I finally believe it is fall. A one-day warm spell (it was as warm as 60 degrees yesterday) is over. The morning temperature is too cold for me to wear shorts when I walk the dog.

Naturally (?), my thoughts have turned to the cold inside, namely, my refrigerator .

With the purchase of our current house in 1994, my wife and I inherited a Sub Zero refrigerator. It was not new then and is certainly well-used now. It is big and looks nice as it is built into the kitchen. Its primary downside is that it is an electricity hog.

Replacing older refrigerators is often on lists of how to save energy (and money). When I ran mine through my Kill-A-Watt last April, it logged 51.22 kWh in 190 hours. At that rate, the old Sub Zero would use 2361.5 kWh in a year. Even with the pump for my pool (a real electricity sink), that comes to ten percent of my total consumption. That sounds mighty high.

I recently found a nice tool on the Energy Star web site: the Refrigerator Retirement Savings Calculator. Entering the amount I pay for a kWh of electricity (about 0.14) and the model number of my refrigerator (251RFD), the calculator gave me its estimate of its annual electricity usage (2,436 kWh), the annual cost ($341.00) and the potential savings over five years (more than $1,360) were I to replace the Sub Zero with a new Energy Star qualified model.

That’s good information to have. The estimated energy usage is only three percent higher than what I measured. The $1,360 savings might just about pay for the new unit, which would be cool.

As I’ve learned more about environmental issues related to energy consumption and become disenchanted with the federal government’s actions (and lack thereof), a bright counterpoint has been Pennsylvania’s state government, notably the executive branch led by Governor Ed Rendell.

Now, Pennsylvania is no California on issues like air pollution and global warming, and Ed Rendell is not the second coming. However, while the U.S. Congress is having trouble putting together a bill that will continue production credits for wind and solar, Pennsylvania has

• Adopted California vehicle emissions standards
• Joined California’s lawsuit to make the EPA grant it a waiver to legislate a limitation on greenhouse gas production
• Created an alternative energy portfolio regime
• Enticed international alternative energy corporations to build construction facilities in the state
• Funded numerous projects to implement alternative energy solutions, including biodiesel production, landfill gas capture, biodigestion of cow waste to produce methane (see, for example, a recent press release)

The downsides of Pennsylvania and renewable energy? First, the legislature. As I said, most (all?) of the activity has been initiated by the executive branch. The legislature is not supportive, especially of Rendell’s biggest plan, the $850 million Energy Independence Fund. Second, coal. Lots of coal comes from Pennsylvania mines. It is significant to Pennsylvania’s economy, both as a business and as an energy source. As such, the governor has taken a very accomodating stance with respect to coal.

Some other small recent projects in PA:

PA HELPING SMALL BUSINESSES CONSERVE ENERGY, REDUCE EXPENSES
GOVERNOR RENDELL ANNOUNCES $366,000 INVESTMENT TO HELP BUSINESSES INCREASE USE OF COMPOSTED MATERIAL

Lists of ways to save energy are all over the Web. These overlap one another greatly, not just because of a lack of imagination on the part of the authors, but because there are a finite number of good, or at least best, ways to save energy.

The folks at Energy Star have published their list, which I think is a pretty good “greatest hits” compilation. The list is at least slightly different than some others in two ways. First, it is lightly customized based on your zip code and methods for air conditioning, heating and water heating. Second, each item includes links to more detailed information on Energy Star’s web site. Those two features make this list more worthwhile than most of the rest on the Web.

One of my favorite scenes in The Jerk is when the phone book arrives and Steve Martin excitedly runs around with it saying, “The new phone book is here.” Within the story, the event is important because it means he is “someone”. I love the scene because of the exuberance shown by the character regarding a seemingly mundane event.

So it is for me and the EPA’s 2008 Fuel Economy Guide. Although it will probably be a couple of years until I replace my 1999 Nissan Maxima, the FEG is for me now what the Sear’s catalog was as a kid: something to pore over, dream about, and create a wish list. OK, where cars are concerned, the list is one item, but it is really exciting to me.

Green Car Congress has a nice piece on the guide, compiling a top 10 combined city/highway mpg list.

