New digital forms have been uploaded

Just in case you have stumbled here before Ray sends an email out, the latest versions of the digital job books have been uploaded to the Intelligent Weatherization forms page.

Incidental Repair Costs
The most significant change to the work orders are the new way incidental costs are treated.  There are now incidental cost spending limits specific to each activity based on how cost effective that conservation measure is.  The more cost effective the activity is, the more that can be spent on incidental costs associated with performing that activity.  But don't forget, the $500 total incidental cost limit still applies!

For example, there is a 1000 sqft attic with no insulation, but it has some water coming in around the roof's chimney penetration.  Just to throw a number out there, lets assume there is $900 worth of insulation that you want added to the attic.  Based on the spending limits, you could spend up to $1,377 on incidental repairs before the attic insulation is no longer cost effective.  However, you cannot spend that full amount, because the $500 total incidental cost limit applies for the entire job!  Don't overspend!

Likewise, there is a small addition on the back of the house that has a water heater vent going through the roof.  There happens to be a roof leak around the water heater vent's roof jack.  You'd like to insulate the little uninsulated addition's attic.  But you can't unless that roof leak is fixed!  The addition is only 150 sqft.  It would cost $135 to insulate just that back attic.  Which means you could spend up to $206 repairing that leaky water heater vent.

If there is an activity that doesn't have a spending limit (insulating a mobile home belly, installing insider storm windows, or minor air sealing), that means there can be no incidental repairs associated with those activities.

ASHRAE 62.2
There was also a couple small changes on the 62.2 calculation tool.  The chart was tweaked to show 10 cfm increments instead of 20 cfm.  The other change was in the guidance for combustion air.  The 62.2 tool was never meant to be the means that combustion air was calculated.  But the math was already there for the ventilation sizing, so it made some sense to mention if the house was above or below .4 ACH. 

Just because a house is tighter than .4 ACH doesn't mean there isn't enough combustion air.  There are other methods of determining how much combustion air is needed based on the known infiltration rate of the house and the btus of the appliances.  The form is now more specific in letting the user know if the house is below .4 ACH, that further investigation is needed to determine if there is sufficient combustion air for the appliances, just as it always has been.

New Site Built and Mobile Home Priority lists - Incidental Repairs!

If you haven't heard from IHCDA already, DOE has approved a new method of determining how much can be spent on incidental repairs associated with energy conservation activities.  I won't go into the details much, as IHCDA is taking the lead on that front.  Just ask Ray to explain how it works.  I do want everyone to know that the new hard copy versions of the work orders have been on the Intelligent Weatherization site for a short while. 

Updated versions of the digital job books should follow, but not in the immediate future.  Between Add a Hole field training, University of Illinois ventilation research and other field trainings, it is looking like it would be the end of the month at the very earliest before any of those are updated.  Speaking of the Add a Hole training, there is a new line in the pressure diagnostics page of the site built work order form where zonal cfm leakage rates can be documented.  Before the new work orders are integrated into the digital job books, there are other electronic forms that are due for some user interface changes.  Tom Andrews is doing an excellent job of beta testing these electronic versions of the forms and finding some bugs and UI tweaks that could be made.  Be on the lookout for some updates to the 62.2 spreadsheet...

For those of you in the know...

During the 2010 - 2011 DOE grant cycle INCAA was a subcontractor for two weatherization providers, WECC and CAPWI.  That is obviously a conflict of interest for INCAA to evaluate and report on homes that INCAA also weatherized.  To alleviate that conflict, Dr. William Hill was hired to perform an independent analysis of those houses that INCAA 'touched' either as a whole house contractor, or as an auditor.  His independent analysis can be found here.

2010 - 2011 Indiana Billing Analysis Report

2010 - 2011 Indiana Billing Analysis Report

The billing analysis report for homes weatherized between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011 has been released.  Some of the highlights:

• The state averaged 17.9% savings (+/- .4%); 166 therms annually (+/- 4 therms)
• The average provider annual therm savings ranged from over 400 therms (WECC) to less than 90 therms (PWC and HOW)

On average, the legacy providers (providers that were weatherizing before IHCDA expanded the number of providers during ARRA) saved more therms than the new providers.  The legacy providers averaged about 189 therms annually.  The new providers averaged about 141 therms annually. 

First, a little optimism.  Over two thirds of the providers were able to average savings greater than 20% for natural gas consumption.  Something to bear in mind when looking at these charts.  The Indiana Builder's Association (IBA) weatherized one in three houses during this time period.  So the IBA is going to have a significant impact on all the state averages.  That explains why the state average is so low relative to the majority of the other providers.  All those providers achieving more than 20% savings aren't weatherizing many homes, & don't have as big an effect on the state average.

Percent savings are a decent way of comparing different providers working on different homes in different parts of the state.  But what matters is the number of therms/kWh saved. Because those translate into dollars.  To keep the math simple, a therm of gas costs about $1 (actually, a little less, but go ahead and round up to keep the math less tedious). 

Before anyone thinks of doing any cost/benefit analysis with the information above, please keep in mind that this is ONLY natural gas data.  Before any cost/benefit type thoughts are even entertained, any electric savings should be included.  Unfortunately, NIPSCO, Vectren, and a very large number of local utility providers were able to provide consumption data for this report.  That leaves out three very large electric providers, which makes it difficult to say very much about total energy savings. 

That said, averaging 166 therms shows there is room for improvement.  Which isn't a surprise.  Given the strains of ARRA production goals and bringing new providers online and up to speed, I'm surprised to see the average savings as high as it is. 

One area I think could & should be improved is increasing the amount of energy consumed before the house is weatherized.  Not every house getting weatherization needs to be an energy hog.  But it is very difficult to squeeze big therm savings from a house that isn't using much energy in the first place. 

There will be a few posts in the future looking at some details of this dataset that wouldn't fit well into the official report.  But if anyone has any ideas of topics they would like to be further flushed out, please let me know in the comments or email me.

Billing Analysis reports from year's past

IHCDA's billing analysis report for homes weatherized between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011 is wrapping up.  It should be finished by the end of the month along with each provider's Production Reports.  In the mean time, here are links to some of the most recent state reports INCAA produced for IHCDA:

2007-2008

2008-2009

2009-2010 (includes the beginning of ARRA)