McMinnville Water & Light Energy Audit

Sam Graham and I had the pleasure of meeting with Matt Deppy today.  I know Matt from the Habitat for Humanity Board where we served together for a year.  Matt's job is to consult with home and business owners about ways in which they can save on their energy bills.  We were meeting with Matt today to look over our church buildings at McMinnville Cooperative Ministries.  Sam was our guide for the tour.  He has spent several decades working on the buildings of this church and knows them inside and out (literally!)
We start in the depths of the basement in the old building.  Our heating system is a problem.  There is a mechanical switch which has to be flipped to turn have one of two thermostats running the heating system.  There is duct work running in every direction and even Sam has no idea where they all end up.  Surprisingly the natural gas furnace is fairly efficient for a building this old.
Any McMinnville Water and Light customer can call and request information about home efficiency.  After we are done in the depths of the basement we climb up to the top of the sanctuary and Matt looks over the insulation (or lack of insulation in spots.)  Caulking up cracks and openings in your home is the lowest lying fruit.  I heard someone once estimate that the average American home has the equivalent of a three foot by three foot hole going to the outside.  This hole is spread out in tiny cracks that flush out cool air in the summer and let out hot air in the winter.  Right after sealing those holes the next step would be to improve insulation (especially in the ceiling.)  The last thing we do is head into the new building.  Sam knows of a groovy little half door that goes out onto the ceiling above the kitchen.  The view from up there is great! Sam has the door open and is springing up the too tall staircase with the dexterity of man half his age.  Matt and I hustle to catch up.  There are two huge heat pumps which supply the heat and air conditioning for the Great Room downstairs.

When we are done with the tour Matt shows us a chart of the church's energy usage for the past three years.  Surprisingly our electric bill averages only about $600 a month.  With all of the baseboard heaters we have in our old building, and with all of the people who use it, I was expecting a higher number.  That's good news except that we won't realize amazing savings by making our buildings more efficient.  If we lived in Portland, our bill would be twice as high.  McMinnville's little independent power company is extremely efficient, and when Portland Gas and Electric was being decimated by Enron, McMinnville was quietly investing in infrastructure.  It's a great blessing, but it's going to make it a lot harder for us to get a pay back on those solar panels that I want to install on the tops of our roofs.  Matt suggests that they would pay for themselves in a relatively short century or so . . .