If you check out the guide, remember that the EPA is using a new methodology this year. You cannot directly compare the mpg numbers from this year to previous years. However, because the new methodology is based on data that the EPA has been collecting all along, they have provided a way to lookup the ratings for older cars based on the new methodology. Sadly, this allows me to see that my 1999 Maxima, with new mpg estimates of 18 city/26 highway, is no more a gasoline hog than a 2008 Maxima at 19/25. OK, the new one accelerates faster and lugs around a lot of airbag weight that hopefully reflects improved safety, but it is not encouraging to see such a lack of progress in fuel economy.

Anyway, I’m going back to the FEG and dreams of future Priuses and Escapes.

As I wrote earlier, the Energy Star Home Energy Performance results told me that my home consumes more energy than most. The performance report lists four steps under Take Action:

1. Replace your 5 most frequently used lights…with ones that have earned the ENERGY STAR.
2. Look for ENERGY STAR products.
3. Heat and cool efficiently.
4. Seal up your home.

I started with the first item, but quickly skipped to the last one. After some reading, I felt that I was competent to find some leaks, do some sealing, and add insulation to my attics, but I knew that to get the best bang for my buck, I needed to enlist a professional for a home energy audit.

It was surprisingly difficult to find such a service. Many, many web sites advise calling one’s electric or gas utility, which I did to no avail. The Yellow Pages was equally unfulfilling. Google turned up very little, but I did find buried in a New York Times article a quote attributed to someone at an energy services company near me. I looked the company up through Google, called, and eagerly awaited the audit.

Based on what I had read, the audit process was largely what I expected. The auditor put a blower door in the doorway between my kitchen and garage, turned it on, then walked through the house with an infrared scanner to find places where warm air was being sucked in through cracks in my home’s structure. The results of this were surprising. Whereas I expected most leaks to be around doors, windows, and recessed lights, the biggest were

• through tongue-and-groove paneling on a gable wall to an attic space
• around fireplace stonework
• crawlspace walls
• along the joint where exposed beams meet a cathedral ceiling
• around some electrical outlets on external walls

Overall, the house tested as very leaky, with a blower leakage measurement of 5200 CFM(50).

The auditor also looked at the insulation in the three separate attics spaces (these are not connected because a portion of the house has cathedral ceilings) and the two crawlspaces (on each end of a partial basement). Insulation was good in the (ventilated) crawlspaces, relatively low in two of the attics spaces, and non-existent in the third attic space.

The auditor looked at my heater, water heater, and air conditioner, but did not look at my appliances. In other words, the focus was on heating and cooling, not whole house energy use.

Also, the auditor did not test the ducts. Based on the dryness of my crawlspaces, we decided to pursue making these conditioned spaces by sealing vents and any leaks along the rim joist. Therefore, all ductwork would be within conditioned space and all warm/cold air would stay within that envelope, rather than be wasted.

I now regret allowing him to skip the ductwork test. Based on heating performance last winter and the distribution of heat within my various rooms, I am convinced there is a duct leak near the blower. There is a space between a pair of floor joists that seems to get unnaturally warm (I can feel it through the basement ceiling and living room floor). I would like to confirm the problem and address it.

Following the auditor’s recommendation, I had professionals perform two types of insulation work. The simpler, and surprisingly more expensive, was to blow an additional six inches of cellulose into all three attic spaces. Because of some recessed lighting not rated IC (for insulation contact), they also built enclosures around the fixtures. That was done pretty poorly with drywall, duct tape and foam insulation. Aluminum sheeting rolled into a cylinder, as I have since seen on various web sites, would have been a more elegant solution.

The other insulation work was to spray icynene foam along the rim joists and over vents in the crawlspaces, and along gable walls in the attic spaces. The foam both insulations and plugs leaks. This job required some rework later, because a duct running close to the foundation wall in one crawlspace had inhibited a worker from getting the foam sprayed in the correct location.

For $400, the audit was definitely worthwhile. It helped prioritize the insulation and sealing that would be good for my house, the environment and my wallet.

