This Old Wasteful House

[ensho]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/opinion/06moe.html?th&emc=th


NEVER before has America had so many compelling reasons to preserve the homes in its older residential neighborhoods. We need to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. We want to create jobs, and revitalize the neighborhoods where millions of Americans live. All of this could be accomplished by making older homes more energy-efficient.

Let’s begin with energy consumption and emissions. Forty-three percent of America’s carbon emissions come from heating, cooling, lighting and operating our buildings. Older homes are particularly wasteful: Homes built in 1939 or before use around 50 percent more energy per square foot than those constructed in 2000. But with significant improvements and retrofits, these structures could perform on a par with newer homes.

So how does a homeowner go green? The first step is an energy audit by a local utility. These audits can be obtained in many communities at little or no cost. They help identify the sources of heat loss, allowing homeowners to make informed decisions about how to reduce energy use in the most cost-effective way.

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The good news is that the administration is taking steps to help homes save energy with a program that will invest almost $8 billion in state and local weatherization and energy-efficiency efforts. The Weatherization Assistance Program, aimed at low-income families, will allow an average investment of up to $6,500 per home in energy efficiency upgrades.

My organization is also working with the Natural Resources Defense Council and members of Congress on legislation to help cover the costs of making all older homes more energy-efficient. Under this proposal, a homeowner would receive a $3,000 incentive for improving energy efficiency by 20 percent, and $150 for each additional percentage point of energy savings. If 3,000 homes could be retrofitted each year, we estimate that after 10 years we could see a reduction of 65 million metric tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, and the equivalent of 200 million barrels of oil saved.
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jobs

[jwirr]

1. My SIL bought an apartment house built in 1919 in northern MN. He

rewired the upstairs apartment and the bill went from $75 to $20 a month. He is doing the same with the downstairs apartment now. He also provided his tenants with plastic for the windows which he eventually will replace. He also put a new heating elements in both apartments. The building is sound but needed these new items to become more energy efficient. He is also going to put more insulation in the attic replacing the old insulation.

[ensho]

2. and his ripple of work spreads out into the neighborhood

thanks for telling

[Oregone]

3. Bah "incentives". Offer zero-interest loans to do this, repayable upon death or sell of home

Why? There is also an economy to stimulate too.

Kill two birds with one stone.

[ellie]

11. Agreed

New windows cost money. Insulation costs money. I don't have the money at the moment. My poor house was neglected for so long before I bought it, is going to cost money to upgrade. I did put in a new furnace when I took possession though.

[Fumesucker]

4. I used to do renovations..

They are very labor intensive, invariably we would end up with nearly every tool from our extensive collection on the job nearly every day.

New construction is a lot easier (I've done that too) and uses a lot less tools and has a lot less head scratching involved.

[ensho]

5. meaning what? that it is not worth renewing?

I've watched a lot of the reality shows on renovation on old and modern buildings. new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things. lots of energy out there.

[Fumesucker]

6. It depends..

Ever seen the movie "The Money Pit"? I've worked on jobs that weren't all that far from what was portrayed in that movie..

It's very difficult to know what you're really getting into when you start a renovation, so much is hidden, you need a contractor that is far more skilled than the average new home constructor and even then it can turn into a nightmare very easily.

And "reality shows" are almost always anything but.

[ensho]

7. I haven't seen that movie and the reality shows are very informing

there are all kinds of reality shows. some you will like and some you won't.

[Fumesucker]

8. You ought to watch it, it's hilarious..

Has Tom Hanks, Shelley Long and Alexander Godunov (the ballet dancer)..

Hanks and Long set out to restore this old mansion and it becomes a costly comedy of errors..

Edited to add: The "reality shows" usually leave a lot of the really difficult details out, they are much more scripted than most people realize. Stuff they gloss over in ten seconds may take days or even weeks to properly accomplish.

[elizfeelinggreat]

9. LOL at that movie!

Very funny stuff!

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. One of my favorite movie scenes

... is Tom Hanks laughing maniacally at the hole in the floor where his bathtub used to be.

[Fumesucker]

12. That is a funny scene indeed...

I like the one where he falls into the hole in the floor and becomes trapped up to his armpits in the carpet, and then the phone rings with the plumber telling him to either answer or forget getting his job done..

