{"id":950,"date":"2013-01-12T13:16:40","date_gmt":"2013-01-12T18:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/energyrealist.com\/?p=950"},"modified":"2013-01-12T13:22:47","modified_gmt":"2013-01-12T18:22:47","slug":"2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/?p=950","title":{"rendered":"2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Staff-photos061.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-954 alignright\" title=\"Staff photos06\" src=\"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Staff-photos061-208x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"208\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Staff-photos061-208x300.jpg 208w, https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Staff-photos061-712x1024.jpg 712w, https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Staff-photos061.jpg 1424w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 208px) 100vw, 208px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Happy New Year &#8211; about 300 energy audits done over the last 2 and a bit years.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve seen lots of houses from McMansions to tiny cottages.\u00a0 The owners are all interesting, most very pleasant.<\/p>\n<p>They self-select as being interested in saving energy because they contact us, agree to have us spend hours in their house and pay a fee up front.\u00a0 Yet almost half decide not to go ahead with a project.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n<p>It could be that I&#8217;m a lousy salesrep, but the statistics comparing to others don&#8217;t support that theory.<\/p>\n<p>More likely it is a combination of factors;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The cost of a project is relatively high, in the region of $10-20K<\/li>\n<li>We are still in times of economic uncertainty<\/li>\n<li>The rebates and 0% loans &#8211; very generous in New Jersey &#8211; still do not totally cover the costs and most people don&#8217;t have cash laying around.<\/li>\n<li>Boilers and insulation, even if we love them, are not very sexy.\u00a0 Air sealing is of course quite invisible.\u00a0 A new counter top or some window treatment is more satisfying.<\/li>\n<li>The price of energy is too low<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The last item is the most important in my opinion.\u00a0 Sure, it&#8217;s great to have low energy costs and the impact on a fragile economy of increased prices would be painful.\u00a0 The prices are low partially because energy is still easily available (in the US) and because the costs are subsidized by all sorts of of direct\u00a0 and indirect\u00a0 support.<\/p>\n<p>[Direct support such as tax incentives, exploration subsidies and much larger indirect support like leases on government land and payment of environmental and health effects by others &#8211; later]<\/p>\n<p>For a home owner to really embrace a project they have to fall into one of three categories;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The rebates and other incentives cover most of the project<\/li>\n<li>Their furnace or boiler is broken and they need a replacement today (and might as well collect the rebate&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>They have a &#8220;green&#8221; philosophy and a ten year plus outlook on return on investment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OK then, on into another year, looking for these enlightened people &#8211; and thanks to all my previous clients.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/AxelBlowerDoor11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-953 aligncenter\" title=\"AxelBlowerDoor1\" src=\"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/AxelBlowerDoor11-138x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"138\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/AxelBlowerDoor11-138x300.jpg 138w, https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/AxelBlowerDoor11-473x1024.jpg 473w, https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/AxelBlowerDoor11.jpg 1121w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 138px) 100vw, 138px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":956,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energyrealist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}