyle tips, such as turning up the air conditioner and avoiding what Cunningham calls “window shopping” for snacks with the refrigerator door open.
In most audits, the refrigerator turns out to be the biggest energy culprit, although air-conditioning is the biggest summertime energy user, McKenna said.
“People have no concept of what it can cost them to run older refrigerators. As long as it’s keeping the food cold, they think it’s working fine,” she said. But that old refrigerator in the garage can hike electricity bills $20 a month or more.
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Lynn O’Dell is a freelancer living in Orange County.
