The bright yellow blade of Ray Thompson’s tape measure snapped back into its silver sheath. Then he tapped the panel of faded plastic. It rattled in the front-door frame. “That’s gonna have to come out,” he said.
Bending over, he examined a cracked threshold and shook his head. “That’s in rough shape.”
Faye Tarr’s three-room house in Lisbon Falls is so drafty it will cost more than $5,000 to keep her from freezing this winter.
That’s the bad news.
The good news? She won’t have to pay a cent.
Thompson is an energy auditor for Community Concepts. It’s his job to button up old homes like the one Tarr has lived in more than 50 years.
He poked his head in the attic, spying a gap where floor meets chimney. Pointing to the offending opening, he wrinkled his brow. “What she’s doing is heating up here in the winter.”
His experienced eye can spot holes and cracks where hot air is sucked out and cold air blows in.
Thompson has been doing this for four years. There are 29 others like him in Maine, licensed by the state. They work mainly for nonprofit groups like Community Concepts, which put state and federal money to work warming homes of the needy. They sealed up more than 100 homes this year. More than 7,000 people have applied for help paying their upcoming heating oil bills.
Wealthier homeowners looking to lower their heating bills will soon be able to tap the expertise of these energy gurus – for a fee.
A day later, Thompson was in Lewiston to oversee the weatherization of Ralph and Marilyn Taylor’s small cape. Elderly, they’re on a fixed income. They get help paying their oil bill. But with the jump in heating oil prices this year, they’re still worried.
When talking insulation, Thompson always goes straight to the top.
So, he climbed folding stairs to the attic.
He noticed somebody had poured Styrofoam packing peanuts in several bays of framing that supported the first-floor ceiling. “No R value,” he said dismissively.
When contractor Ray Skidgell gets done up there, the insulation (fiberglass) will be more than a foot deep, Thompson said.
At the moment, Skidgell was in the basement stapling felt strips to the windows. His son, Eric, sprayed foam insulation around pipes and in floorboards.
Skidgell’s been in the home improvement business 30 years.
“The gallons (of heating oil) we save is unreal,” he said.
It’s possible to go overboard, Thompson said.
Some people wrap their homes completely in plastic, which can grow mold.
The super-insulated homes of the 1980s kept their inhabitants toasty in winter. And they cost less to heat. But, in some cases, they were so tight they cut off the flow of oxygen to rooms, trapping in too much unhealthy air.
Before he squirts a drop of caulk, Thompson tests homes with a device that measures how much air can pass through doors, windows, walls and roofs.
He seals the front door with a piece of plastic. At the bottom, he inserts a fan the size of a bass drum. It sucks the air out of the house, gauging its draftiness.
After Skidgell’s work is done, Thompson tests again. Usually, the difference is drastic, he said.
The entire job to tighten up the Taylors’ home: around $3,000. Free to the Taylors.
Back at his office, Thompson plugged into his computer data from the Taylor job. He punched a key and a number came up.
They will save $3,720 in heating oil during the next 15 years, he said. Insulation alone will save $1,631.
Marilyn Taylor is betting on it.
“If these programs were not out there for people like us, I don’t know what we’d do.”
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