The Cooling of America

(7 of 10)

Yet there are indications in this cold season that Americans are beginning to believe that conservation offers the only way to fight back. Newly built homes everywhere are generally more energy efficient than the houses of a decade ago. Some public utilities across the country are offering (along with bill-stuffer assurances that nuclear energy is a good thing) free or low-cost energy audits of ratepayers' houses. The offers are being accepted by the hundreds of thousands. "There are frenzied people out there," says Austin Randolph, who handles such audits in Westchester County, N.Y., for Consolidated Edison. For a nominal $10 he investigates a house from basement to attic, then makes a written report to the owners suggesting improvements in thermostat type and location, windows, weather stripping and insulation, complete with cost estimates and anticipated savings. Randolph's audit on his own gas-heated four-bedroom home in Hillcrest, N.Y., persuaded him to begin a three-year up grading that will lay foam insulation throughout the ground floor, put nine inches of insulation in the attic, install new siding and add a solar hot-water heater. Estimated cost: $9,000.

At a recent "Thermoscan" show at Mamaroneck High School in New York, 2,300 house owners showed up over a two-day period to see aerial photographs of their neighborhoods taken by Con Ed with heat-sensitive cameras. A black roof indicated little heat loss; light gray showed that insulation was needed. Suppliers of thermal glass and insulation materials report strong sales across the country, although high interest rates have kept down new construction. Low-interest or no-interest loans for weatherizing are sometimes available through utilities. Along with how-to-do pamphlets like In the Bank ... or Up the Chimney, the Federal Government offers two types of tax credit: up to $300 for energy-saving devices, such as insulation and storm windows, and up to $2,200 for equipment that provides renewable energy, such as windmills and solar water heaters. Wood stoves are not eligible.

In a system under stress, however, solutions sometimes create problems. Massachusetts has become the first state in the nation to ban urea formaldehyde foam, the largest selling type of blown insulation. Public Health Commissioner Alfred Frechette says that "we find there is significant correlation between the foam insulation and such formaldehyde-linked illnesses as respiratory difficulties, eye and skin irritations, headaches, vomiting and severe irritation to the mucous membranes." Massachusetts estimates that some 7,000 houses in the state—and many more across the country—are insulated with formaldehyde. The cost of removing the stuff, where it can be removed, might run from $14,000 to $20,000 per house. The foam industry has filed suit protesting the ban and the requirement that manufacturers must remove the foam on homeowners' request.