Courtesy of Efficiency Vermont
With beautiful spring weather not far off, now is a great time to put into motion green energy and weatherization upgrades that will make your home more comfortable throughout the year. Every upgrade discussed below has some form of rebate or financing program to make it more affordable.
Let’s start with insulating your home. This is the most impactful step that you can take to improve comfort in your home, and it is the place where a green energy advisor will most likely encourage you to start. When professionally installed, insulation will outlive most green energy appliances and provides the most bang for your buck. The incentives for insulation are very high – up to $9,500 off of installation costs for income-qualifying households through the Home Performance with Energy Star program.
As we’ve all seen recently, the price of heating with fossil fuels is extremely volatile and easily impacted by global events. If you’ve been considering changing or augmenting your home heating with a more sustainable option, now is a great time to do so. There are several different options and rebates available. Ductless heat pumps (aka mini splits) can be a great way to reduce the cost of your winter heat, and are an energy-efficient way of cooling your home in the summer months. Pellet stoves are another sustainable option for heating your home, and some wood pellets are produced locally here in Vermont. There are two types of pellet stoves – stand-alone units that work similarly to a woodstove, and larger pellet furnaces/boilers that typically have an auto-feed for pellets and can heat an entire home.
In many homes in Vermont, water heating is tied to a boiler system that also heats the home. Decoupling your water heating system from an oil boiler and transitioning to a heat pump water heater can be beneficial for several reasons. In addition to using a more energy-efficient method of heating water, you will no longer need to burn oil to use your boiler during the summer season. Another benefit is that heat pump water heaters are actually great at dehumidifying your basement, something that many of us need during the summer months.
Courtesy of Efficiency Vermont
Sustainable Woodstock has grants available (up to $2,000 per household) for those in the moderate-income category and below to help cover the cost of heat pumps, heat pump hot water heaters, pellet stoves, efficient wood stoves, and weatherization projects. These grants can be combined with other programs, such as the rebates at Efficiency Vermont.
Around 30% of a home’s heat loss can be through the windows, especially if they are old single-pane windows. Fully replacing old windows is a great option if you have a large budget to do so, but there are not many programs to help make it more affordable to take this step. The nonprofit WindowDressers helps communities build lightweight, reusable interior storm window inserts that can have a big impact on preventing heat loss through windows. Sustainable Woodstock will build up to 10 inserts for free for those who qualify for our WindowDressers build event. To qualify, you must be in the low or moderate income level and live in Woodstock or the surrounding towns. Those outside of the Woodstock area can sign up for their local build here: https://windowdressers.org/sign-up-for-inserts/
Many of us have propane cooktops and ovens. These appliances are one of the biggest contributors to indoor air pollution, and can be especially dangerous for children and those with health complications. Studies have found that gas burners emit 21 different VOCs designated as hazardous air pollutants known to cause cancer and other adverse health effects. The alternative to gas/propane cooktops is an induction cooktop, which uses a magnetic field to send alternating electric currents from the stove to your cookware. Induction cookers are far more responsive and efficient than the old electric coil cooktops. If fully transitioning your cooking away from propane is not an option, you can get a single or double countertop induction stove that works beautifully for most daily cooking.
Adding battery backup systems to more homes is one way that our community can become more resilient. If you’d like the peace of mind that comes with having a battery backup for when power goes out, but do not have the budget to purchase one outright, Green Mountain Power has a program to lease batteries for your home. You can get two batteries with a ten-year lease for $55 per month, or one payment of $5,500. Details for this program can be found at https://greenmountainpower.com/rebates-programs/home-energy-storage/energy-storage/.
In addition to making some green energy upgrades to your home, there are ways to support a healthy planet in the garden as well. You have probably heard by now that running a gas-powered leaf blower for one hour produces as much pollution as driving a car approximately 1,100 miles. Being outside while gas-powered appliances are being used nearby is unpleasant and bad for your health. Switching to a battery-powered leaf blower, trimmer, and mower means less pollution in the air, less damage to your hearing, and a more pleasant experience in the outdoors. It also means that you do not need to keep gas on hand, which is a great thing when gas prices are so volatile.
There are many different routes to making your home a healthier place for your family with green energy upgrades, and it can be confusing to know where to start. Efficiency Vermont has Green Energy Advisors who can be reached at (888) 921-5990. You are also welcome to contact Sustainable Woodstock at (802) 296-1595 or email programs@sustainablewoodstock.org to learn more about our grant program and WindowDressers event. Rebate amounts and availability do change based on funding, so be sure to check for current numbers before starting your project at https://www.efficiencyvermont.com/rebates.