CARLISLE, Pa. — An actionable item everyone can do to live more sustainably is increasing your home’s energy efficiency. It’s a step energy providers like PPL recommend homeowners do and can connect you with local companies to help.
It’s an important home update that Jon Kautz recognized nearly 20 years ago. Kautz is the owner of Energy Smart Home Improvement based in Carlisle. His company completes energy audits at homes and can perform upgrades to these homes to improve their energy efficiency.
“If we want to spend our money wisely and make our houses more efficient for either comfort or energy savings or the environment, we need to have a road map just like GPS in the car,” Kautz told FOX43. “We use diagnostic tools to be able to give people a descending order list on the things that are the low hanging fruit and oftentimes things you shouldn’t do because it doesn’t make sense economically.”
His company will give you a list of projects that should or shouldn’t be done to get the most bang for your buck.
These projects often start with what Kautz calls the hat and socks of a house.
“That’s the place where the bad things happen,” he said. “So the attic, we want to seal air leaks where we’re letting our air exfiltrate into the neighborhood—we want to eliminate that, and we want to have good insulation there. And then air infiltration occurs at the bottom of the house, so where the framing sits on top of the foundation, we call that a rim and band detail. Almost always that’s where we start on anyone's house on getting those places tightened up and generally the return on investment is very, very quick for those measures.”
Dwayne Parrish of Carlisle contacted Energy Smart Home Improvement when his family noticed big swings in energy in their home when they moved in a few years ago. He says that the temperature would be nearly 10 degrees different between rooms. Once he had insulation upgrades done by Kautz, the changes to his comfort was immediate.
“I noticed a significant difference in the condition of the temperature of the house,” said Parrish. "It was, to me, very noticeable."
Plus, his family saw a difference in their energy usage too.
“All the usage has gone down, was down, from before we did it. So it absolutely works,” he says.
Kautz says customers often see significant reductions in energy use, sometimes in excess of 30%.
In an effort to incentivize Pennsylvanians to complete more energy efficient projects like these at home, there are numerous rebates and tax incentives available that companies like Energy Smart Home Improvement will help you utilize.
There are also smaller projects people can do on their own to help in their home’s energy efficiency.
Some things Parrish has done include adding shutters to his windows, upgrading to a hybrid hot water heater and adding weather stripping under doors.
While the primary motivation for these upgrades can oftentimes be comfort, the cost savings and environmental impact are notable outcomes as well.
“Energy savings and comfort go hand in hand, so almost always one brings the other,” says Kautz.