Save Money, Pick Your Electric Provider

Back in November we wrote a post about having a Home Energy Audit done on our home. It was free, fairly fast…and eye-opening. It revealed several “illegal points of entry” for cold air to come rampaging into our otherwise snug little abode, and once we got those little buggers sealed up our energy efficiency improved quite a bit. But, there is still room for improvement in our home’s energy usage.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email that piqued my interest. It explained that if you are currently a customer of Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) or United Illuminating (UI), you are NOT obligated to keep them as your electricity provider and showed how to save money by switching to one of the many providers of wholesale electricity available to state residents. The one used in the example was Viridian Energy, a relative newcomer to the cast of companies providing electricity to Connecticut residents.

During my research into switching electric providers, I was surprised to learn that only about 16% of Connecticut residents have chosen an electric supplier. This was particularly surprising given the fact that CL&P and UI offer the most expensive electricity in the state at about 12.4 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). Of the 40+ electric suppliers and aggregators currently available, none of them charges more than 12 cents per kWh, and Viridian Energy is the lowest at 9.79 cents per kWh. That’s about a 21% savings over CL&P and UI, which could mean a significant savings over time.

There’s Always a Catch…

There is one catch to this, though: if you live in Wallingford (as we do), you stuck with Wallingford Electric as your source of electricity. I mean that in a good way, though. Wallingford Electric has some of the lowest electric rates in the state, and is currently in their Winter billing cycle (from November to April) with rates at 9.63 cents per kWh for usage up to 700 kWh, and 9.4 cents per kWh for anything over that. During the Summer billing cycle the rates go up to 10.93 cents per kWh for the initial 700 kWh, and 11.6 cents per kWh for additional usage.

If you’re currently a customer of CL&P or UI, do yourself a favor and head over to the CT Energy Info web site and compare your current rates to what’s available through the other providers. There’s a ton of info there to help you make an intelligent decision and you just might end up saving a few bucks, too.

In these uncertain economic times, that’s a powerful incentive!

Post from: Wallingford Wired©2009 by Pat & Wayne Harriman

Save Money, Pick Your Electric Provider

Last December we published this post about having a Home Energy Audit done in your home. Our Yankee Gas service tech told us they were a great way to find out how energy efficient your home was, and they were very inexpensive at the time ($75 for Wallingford residents), so we applied to have one done in our home. Unfortunately, we misplaced the card they sent us to confirm the appointment, so we never got it done last year. This year, we made a commitment to have it done, no matter what.

So, after applying again and receiving the confirmation, two gentlemen from Competitive Resources, Inc., the company contracted by Connecticut Light and Power (CL & P) and United Illuminating (UI) to perform energy audits, arrived at our home on Wednesday, November 4th to determine how energy efficient our house was. The procedure – and the results – were quite interesting.

“You Cannot Leave This Place…”

Well, at least not once they install the Blower Door on your front door! But before that happens, they walk through the house and make note of several different things, including if you have fireplaces, how well your attic is insulated and how many incandescent light bulbs need replacing with the new CFL bulbs (you get 25). Once that is finished, they install the blower door and turn on the high speed fan to see what kind of air flow you have coming into your house. Here’s a look at what the blower door looks like:

They bring that fan in the lower part of the door up to speed and then read what the air pressure inside the house is on this meter:

which measures air pressure in Pascals.  They bring the air pressure inside the house to CFM50 and then read what the airflow is through the house. Ours turned out to be 4735 cfm (cubic feet per minute), which is somewhat leaky!  While the fan is on, they go through the house making note of where drafts are felt, indicating air coming into the house in places where it shouldn’t be. They then turn off the fan, plug all the holes they can identify, and then repeat the airflow test to see how much the airflow has been reduced.

In our house, they caulked an entire small closet, patched holes under sinks, sealed window casings and doors and taped a large window air conditioner to prevent air getting in around the unit. After taking these measures, they performed the airflow test again and this time the reading was 4185 cfm, a reduction of 550 cfm, which is fairly significant. However, the reading is still indicative of a fairly leaky house, as this graphic shows:

As you can see, the reading we got of 4185 cfm at the end of our test falls into the “Leaky” column of this table, so it looks as though we still have some work to do. At least we got more informed about the process and our home’s air tightness. And there’s more good news…

If you remember, we were told that this test would cost $75, which is a pretty good bargain by any standards. We were pleasantly surprised, however, when the servicemen did not ask for any money at the end of the test! We called the company and they confirmed that, because Wallingford Electric had come up with additional funding for this project, Wallingford residents are given this service for FREE! So, if you’re a Wallingford resident, now is the time to call or go online to sign up for your free Home Energy Audit. You might just save a good chunk of money that you could put to good use somewhere else! It’s a good value for a couple hours inconvenience. If you live outside of Wallingford, ask then what your charge will be for the service.

Once again, the company that does the work is Competitive Resources, Inc., and you can call them at (203) 294-9677, toll-free at 1-888-403-3500, or go to their web site at http://www.hesprogram.com/schedule-your-installation.php.

Post from: Wallingford Wired©2009 by Pat & Wayne Harriman

Home Energy Audit Finds Holes in Home