Vermont has some of the oldest housing stock in the nation and some of the highest home heating bills. But encouraging low and middle-income homeowners to make costly efficiency retrofits has been a challenge.
Mark and Sara Borkowski love their century old two story blue house in downtown Rutland. But they admit it’s had some drawbacks. “My daughter’s room has always been really cold in the winter, super hot in the summer,” says Sara. “In certain areas you could feel the cold air coming in.”
The couple says they were surprised when Green Mountain Power approached them earlier this year to take part in a new energy efficiency program that promised to make their home more comfortable, lower their heating and power bills, and provide them with state of the art technology - like solar panels and phone apps that would allow them to control appliances from work.
“We were nervous in the beginning about it,” says Mark. But and his wife say the utility and NeighborWorks of Western Vermont, a local nonprofit housing agency, walked them through every step, including financing and hiring contractors.
“They introduced us to the heat pumps and they helped us insulate the walls with the cellulose insulation,” says Sara. “You can really feel a difference in my daughters room for sure.”
Adds Mark, “Heating oil is very expensive and we’re expecting it to reduce our heating oil usage by about 90%. We’re really excited about that and should see a big difference in our heating bill next year.”
The retrofit cost the couple $15,000. But they say the amount of money they’ll save each month will cover their loan payments, which as part of the new pilot program, will be rolled into to their monthly Green Mountain Power bill.
“It’s all about making this process simpler,” says Ludy Biddle. She’s Executive Director of NeighborWorks of Western Vermont. While many efficiency programs use cash incentives or tax rebates to motivate homeowners, she says they’ve found one-on-one education and lots of hand holding works even better.
As evidence, Biddle says their approach has helped them boost the number of retrofitted homes in Rutland County from 26 in 2010, to 810 today. And Biddle says 60% of those are low to moderate income homes.
Officials with Green Mountain Power say their new pilot project will help expand those efficiency efforts even more.
They also believe installing innovative new tools that show real time energy use will help their customers become even more energy saavy.
Mark and Sara Borkowski say that’s already happening. “We never realize that a dryer took that much energy,” says Mark. “And in talking about it we ended up putting a clothes line outside and we’re drying the heavier stuff outside on the clothes line just to save money.”
Officials at GMP say they want to expand the pilot project to 100 homes throughout Rutland County and hope it can be a model for the rest of the state.
