4 Tips to keep your energy bill from haunting you
With the close of national energy month, don't forget about these tricks to go along with your Halloween treats!
Halloween probably looks a little different this year, but each year, in addition to the tricks and treats, the US Department of Energy designates October as Energy Awareness Month. Its a perfect time to take a look at the foundational elements of energy saving and make sure that your incorporating them into your property management practices.
As the air turns a bit cooler in the fall, we start to notice air leaks, goblins that will steal conditioned air. The result is increased use of heating to replace the lost conditioned air. It is important to check doors and windows for air leaks, inspect weather stripping, and make sure that the envelope is sealed. One trick is to grab an infrared camera on a cool evening and look at the exterior of the building.
Also known as Thermography, the use of an infrared scanning device allows an building professional to detect air leakage in building envelopes. Fall and winter are particularly useful for this exercise as the warmer air escaping the cooler areas of the building will light up brightly on the infrared device providing a quick check of the insulating qualities of the building envelope. A similar technique using the same tools can also be used to identify potential water intrusion.
Energy vampires are also on the prowl. In a world with an ever increasing number of devices, and the impact of the energy consumption by these plugged in devices, plug load has become an increasingly important topic. A Stanford Study showed that on average, 23% of household electricity consumption in Northern California was not only the result of plugged in devices, but idle plugged in devices. These inactive plug loads can lead to larger energy losses then you might imagine. It is estimated that the average US Household uses $165 a year in energy for devices that are always-on but inactive. Think those loads are only impacting your residents? Take a look at the management office or a stroll down to the maintenance shop, chances are you have more vampire loads then you realized.
That hot water heater may be another scary villain, swiping energy right under your nose. For most multifamily buildings with central domestic hot water systems, where the inefficiencies are more pronounced then in single family residences. These systems typically carry larger volumes of water, greater distances resulting in longer wait times, water waste, and standby thermal loss. In fact, domestic hot water represents approximately 20% of the overall energy consumption for residential homes nationally according to the Energy Information Administration.
In many instances, the existing condition of the water heating systems are far below current efficiency standards and may have even passed the expected useful life. Fortunately, in several jurisdictions there are rebate and incentive programs that can help finance the cost of replacing those older, inefficient heaters. If your property has central domestic hot water systems and your energy bills are more then you expect, I may be able to help.
Finally, it may be time for some of your older electronics or appliances to go to the graveyard, just remember to recycle them. Efficiencies continue to improve nearly every year, so it may pay to evaluate if a newer, more efficient models may be more cost effective then holding on to older, more inefficient technology. The Energy Star label is a great place to start, if the older device isn’t energy star labeled and a new one is Energy Star labeled, it may be worth looking into. The Department of energy has an easy to use online calculator to help estimate appliance and home electronic use. Also, visit EnergySaver.gov for more tricks to save energy and money.
Don’t hide from scary energy bills, there are steps that we can take to identify opportunities and improve efficiency.
I hope you have a safe Halloween, whatever that looks like for you and yours this year.
You can help reduce the impact of the built environment by sharing this blog with your peers. Together we can impact the 39% of greenhouse gasses attributed to the built environment. It starts with awareness and we succeed with teamwork.
Stay well!
Chris Laughman is the author of the ThirtyNine Blog, a blog dedicated to reducing the impact of the built environment. When not blogging, Chris is helping multifamily properties reduce their energy and water impact as a senior account manager at Bright Power. A full service energy strategy company, Bright Power is a leading provider of energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy management solutions for the real estate industry. We use our Find-Fix-Follow approach to Find the best opportunities across a real estate portfolio, deploy the Fixes on specific assets, and Follow to ensure long term value, always optimizing for your financial and sustainability goals. Contact me at claughman@brightpower.com for more information