Harry Hooker retired two years ago as a public school vocational teacher, and his wife, Cynthia, is a school nurse. On their own, they replaced light bulbs with CFLs, and installed a timer and blanket on their water heater, but it wasn’t enough to reduce their high energy bills or lessen their carbon footprint.
How The House Was Helped
Comprehensive Home Analysis• Bennie Marshall of Your Crawl Space, Inc. conducted a blower door diagnostic test and learned the home was twice as drafty as it could be if properly air sealed. He learned the heat pump and water heater were in poor working condition.
Heating and Air Conditioning• Myatt and Bates Heating and Air replaced the 2-ton heat pump that was more than 15 years old and operating at 8 SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating) with a 2-ton Lennox heat pump system that performs at a SEER 15 – an improvement that doubled efficiency. • The manual thermostat was replaced with a programmable, touch-screen thermostat that allows for temperature and dehumidification settings, and setbacks for cooling savings of 20 percent or more.
Ducts• Your Crawlspace sealed several ducts in the crawlspace although air leakage was not a large concern once the crawlspace itself was fully insulated (see below).
Air Sealing and Insulation• In the crawl space, Your Crawlspace cleaned and sealed the exposed ground floor with 20 mil thick, fire retardant vapor barrier, then insulated the foundation walls with DOW Thurmax product. This continued the envelope of the home to the ground, increasing the conditioned space. • In the attic, Your Crawlspace air-sealed all the top plates with two-part expanding foam, while all the electrical and plumbing penetrations were sealed with one-part foam. The stove vent was vented through the roof and sealed at the ceiling thermal barrier. Then, they added Insulsafe blown fiberglass in the attic to bring it up to a R30 efficiency level. • Your Crawlspace custom-made a reflective DOW Thurmax box for the attic entry pull-down, and sealed the hatch in a way that can be removed easily when entering the attic.
Water heating• Roto-Rooter Charleston replaced the electric storage water heater with a 50-gallon Rheem Marathon water heater that is 94 percent energy efficient and guaranteed for life against rust and leaks. • Your Crawlspace, Inc. fixed a tub leak.
Health and Safety• Your Crawlspace, Inc. installed a carbon dioxide and smoke detector, and fixed loose wiring in the attic.
The results are in, and the Hooker family is enjoying significant savings on their monthly energy bills. The Hooker family’s bill for December: $146. Their bill for the same time last year: $317. That’s a savings of $171.
Those initial monthly savings - and a 53 percent reduction in the home’s energy use versus the December 2008 bill - resulted from a more than $10,000 home energy efficiency makeover provided by Edisto Electric and partner co-ops Coastal Electric and Santee Electric.
“It’s going to save me $100 to $120 a month, so that’s fairly exciting,” Harry Hooker said in November, before December’s even bigger savings became a reality. “I’m retired and on a fixed income, so that’s like giving myself a $120 a month raise.”
Investment• Comprehensive assessment, air sealing, insulation and more by Your Crawlspace.............................................................. | $ | 5,072 | • Heat pump system replacement Myatt and Bates Heating and Air with Lennox.............................................................. | $ | 6,200 | • Rheem Marathon water heater installation by Roto-Rooter Charleston.............................................................. | $ | 1,100 | Total estimated value of weatherization efforts in this home.............................................................. | $ | 12,372 |
NOTE: The value of work on this home exceeded the $10,000 per-home cap set for Help My House! energy makeovers because the statewide and local sponsors and installers who donated their time and materials on the project insisted on doing the job right. The additional effort and expense were necessary to weatherize this home to their high standards. |
On his Help My House! Contest entry form, homeowner Harry Hooker, Jr. wrote, “I am a retired public school vocational teacher and my wife, Cynthia, is a school nurse. Energy saving changes will help us to lessen our carbon footprint and save us a significant amount of money on our monthly bill.”
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 | | | Mold, mildew and time had taken their toll on the home’s 15 year-old heat pump, an 8 SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating) unit that was performing roughly half as efficiently as modern ones. A manual thermostat controlled the antiquated system. | | Myatt and Bates Heating and Air installed a high-efficiency Lennox packaged heat pump system and a programmable thermostat that will dramatically improve comfort, energy savings and air quality. | |
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 | | | Unsealed areas and poor insulation were wasting energy. Under the house, duct and wiring penetrations like the ones above compounded the problem, and the dirt floor of the crawlspace created mold and mildew issues. | | The team from Your Crawlspace, Inc. air-sealed the attic and added blown fiberglass insulation. They also cleaned and sealed the crawlspace with a vapor barrier and insulated the walls with DOW Thurmax. | |
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 | | | By installing an insulated blanket and timer, Mr. Hooker was doing what he could to maximize the energy efficiency of his aging water heater. However, as with many older appliances, the best solution was replacing it. | | Roto-Rooter Charleston removed the old water heater and installed a 50-gallon Rheem Marathon water heater that is 94 percent energy efficient and guaranteed for life not to leak or rust. |
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