[MassHistPres] Cost-Conscious Historical Renovations?

[Heli Meltsner]

NSTAR has an energy saving program for lower income customers and  
additionally, 75 percent off up to $2,000 toward insulation upgrades  
and air sealing are available. Currently 0 percent financing is  
available for qualified customers from the HEAT Loan program. Call  
800-632-8300 or visit www.masssave.com for more information. The  
Conservation Services Group is excellent, very helpful, will do an  
energy audit and give you an the energy efficient light bulb for each  
lamp or fixture in your house that can take one.

Go to this website for more information
http://www.nstaronline.com/residential/energy_efficiency/gas_programs/

Heli Meltsner

On Nov 19, 2008, at 10:25 AM, Dennis De Witt wrote:

> Wendy
>
> Did you see this posting a few months ago?  Note the reference below
> to Conservation Services Group.  I believe they are working for NStar.
>
> The energy side of this equation could have been addressed with Harvey
> Tru Channels
>
> Dennis De Witt
>
>
> For those who didn't see it, below is an article entitled "So its time
> to button up" from the 10/12/02 Boston Sunday Globe's "Homes" section.
>
>
> It is about making homes more energy efficient.  At the top of the
> article is a diagram showing the cost, savings payback periods of
> various energy saving investments.  Note the last item:
>
> Air Sealing — payback:2.5 years
> Storm doors and storm windows — payback 13-15 years
> Door weather stripping — payback 2.5 years
> Aircrete foam wall insulation — payback 6.5 years
> Cellulose attic floor insulation — payback 9 years
> New furnace of boiler — payback 8 years
> Replacement windows — payback up to 33 years
> 		(That's longer than the lifetime of the insulating glass!  Note the
> 6th paragraph from the bottom below)
>
> These are said to be average numbers based in information from
> Conservation Services Group, a non-profit entity which does energy
> audits.
>
> The following is the text of the article — less a deleted section on
> financing:
>
>   So, this is the year you're finally going to bring your house in
> from the cold? You're not alone, and there's help available from many
> places to narrow the number of winterization choices to the most
> effective, and steer clear of the costly.  Despite the retreat in oil
> prices, heating fuel costs remain high - home heating oil, for
> example, is in the mid-$3-a-gallon range.
>
> Numbers like these were the tipping point for Brookline resident
> Rebecca Mailer-Howat. Her household held off for years before spending
> thousands of dollars last month on an energy-efficient retrofit of
> their 1870s Colonial Revival. The Mailer-Howats started with an
> ecologically friendly insulation foam called Aircrete, which was blown
> inside the walls of the house, and then expanded to fill in airways
> and hidden gaps and holes. Next the family plans to upgrade its hot
> water system, and add solar panels.
>
> "I always wanted to do it, but circumstances have indicated that we
> should hurry up," Mailer-Howat said. "And everything's just going to
> keep getting more expensive."
>
> Like Mailer-Howat, homeowners hoping to dodge the winter heating
> bullet should get going now. But be cautious about spending large sums
> on big-ticket projects that may do little to lower your bills.
>
> Bruce Harley, technical director at the nonprofit efficient energy
> consultant Conservation Services Group, said there are multiple ways
> homeowners can cut heating costs by themselves. He divides home
> winterization into four primary elements: insulation, air sealing,
> ductwork, and heating equipment.
>
> "I liken insulation and air sealing to the sweater-windbreaker
> analogy. Neither one alone is going to keep you warm on a chilly day,
> but put them together and it's a really good system," said Harley, who
> has authored two books on home energy-saving projects. Filling walls
> with cellulose, foam, or fiberglass insulation can boost the  
> house's R-
> value (the measure of its thermal resistance) from an insulation-free
> 3, to a whopping 12. But air leaks - gaps, slits, and other hidden
> openings - throughout a house can defeat that improvement. "Ideally
> the contractor seals leaks as part of the prep for insulation," Harley
> said. "Of course, some contractors understand this much better than
> others."
>
> Finding those air leaks, however, is not always easy. They are
> sometimes behind walls, along chimneys, or in dark and hard-to-reach
> spaces in the attic or in the basement where the house foundation
> meets the sill.
>
> And, because some of these gaps can be tucked away doesn't mean they
> are small. According to Hurley, they can be "large enough to put your
> arm or head through; even newer homes often have large air leaks that
> render insulation practically useless." These gaps can be plugged with
> a variety of foams, or other insulation and even closed off with sheet
> metal.
>
> While most New England homes are spared the expense of energy loss via
> ductwork, Harley said, sealing such pathways where they do run -
> typically in crawl spaces or garages - becomes critical to capturing
> the benefits of new insulation.
>
> And that leaves the heat generator itself; the hardware in the
> basement. "If your furnace or boiler is more than 20 years old,
> chances are it's reaching the end of its service life," Harley said.
>
> Homeowners can realize enormous savings by replacing old systems with
> modern, certified high-efficiency boilers and furnaces. Though they
> run into the thousands of dollars, new heating systems will yield
> immediate savings in fuel consumption, savings that can pay for the
> upgrade within 10 years.
>
> But Harley and Berry cautioned homeowners to think twice about some
> big ticket items - chief among them are new replacement windows. Often
> the costs of the new windows far outweigh the savings they deliver.
> "When you look at the amount of space your windows take up compared to
> the overinsulated portion of wall space, it is most likely cheaper and
> more cost effective to add additional insulation to a wall," Berry  
> said.
>
> For far less money - as much as half the price - new exterior storm
> windows can be a smart investment in increasing the efficiency of
> aging windows, because they slow the loss of heat from inside and
> reduce air leakage. Meanwhile Harley identified other energy
> efficiency measures that don't pay off, including duct cleaning (as
> opposed to sealing), fan-fold insulation board used in typical re-
> siding projects, and anything marketed as "reflectivity" or radiant
> barrier.
>
> These include thin insulation with foil layers and, believe it or not,
> paint. "They always have hugely inflated claims for R-value, which are
> simply not justified by physical reality, Harley said.
>
> For some homeowners, conventional costs are not the only
> consideration. The Mailer-Howats wanted to use environmentally
> beneficial products, so for insulation, they chose Aircrete, a
> magnesium oxide expanding foam, which is fireproof and nontoxic, over
> the more common blown-in cellulose insulation. Aircrete costs $2.70-
> per-square-foot, compared to $1.40 or more for cellulose.
>
> "We always wanted to do this, but what we wanted was something that
> made sense ecologically and environmentally, that didn't have any
> toxic complications," said Patrick L. Mailer-Howat, as workers from
> All Weather Green Insulation scaled ladders at his home in preparation
> for the installation.
>
> "We're not bleeding heart, naive hippie children," added Mailer-Howat,
> who is chairman of Vita Bio Group, a biomass energy development
> business. "We are interested in being proactive in our husbandry of
> resources, with an outlook to a mid- to long-term future. I mean this
> is my retirement home."
>
> For those who didn't see it, below is an article entitled "So its time
> to button up" from the 10/12/02 Boston Sunday Globe's "Homes" section.
>
>
>
>
>
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