KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Cutting your carbon footprint, Part 1

Cutting your carbon footprint, Part 1

by Jason Moore
Thursday, November 13, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The state's new energy rebate program has turned out to be tremendously popular: More than 12,000 Alaskans have signed up already for a rebate of up to $10,000 to help seal up homes and cut expenses.

It starts with an evaluation by a certified energy rater, but there are some simple tips that anyone can do to cut their energy costs.

For a test case, Channel 2 News asked Anchorage School District Superintendent Carol Comeau to participate in an educational venture outside of her role at the school district.

It was a home invasion Comeau agreed to.

First, Deborah Williams with Alaska Conservation Solutions helped Comeau calculate her carbon footprint. Comeau's 35,000 airline miles a year hurts her there.

"You can see your total carbon footprint is 47,243.That's a substantial carbon footprint," Williams said.

The average carbon footprint for Alaskans is 32,000.

"If we sort of took an average through these four years, there's a pretty solid curve of how you're using your electricity," energy consultant Andy Baker said.

Baker then analyzed Comeau's electrical and natural gas bills. 

"So we're shooting for about a 25 percent reduction in your electrical usage," Baker said.

Baker, Williams, and energy rater Phil Kaluza put their numbers together to help Comeau and husband Dennis live cleaner and save money.

"What we're going to do is we're going to be using this fan and we're going to exhaust air out of the  house," Kaluza said.

Kaluza performed a blower door test.

"As I start increasing the fan, the negative pressure in the house goes up and we can measure the flow through the house at all these different pressures," Kaluza said.

During the test they walk through the house, which was built in 1978, and they can feel where cold air is seeping in.

"First thing we need to do is get somebody to go up there and do some air sealing," Kaluza said. "They can move the insulation around your electrical outlets where you've got plumbing chases coming up pipes, and coming up through your ceiling. A little bit of foam, and a little bit of caulking will get that air sealed up."

Sealing and insulating your attic are cost effective measures to take in making a home more energy efficient.

Easy energy savings can be found under most refrigerators, by getting rid of a common energy gremlin: dust around the coolant coils.

"We typically see a 10-15 percent reduction in the energy usage, because the compressor doesn't have to work as hard," Baker said.

In the garage, a wood door offers poor insulation. It needs to be replaced, the experts say.

"We just open it up and we can see that right now your temperature is 67," Williams said.

Comeau also got tips on her programmable thermostat.

"Minimize the time you need it at the higher daytime temperatures  and maximize the amount of time you have it at the lower temperatures," Williams said.

They were then off to a place Carol doesn't see much home: the crawl space.

Baker says 25 percent of a home's heat can be lost through a poorly insulated crawl space.

"The other place where we have heat loss is up here, and this is where the joists come on the top plate of the wall, and this is where the rim joist is, and there's these (insulation) bats that are stuffed in here and if you take one of them out they're kind of dirty," Baker said. "You can see dust has moved through there. We need to put some new insulation here and seal this up so moisture can't move out through the space to the rim joists."

Light bulbs throughout the house can also be replaced with fluorescents.

"These are incandescent light bulbs, so about 80 percent of the energy this light bulb is going to make heat not light," Baker said.

Outside the home, Dennis checked tire pressure.

"We have a reading of 30 (psi) and it's suppose to be 35, so we need more air in the tires," Dennis said.

If a driver can keep a car's tires up to the proper level, they can do three things, Margaret Manousoff with Alaska Conservation Solutions said.

"You'll get much better car gas mileage, you can increase the life of your tires by up to 25 percent, and you also will reduce your carbon emission by up to 1,000 pounds a year," Manousoff said.

The Comeaus use power strips, such as the one connected to their entertainment system. But even when the electronics are turned off they use phantom power.

"I plugged in your electronics to see how much power they were pulling off, and if you look at this watts up, which is just a meter that shows how much electricity you're pulling," Williams said. "You'll see, Carol, how much your electronics are pulling just being off."

It adds up to about 10 watts an hour, which adds up to 87,600 watts of electricity a year that the power strip uses. But turning off the power strip solves that problem.

After the invasion of their home ends, the Comeaus move on to the next step: going to the hardware store.

Their shopping list includes a new garage door, a more energy efficient refrigerator and heater, and also some inexpensive items that pay big dividends in the long run.

In part 2 we'll go shopping with Carol Comeau and watch her and Dennis make some of these improvements as they strive to cut their energy bill by 25 percent.

Contact Jason Moore at jmoore@ktuu.com