When spring returned, with its first hot, sunny days, we started using our air conditioning again. As always, I closed all the doors and windows to keep the cool air in. Around nine o’clock one night, with the air conditioning still going off and on, I took the dog out for a walk and made a shocking discovery: the temperature outside was cooler than inside. Why was I running an air conditioner when there was plenty of electricity-free cold air available right outside my house?

I came back inside, turned off the AC, opened some sliding doors and windows, and then went for a walk. When I returned, the house was still warmer than outside, but definitely cooler than it was when I left. And thus I became a passive cooler.

Within days, I was obsessive about using all the free cold air I could. I opened doors and windows all night to let in the cold. As the sun came up and started heating the air, I closed my doors, windows and shades, and enjoyed most, if not all, of the day in cool comfort.

That was still not enough. Where we live, there is little wind, often not so much as a breeze. Even with windows open to get cross ventilation, there was sometimes almost no air flow to cool the indoors. One time when I was at Lowe’s, I saw a large, semi-industrial fan that I knew would be just the ticket. It was rated at 360 cfm. (The cfm is cubic-feet-per-minute, the rate at which the fan moves air.) That is a lot of air.

With the fan placed at the foot of the stairs to the basement and the basement slider open, I could feel the breeze of warm air leaving my house near any open window or door upstairs. Now I could lower the temperature inside the house in minutes, regardless of whether there was any breeze. Yes, I know, the fan uses electricity. But it uses far less than my air conditioner, and with cool air outside, is much more effective at cooling.

As the days went by, I found an additional source of cool air: my basement. Three of the basement (foundation) walls are fully or mostly underground. With only cinder blocks between the inside of the house and the cool earth outside, I had a small source of geothermal cooling. Even with warm air outside, I could delay the need for AC by judiciously running the fan to push cool air from downstairs up during the day.

I was able to use at least a little passive cooling on all but the hottest days (and nights) of summer. With the coming of fall, I am back to my obsessive ways.

For a few months of winter, I also get some passive heating in my house. The long eaves that hang over two sides of my house, along with several mature deciduous trees, keep direct sun away from almost all of my windows most of the year. However, once the trees lose their leaves and the sun makes a lower arc through the sky, several windows do get direct sun. I raise the shades on those windows, which raises the temperature in those rooms a degree or more above the rest of the house on sunny days.

OK, I am abandoning my attempt to recount my consumption reduction chronologically, which appealed to my obsessive compulsive side, but is really blocking me from writing consistently.

Hot water is a major portion of our electricity consumption. I can easily see this because our hot water heater is on a separately metered dedicated circuit. Looking back at my electric bills for 2004-2006, I find that in the winter hot water accounts for over thirty percent of our electricity. That drops to under ten percent in the summer, the combined effect of using less electricity for hot water (about sixty percent as much as in the winter) and adding air conditioning and pool pumps to the total electrical load.

Because of having a pool, our seasonal electricity usage is skewed, but as a percentage of overall energy usage, our hot water consumption was already a little lower than normal. I have seen many statistics, but a chart I am looking at now (in Pennsylvania Home Power Boosters A Guide to Home Energy Savings, a great on-line resource) shows water heating as fifteen percent of home energy expenditures.

There are a number of things I could do to reduce water heating expenses: install a newer, more efficient (possibly natural gas) heater; insulate the heater; or buy an Energy Star dishwasher or clothes washer. Buying new appliances was not in my budget, so I went to Home Depot (or was it Lowe’s?) to get an insulated wrap for my water heater. The wraps they sell are for 60 gallon units. Mine is 80 gallons. I looked at other insulation options and was not excited about any. Walking through the store, however, the shower heads caught my eye.

Our family shares one shower. The head in that shower was probably from the 1950s when the house was built. It looked horrible, but we all liked the high pressure, high flow showers it provided. However, I remembered reading that low-flow heads were a way to reduce water consumption and also reduce water heating requirements. I checked out the various models and found one I liked for around twenty dollars.

The package says it is 2.5 gallons-per-minute (the current standard, I guess), but also makes a claim like “feels like 33 percent more water”. I am normally doubtful of such claims, but I was willing to believe this one.

