A great article in today’s Wall Street Journal reports that two distinct strategies exist when it comes to weatherization: the government way and the non-profit way.
First, the government way, as demonstrated by a program in Houston:
The program picks a low-income neighborhood of old houses and tries to sign up as many homeowners as possible.
Workers then move from house to house, doing a quick evaluation and using measures that can be completed in hours. Issa Dadoush, director of the city’s general-services department, said the typical homeowner’s energy use drops by as much as 20% in the steamy summer months, helping to save, on average, $335 over six months; with the stimulus money, the city says it can weatherize 10,000 homes a year.
“The assembly-line approach gives us more bang for the buck,” Mr. Dadoush said.
The non-profit approach differs in that they allocate more time and funding for each home:
Sheltering Arms typically performs an “energy audit” that figures out which improvements are the most cost-effective ways to cut energy use. But like other traditional weatherizing groups, it often combines such efforts with major home repairs, using money from a variety of sources such as United Way donations.
So it might repair a damaged roof or foundation in addition to caulking windows and replacing a refrigerator, in a process that can take days and require repeated visits.
I don’t see why both approaches can’t work together, since the additional home repairs clearly serve a purpose beyond increased energy savings.
However the stimulus funds are allocated, it seems like there are programs out there capable of doing the job right.
Tags: energy efficiency
