As the chilly, dark months of winter close in on us, many of us retreat to our homes seeking warmth, hot chocolate and Netflix. The last thing we want is to feel the omnipresent, icy fingers of old man winter reaching through cracks in the door, walls or windows with a draft of Arctic air.
Sustainable Westchester and Lauren Brois are here to help you make your home more comfortable and save money on your electric and heating bills at the same time.
Brois is the Director of EnergySmart Homes and GridRewards at Sustainable Westchester, a county-wide nonprofit organization devoted to helping homeowners lower carbon emissions and improve their energy efficiency. Pleasantville, Bedford and New Castle, which includes Chappaqua and Millwood, are members.
She wants Westchester residents to think about “the way our homes use energy, in terms of the cost of energy, comfort and carbon emissions.” The number one reason to winterize is to help “avoid drafty breezes and cold feet,” Brois said. She’s been told by various Westchester residents that there are “certain rooms they don’t even go inside in winter.,” she said. “You want to keep warm air in your house,” she explained.
The magic of insulation is that it “will keep the house warmer in winter and cooler in summer,” she said. The places most susceptible to cold air sneaking into the home include high hat lights, attic ceiling lights, the front door, the edges of windows, holes in the basement made by your cable TV installer, and rim joists, where the foundation walls meet the support structures for your floor. Air ducts and vents are also areas that may need attention.
For those people who have no idea how to stop the cold from infiltrating the house (that includes me), Sustainable Westchester provides homeowners with ways to figure this out.
You can sign up for Sustainable Westchester’s Energy Smart Home program, which can hook you up with a free home energy assessment, identifying where cold air leaks are coming in and providing recommendations on the best, and most cost-efficient ways to fix them.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) offers, a free home energy assessment, with lists of contractors who can provide with you a diagnostic test which can assess where air is flowing into the house, so you can prioritize how to effectively upgrade your home, Brois explained.
The assessment “gives you a pathway to upgrade your home,” Brois said, so you can “prioritize your home energy upgrades” and either work to insulate your home on your own or hire a contractor who will “seal off entry places in the basement and the house in general.”
Sustainable Westchester offers residents a list of approved contractors who can do the work. Installing weather stripping under the door to close that gap is one of the most common ways to stop the flow of cold air, Brois explained. Caulking the windows helps too. Brois recommends putting in insulation on the floor of the attic and crawl spaces in the basement.
“The contractor will recommend different types of insulation for different spaces,” she pointed out. Insulation choices include cellulose, spray foam and rock wool insulation.
Additionally, Sustainable Westchester offers residents volunteer energy coaches who are building professionals to help show you how to best insulate your home and reduce your carbon emissions.
The organization provides on its website ways to learn about rebates and incentives for homeowners. For instance, Comfort Home, from NYSERDA, offers rebates of $1,000 to $4,000 to winterize your home, Brois said. Also, the Federal government has a tax credit program through the Inflation Reduction Act, to help homeowners pay for energy audits, new windows and insulation.
People on a fixed income who want to better weatherize and insulate their homes to lower their energy use can qualify for up to $10,000 in rebates from NYSERDA’s EmPower program, Brois pointed out.
Other home improvement options Sustainable Westchester recommends include installing air-sourced heat pumps, ground-sourced (also known as geothermal) heat pumps and heat pump water heaters.
Brois, who has earned certification from the Building Performance Institute, a non-profit home industry organization that develops and assesses standard practices for energy efficiency and weatherization, recruits high school students for both summer and school-year internship programs, so they can “learn about building science, and help residents learn about improving their home energy use, decrease their electricity use, and lower their carbon footprint.
The students help Sustainable Westchester get the word out about the organization’s work. “I’ve always been really passionate about the environment,” Brois said. “I hate waste. Wasting electricity means you’re not using resources efficiently. You can live more comfortably and protect the environment.”
For more information on how to improve your home energy use, go to: sustainablewestchester.org/energysmarthomes/.
Also, go to: www.nyserda.ny.gov/PutEnergyToWork/Energy-Technology-and-Solutions/Energy-Efficiency-Solutions/Seal-and-Insulate-Your-Building.