[ensho]

14. viewers aren't as dumb as you think - we know time is compressed

for the shows. really, we know.

[Fumesucker]

17. You speak for every single viewer?

And you have no idea just how much the time is compressed..

[csziggy]

16. "Renovation Realities" on DIY Network is one of the best 'home improvement shows out there

It shows typical homeowners doing work on their houses, usually without knowing what they are doing or how to plan a project. My favorites are the ones where they have a specific deadline and allow only a few days to do the work.

One of the "best" was the one where the couple had their home listed as part of a home tour a week away and allowed three or four full days to rip out walls, re-do drywall, replace trim and paint. They had no idea if the walls they wanted to remove were loadbearing, did not screen off the other parts of their house or remove furniture in rooms where the walls were coming down. They were very lucky no one was hurt while doing the work.

They worked 24 hours a day, waking their neighbors at 3 AM to borrow tools, had materials stolen, and pretty much screwed up every step along the way. They ended up canceling their participation in the home tour and taking several more weeks to finish the work.

[Fumesucker]

18. That sounds about right..

"They ended up canceling their participation in the home tour and taking several more weeks to finish the work."

Renovations can be a real bitch.. Not always but an extremely significant percentage of the time..

Just regular new construction can often be solving one problem after another, it rarely goes completely smoothly, renovations are often an order of magnitude more difficult.

Most people aren't even very good (or fast) at painting, let alone framing walls, hanging sheetrock, finishing the same, trim carpentry, hanging doors and windows (straight), running electric wiring, installing devices, plumbing hot and cold water and sewer, laying carpet and tile.

The order in which you do things is important too, if you paint before the carpet is in there is an excellent chance you are going to screw up the paint putting in carpet. The backing on a lot of carpet acts just like a wood file and will remove not only the paint but some of the wood from your door frames if it gets rubbed against it, it will even scratch metal frames.

Of course if you paint *after* carpet then you have to keep the paint off the carpet, another skill most people don't have.

There's a reason most construction is divided up into different skills, there aren't that many people that are good enough at it all to make a living doing it.

I've been doing construction of one sort or another off and on for several decades now and I still can't drive a nail upward over my head worth a damn.. I always use screws if there's any way to do so.

[csziggy]

20. We spent from 1994 to 2001 remodeling and upgrading our old doublewide

Then January 2007 to last March building a new house when we realized that all the work done on the mobile home was pouring money down a rat hole.

So I know how important it is to allow enough time, plan the work AND plan the order of the work!

We did 90% of the remodeling work ourselves on the old house and are proud of what we did. But people kept asking us when we'd be finished and we never set a timeline. We just plugged away at it until each part was done. Better than my sister - she bought a house in 1978, started remodeling and never finished. After her death, her husband sold the house in 2005. Good thing it was a teardown - the place looked like it had been looted!

The only work we did on the new house was planning, supervising and clean up. The builder had health problems and our project manager quit so I ended up doing that job. For a while I thought about getting a job doing it, but by the time we were ready to move in, I wanted nothing to do with the building business!

Don't remind me about straight (or not) doors! That is the biggest peeve I have with the new house, though they are not much off. And definitely not enough off to have anything to do with the finish carpenters who did that work!

[Stevenmarc]

13. I have a 110 year old house and energy bills are a fraction of what they used to be

thanks to some serious insulation, replacing all the windows, replacing the heating system to a considerably more efficient one and a tankless water heater. I've also changed the appliances to more energy efficient ones and done some of the smaller changes like CF or LED bulbs.

[Fumesucker]

19. I bet it took a while and some serious effort to get all that done too..

Kudos to you, you probably have a real appreciation for what goes into a renovation now..

[ddeclue]

15. Somebody has some very serious math errors here..

3000 x 10yrs x 20 =600,000
3000 x 9yrs x 20 =540,000
3000 x 8yrs x 20 =480,000
3000 x 7yrs x 20 =420,000
...

=3000 x (10+9+8+7+6=5+4+3+2+1) x 20=
3000 (homes)x 55 x 20tons/year = 660,000 tons where the hell do they get 65 MILLION tons...


20 tons a year is actually a very large number for an average home. My home was built in 1959 and I create about 11 tons of CO2 a year due to the house.