Anyway, I cannot say whether it is true (I have not compared it side-by-side with another 2.5 gpm head, nor do I think I know what 33 percent more water feels like), but the whole family loves the shower head. We still get enough pressure and flow to feel like we are washing, and the new head looks so much better than the old one that it inspired me to replace the other exposed hardware in the shower.

I have not checked the water bill to see whether I see any consumption difference there, but I have looked over the electric bills. Unfortunately, consumption varies enough month-to-month that it is not possible to tell exactly how much the new head saves. We no longer come anywhere near our old highest monthly usage, but we have not dropped below our old lowest monthly usage, either. Isolating the exact effect of the shower head is made especially hard because within two months after, our clothes washer broke and we did replace it with a front loader, which lowered our consumption even more.

The Energy Star Home Energy Yardstick, which I have used in the past, is not working right now. It allows me to enter all my information, but just when I should get my results, it responds “Unable to run the Home Energy Yardstick.” Thanks. It would have been nice to know that before I entered 12 months of PECO Energy billing information.

Adding to the frustration, there is no way to contact anyone involved in the web site development. I have e-mailed webmaster@energystar.gov. That bounced. I also tried admin@energystar.gov, which did not bounce, but I have no reply and the yardstick is still broken.

This is (was?) a useful tool that will hopefully be back in action soon.

So, the Energy Star Home Energy Performance results told me that my home consumes more energy than most. What to do? Well, the performance report lists four steps under Take Action:

1. Replace your 5 most frequently used lights…with ones that have earned the ENERGY STAR.
2. Look for ENERGY STAR products.
3. Heat and cool efficiently.
4. Seal up your home.

I chose the simplest approach: start at the top of the list. I had a whopping two compact fluorescent bulbs, both replacing 60W incandescent, in my laundry room. These are not frequently used. I had chosen them because the CFL bulbs had three annoying characteristics. There was a couple of seconds delay between flipping the light switch and getting light, there was a warm up period during which the light gradually increased to full power, and the light itself was somewhat yellowish.

The bulbs were from GE.

I decided to start by getting a couple by another manufacturer, purchasing a package of Home Depot’s private label. Replacing the GE bulbs, I was pleasantly surprised to find these came on virtually instantaneously, warmed up more quickly, and were less yellow. I used the Home Depot bulbs for all three laundry room fixtures.

I decided to use the GE bulbs outside next to my front door. The fixtures are covered, so there was no moisture problem. I just hoped for the best in terms of the bulbs surviving the occasional single digit winter temperatures here in the Mid-Atlantic.

I was pleasantly surprised. The light from the bulbs, which looked yellowish inside, looked clear and bright outside at night. Because of that, I went to Target for some more GE CFLs to replace 40 W bulbs that line our outside walk. These are on a timer and turn on for 2-4 hours a night, depending on the time of year. Five bulbs at 40W a bulb at 4 hours is 800 watt-hours (0.8 kWh) a night. The CFLs reduced this to 11W or so a bulb, or 220 watt-hours a night.

OK, so I know I would conserve more energy by just leaving these lights off. After all, they are simply decorative most days of the year when no one is walking to the front door in the dark. Or maybe I could try solar lights, but I don’t think that will work because the area is well shaded 7 months of the year or so. I may give up these lights some day, but for now, I have cut the energy used to power them by almost a factor of 4, and I have beautiful bright light and extremely reliable bulbs.

After my “awakening”, my first step was to understand how much energy I was using. For electricity and natural gas, I was able to get two years of history from PECO Energy. I also started monitoring my electric and gas meters, writing down the values daily, as well as noting high and low temperatures. For my car, I had no historical data, so I just started writing my total miles and trip miles on my credit card slips whenever I bought gas.

With electricity especially, I now had some real numbers, but no idea whether I was using a lot or a little compared to other people. I was hopping all over the Internet reading about energy when I found Energy Star’s Home Energy Yardstick. I plugged my numbers in, submitted them, and had my heart sink when my rating came back 0 out of 10. Yikes! I was a total energy pig. I had nowhere to go but up.