Just finished a fascinating home visit with a fellow named Ben from MassSAVE, an operation sponsored by the electric utilities if I understand things correctly. Ben's outfit is actually called the Center for Ecological Technology, quite a nice name.
He showed up for what was planned as a two-hour visit to check out our house. It ended up closer to three.
First is a tour of the house, bottom to top, figuring out all the places we are losing heat in the winter and what can be done. That takes maybe 30 minutes.
Then after a couple of trips to his car to bring in several big boxes of florescent bulbs, we are put to work replacing all the incandescent bulbs in the house. That takes us quite a while, an hour anyway. By the time we are done we have installed 51 new florescent bulbs, about a dozen different styles depending on where they were going, at a total cost to us of $518.70. Except there's also a rebate, and the rebate is also $518.70, meaning it's all free. This is really quite cool.
Ben meanwhile has pulled out various high-tech gear and he is testing various things -- the safety of the heating and hot water system (it passes), their efficiency (so-so), some sort of air pressure tests to quantify the amount of air leakage, checking the oven for CO (fair, definitely not as good as it should be), and who knows what else.
And then he is at his laptop (not a Mac, but he has a Mac at home, so he's OK), and after a while papers come spitting out, and then he's calling up his office and by the time we're done we've contracted with them to come spend a day air sealing the house (plugging all the little holes), and duct sealing, plus Ben is coming back for a diagnostic visit to look at solar possibilities and I think some other stuff too.
And the cost of the air sealing is $592, but it has a 100% rebate just like the light bulbs, and the duct sealing is also $592, and now, well, you knew it couldn't all be good news, this has a rebate of only 75%, so we are going to have to fork over $148. The calculated payback period is 6 months, that's pretty good. And we can get a 0% interest loan if we want.
And we are also looking at possibilities for a new furnace and/or hot water heater, and something will hopefully happen in this regard this year.
This is all very fine. I was quite amazed when a MassSave appointment was available right away. We also had a guy from our oil company over this morning to see what he would propose, and another guy coming in the next day or two. This is all part of my new program to minimize procrastination, and if it ends up with us paying less for oil and electricity, that would be so much the better. We are already ahead just with the new bulbs, and feeling very virtuous too.... :-)
And in the meantime, the wind has shifted from out of the west at 10-15 mph, to out of the NW at 25-30 mph. If it could just shift all the way around to the north, then the ride to Northampton to get my car would be very quick. As it is, I might get bounced a little....
The pile of empty bulb boxes (with still more to go) is leaving little room for Ben and his laptop.