Simple changes can cut home heating bills

Copeland and Christoph Casati love their midcentury modern home in western Henrico County.

They love the architecture, the layout, the gorgeous design. They hate the heating bills.

“We are paying thousands of dollars a winter to heat this house,“ Copeland Casati said. Worse, she said, “it’s never comfortable, never cozy.“

The Casatis, her husband said, declared war on their heating bill.

They brought in building-performance expert Guy DuBois with Commonwealth Building Sciences to do an energy audit of their home and find out where their heating dollars were going.

DuBois found “an extremely leaky house” with plenty of smoking guns: whole-house fan shutters that were venting warm air into the attic, air leaking from the crawlspace into the basement, and poor insulation in the ceiling of the added-on dining room.

Almost 45 percent of Virginians’ annual residential energy bills go to warm their homes, energy officials said. The average household spends about $850 for heating.

Given the more than 3.2 million housing units in Virginia, that adds up to about $2.8 billion a year in statewide heating costs.

Those bills can be too much for thousands of Virginians to afford. Last year, 122,000 house holds received government help to pay their winter heating costs, said Andrea Gregg, energy-assistance program manager with the Virginia Department of Social Services.

Air leakage—taking expensively produced warmth with it—accounts for about 30 percent of heating expenses, Dominion Virginia Power says.

“The bottom line comes down to insulation,“ said Lee Householder, executive director of the nonprofit ElderHomes community-development organization. “The biggest thing you can do is insulating your home.“

After that comes improving the efficiency of the heating system.

A basic step is having residential heating systems checked regularly, utility and equipment manufacturers say.

“Make sure the system’s operating efficiently,“ said Jack Woodfin, executive vice president of the Woodfin Co. of Mechanicsville, which supplies home heating oil, equipment and services.

Dirty air filters, clogged oil spray nozzles, dusty thermostats and leaky ductwork all can rob systems of their effectiveness.

Besides installing high-tech insulating foam in the attic and replacing windows in a 1984 addition, architect Will Scribner has installed energy-efficient heat pumps in his 88-year-old North Side home. His heating bill now? “We’ve cut it in half,“ Scribner said, “and the house is warmer and less drafty.“

ElderHomes weatherized 73-year-old Lois Strawder’s Lakeside home last year, installing a new roof, doors and a storm window, putting in insulation and sealing holes.

The winter oil bill for heating her two-bedroom wood frame house “went way down,“ Strawder said. “It used to be like $800, and it went down to at least $450.“

The Richmond nonprofit group sees cost savings averaging 30 percent on heating bills for the homes it weatherizes, and as much as 70 percent for really inefficiently heated houses, Householder said.

And houses built before 1939 typically use about 50 percent more energy per square foot than those constructed in this century, said Jennie Dotts with the Old House Authority company in Richmond, which specializes in rehabilitating old homes. But with modifications and retrofits, older homes can perform as well as newer ones, she said.

Using a programmable thermostat—which cost as little as $25 to $30—is one of the simplest ways a household can save home energy dollars, according to the federal Energy Star program.

Homeowners can save about $180 a year by setting their programmable thermostats to turn down the heat when it’s not needed, the federal energy program says.

“This is the easiest, cheapest, No. 1 thing the homeowner can do,“ said Richmond engineer Blake Wiseman, national sales manager for Honeywell heating and air-conditioning systems. “And most homeowners don’t know anything about it.“

After his inspection, DuBois had some good news for the Casatis. “For a $200 investment, they’re going to make a major improvement,“ DuBois said.

Covers for the fan shutters should be less than $100, DuBois said. The basement air leak could be taken care of with a couple of cans of inexpensive expanding foam insulation.

And those fixes could be done in less than an hour.