Local groups help insulate city

Edgar Dawson sat crouched in a Belmont house’s stairway crawlspace, pushing foam against its bottom edge and putting plywood near existing walls to create space for insulation.
Near the floor and under the stairs were visible cracks, which Dawson pointed out as easy spots for air to seep out of the house. Two space heaters had been turned on in the house to keep the winter draft out, and the attic had only a paltry layer of cellulose insulation.
“Whenever you have cold air coming in, you have hot air going out someplace else,” said Dawson, who works for the Charlottesville-based Community Energy Conservation
Program, a nonprofit that does home weatherization to make them more energy efficient. Owner Sheila Nagy, who has lived in the home for nearly 29 years, said having a house without wall insulation makes for harsh winters and exorbitant energy bills.
“They’re trying to make it warmer for me,” said Nagy, whose two-bedroom house is approaching its 90th birthday. “I’ve been freezing.”
The conservation program has teamed up with the Charlottesville Community Design Center to do even more home energy upgrades for some of the city’s low-income residents. Though the design center received a $35,000 grant from the city last year to do free audits and basic upgrades to 25 homes, the City Council agreed earlier this year to refill the pot by adding another $125,000.

The additional funds will help expand the program to include about 35 homes and let many of the existing 25 homes get upgraded repairs through Community Energy’s weatherization program, which is also partly funded through U.S. Department of Energy grants.
“Some of these homes now, instead of giving them a $1,000 patch we can give them a $5,000 real performance upgrade,” said Eric Gilchrist, the program coordinator of CCDC’s Spark Program, an energy efficiency initiative.
The money that was already allocated led to simple upgrades, such as replacing light bulbs, sealing ductwork and installing low-flow showerheads.
“We didn’t have much money to begin with,” Gilchrist said.
The funding boost will allow for much more to be done in terms of conservation — audits, more difficult electrical system upgrades, safety checks, sealing air leaks and home weatherization that includes adding insulation and checking for heating efficiency and the proper installation of carbon monoxide and smoke detectors. Without spending more money to replace some of the archaic electrical wiring in some of the homes — which, if cracked, could cause a fire if insulation comes into contact with it — Community Energy would not have been able to do its more extensive process.

“With this extra money we can do that for our clients,” said Linda Rayner, CECP’s executive director.
The design center already has overseen several audits around Charlottesville, including in the Fifeville, Ridge Street and Belmont neighborhoods, for homeowners who make no more than 60 percent of the area median income. Gilchrist said the center has almost completed the audits for the 25 homes in the initial program — which were possible from the previous $35,000 grant — and is starting to do the necessary renovations on those homes.
Nagy’s house was audited last month and likely will receive about $5,000 worth of repairs, including insulation, new light bulbs and a new furnace. Last summer, she said, she had two air conditioning bills that cost more than $300 each. And though Nagy said her gas bills have decreasing, in the past, she and her husband paid about $260 per month.

“I just think the gas bills have been outrageous,” she said.
“Leaks just let out a lot of the energy,” Gilchrist said, adding that sealing the home from unnecessary air penetration is “the most cost effective thing you could do.”
But with Charlottesville’s mature housing stock, often that is only the first step in a long list of improvements to ensure a home does not waste its energy.
“It goes on and on,” Gilchrist said.
For more information on the energy audits, contact the CCDC at 984-2232.