Little River family wins home energy makeover

In an attempt to help homeowners live more energy efficiently, The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina sponsored a contest called Help my House.  The winner received a home efficiency makeover.  More than 4000 co-op customers entered and three local families were finalists, but the local winner was from Little River.

The co-op hoped consumer learned more about green living.  Learning how to live more energy efficiently not only saves the environment, but it can save you money.  In today’s economy many homeowners are opting to update their current home instead of buying or building new.  That’s just what Terri Lynn Robertson was trying to do when she learned she won an energy makeover.
   

When the Robertson family learned their home was headed for a makeover, they hoped it would help lower their skyrocketing electric bill. “Our bills are running up in the 400’s, just extremely high bills and we couldn’t get them down,” said Robertson. “We tried everything to try to get them down and nothing was working so when I saw the contest I thought maybe would win and get help with making it more energy efficient.“

The makeover started with the Help My House crew’s assessment of the Robertson’s home.
“What we have with Terri’s home is where the insulation was very, very minimal, very leaky,” said Eddie Blackburn, Horry Electric Cooperative. “There are infiltration issues and weather stripping is an issue. There are several things we can do here to lower the electric usage in the home.“

The makeover team got to work, replacing duct work and installing a new heating and air conditioning system.  The Robertson’s house is now fitted with the latest HVAC unit, duct work and insulation.  A new HVAC unit runs thousands of dollars, but there are ways to lower your energy usage without spending much money.

“People can do things such as caulking, sealing around windows, repairing ductwork, maybe not a new installation of a duct system, but sealing the duct system,” said Blackburn. “40-50% of their electric bill is their electrical usage dealing with heating and cooling.“

After the work was done, Robertson said there was an immediate difference in the way her home felt. “I can notice the difference already in the temperature where we leave it set on one temperature and it’s already staying nice and cool in the house,“ said Robertson.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is conservation, saving energy so that we won’t have to build any new power plants,” said John Powers with Information Systems. “And also, we want to focus on energy tax rebates so that the consumer can take advantage of those before they expire. Still, these things are working towards energy savings and cost savings.“
 
With the Robertson’s makeover complete, they can now look for other ways to cut their energy costs.  The co-op said the makeover should save Robertson an estimated range of a third to half of her electric bills. 

There are also several tax incentives available on home energy improvements. Some of the more popular ones right now are water heaters, insulation and new, energy-efficient HVAC units. You can find more tax incentive information on http://www.energystar.gov

Read more on this page for small things you can do to save energy and money such as doing full loads of laundry, re-caulking around openings and keeping your garage door down.