Rosen: Rumney School used half as much fuel this year because of weatherization

Editor’s note: This oped is by Adam Rosen, the principal of Rumney Memorial School in Middlesex.

I’d like to talk a little about ways to stretch our dollars when we heat our homes, schools and other institutions. Our warm and rainy winter may have been a difficult one for winter sports enthusiasts and for our ski areas, but there is one economic group that isn’t complaining one bit about a warm winter. That’s those of us who heat our homes with oil and propane. Although the prices have recovered from the awful spike in ‘08-09, home heating oil is still close to three dollars a gallon, and next year’s prices aren’t in. For people like me, who low-balled their pre-buy quantity, we sure are glad that we aren’t saddled with purchasing an extra two or three hundred gallons of oil this spring.

With help from over a dozen hard working local volunteers, in two long days, EnergySmart air-sealed and insulated seven different attics. I was told that this kind of work was the “low-hanging fruit” of energy savings, and that air sealing and insulating could save us up to 30% in heating costs.

I’m principal of Rumney Memorial School in Middlesex, and, fortunately for us, we don’t have a problem like that at all. Last summer, we used a grant from the State of Vermont Department of Natural Resources to insulate the school building. The skilled crew from EnergySmart Vermont examined our blueprints and attics, and determined the way to maximize our energy saving potential. With help from over a dozen hard working local volunteers, in two long days, EnergySmart air-sealed and insulated seven different attics. I was told that this kind of work was the “low-hanging fruit” of energy savings, and that air sealing and insulating could save us up to 30% in heating costs.

In addition to that, we worked closely with Vermont Heating and Ventilating to maximize the efficiency of our boilers and heating systems. They made suggestions beyond the routine annual boiler cleaning. We repaired thermostats and cleaned the dust off our radiator fins. There were no grants available for routine or specialized maintenance (there never are!), so we simply had to follow the advice of a qualified professional. Nobody promised the kind of energy savings from this work that air-sealing and insulation provides, but I was told that the different adjustments add up—2-3% savings here, 1-2% savings there, and it all can add up to nearly 10%.

I’m an optimistic guy. In previous years, Rumney has purchased 8,000, 9,000 or even 10,000 gallons of oil. So, optimistic as I am, I had us bid on 6,500 gallons of home heating oil. Well, if we’d had a bone-chilling cold winter, we might have needed that much—as it was, we purchased less than 4,900 gallons of oil, and are going into the spring with a nearly 3,200 gallons in the 5,000 gallon tank. Air-sealing, followed by insulating and boiler maintenance paid off and the school benefited beyond any of our expectations: this year at Rumney Memorial School we used a little more than half the fuel that we used in previous years!

So, as a homeowner, I’m planning on taking my own advice: I won’t skimp on that annual cleaning of my home oil-fired boiler. I’m going to have an energy audit done on my home this spring. I now know that there is a lot more to preparing a home for winter than carrying fiberglass batts up through my attic trapdoor (which is all I have done so far). I’ll budget for some energy improvements this year, and use this coming winter’s savings to finish the job next year. I’m told that there are even Efficiency Vermont incentives and tax rebates for this sort of thing.