Enthusiasm and Cooperation Pay Off: Saving Energy at SummerHouse

Over potluck supper, residents of SummerHouse, a 72 unit senior living facility in Shoreview, Minnesota, owned and operated by Presbyterian Homes, offered up stories and advice on how they had made their apartments more energy efficient. Metro CERTs hosted an energy contest and two workshops at the request of its affiliate The Shoreview Sierra Club Green Community. The leadership and enthusiasm shown by Resident Betty Schaefer and the cooperation and follow-through by the Property Manager Bill Callen were key to the SummerHouse project’s success.

Background
Excitement for energy efficiency at SummerHouse is not without precedent in Shoreview Community. The Shoreview Sierra Club Green Community has been active at the grassroots level for a number of years, connecting the community to environmental resources, which reduce fossil fuel reliance, expand recycling options and promote renewable energy, just to name just a few.

Project Planning
Property Manager Bill Callen and Resident Betty Schaefer, also a Shoreview Sierra Club Green Community member, took Metro CERTs through SummerHouse on an initial site visit. Opportunities for energy savings were identified after a careful review of the following:

Common Areas
• Efficiency rating of the furnace
• Filter inspection of the furnace
• Energy costs for electricity, gas and water
• Lighting in common areas, where there could be replacements with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) and other lighting options for the underground parking
• Temperature setting of water heater

Individual Apartments
• Furnace efficiency
• Flow rating for faucets and showerheads
• Refrigerator energy use/condition of coils
• Lighting options
• Appliances’ efficiency
• Standby or phantom load
• Thermostats, if they could be set back at night
• Air leaks, if plastic could be applied to windows.

Initial Workshop
On January 28, 2009, Metro CERTs held a workshop at SummerHouse, going over energy saving techniques and demonstrating CFL options, and proposed a “Beat Betty” energy contest for the month of February. Each participant received a free CFL (60 watt equivalent) and a canvas bag.

There was, at first, a lot of hesitation to participate in a contest with neighbors and to release energy meter account information as well as questions related to CFLs. Eight people were recruited for the energy contest and five were recruited to participate in a lighting survey.

Metro CERTs modified the energy contest to “Beat Yourself” to account for differences among units. The contest would compare each participating resident’s energy use in February 2009 to that of February 2008. The data was “weather corrected” (February 2009 was 17% colder than February 2008).

Results
At the March potluck, Metro CERTs gave awards to winners for best electrical and gas savings. SummerHouse residents were joined by their representative Paul Gardner as well as members of the Shoreview Sierra Club Green Community.

CERTs responded to residents’ interest and questions on CFLs by adding CFLs fixtures to its display to represent the broad range of CFL bulbs available on the market.

Gas Savings: While on average gas use went up 2%, Resident Natalie Holle, a former teacher, who moved to SummerHouse to be close to her kids, was able to save 26% on her monthly gas bill. With a unit on the north side of the building, Natalie’s leaky windows and doors made her apartment uncomfortably cool and kept her gas costs high in the winter. Natalie gave all of the credit to her son’s excellent job installing a window insulation kit on her patio door, which she believes was the major source of heat loss in her unit. She joked, “I gave my son the prize because he spent the time and money on the shrink wrapping.”

Electrical Savings: Average electricity use went down 11% at SummerHouse, although Resident Lesta Barber achieved an individual electrical savings of 32%. Lesta shared that even though she had been on vacation, she had changed several of her lighting fixtures to CFLs and had turned off appliances when not in use.

Common Area Energy Savings: When asked what had changed at SummerHouse between February 2008 and Feb 2009 at SummerHouse, Property Manager Bill Callen provided a laundry list of energy efficiency measures that he had undertaken to cut costs and to support the residents interested in energy conservation, “We started by turning down all of the thermostats and replacing incandescents with CFLs. My engineer even found a special adaptor for intermediate bulb sizes, for which we could not easily find a fluorescent equivalent.”

Bill now keeps a stash of CFLs and adaptors available on demand for his tenants. He commented in the follow-up interview, “I would certainly recommend the steps taken at SummerHouse to any other senior living home. We’re looking into the future now at installing occupancy sensors on the lights and fans in the trash rooms and bathrooms.”

Lessons Learned
• CFLs and plastic film were celebrated factors in the energy savings between February 2008 and 2009.
• CERTs reported that it could have used more time to introduce the competition, to recruit members and to get energy releases.
• “Champions,” like Betty Schaefer and Bill Callen were critical in motivating other residents to fully participate in this energy workshop.
• The educational workshop even had an impact on reducing the energy use of those residents who did not participate in the contest. While this was reported anecdotally back to Metro CERTs, these ancillary savings have yet to be quantified.