Energy-wasting begins at home

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Northwesterners who wonder where cheap power has gone might be forgiven a suspicious glance toward the large houses that have risen around Puget Sound - big structures with museum-lit facades and cathedral ceilings.

But those who study residential energy use say today's larger, more efficient homes actually can use less energy than their older, sometimes much smaller counterparts. It is not so much the houses, but the microwave ovens, computers and other plug-in gadgets inside them that better explain where energy is going.

The average size of houses built in Washington in 1998 and 1999 was 2,500 square feet, about 10 percent larger than new homes nationally, according to a study by Ecotope, a Seattle energy-conservation consulting firm.

The newer suburbs underscore the trend. The median house in Issaquah - the house that sits in the middle in terms of size - is now more than 2,400 square feet, compared with 1,440 square feet in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood.

In the early 1990s, the Bonneville Power Administration and electric utilities urged the state Legislature to pass rules that required more energy-efficient construction in new homes.

As a result, a 2,400-square-foot, electrically heated home built today can be warmed using the same amount of energy that was needed to heat an 1,800-square-foot home 15 years ago, said Jeff Harris, a senior conservation analyst for the Northwest Power Planning Council.

"We've more or less kept the (overall) energy consumption level the same by having those more efficient building codes in place," Harris said. Otherwise, "we probably would have had this energy crisis about five years ago."

But people have undercut energy savings with immodest appetites for space and the electric items to fill it.

The use of electric toothbrushes, aquariums, home computers, alarm systems and other such items has increased. In 1978, only 8 percent of the nation's households had a microwave oven. In 1997, more than 80 percent did.

A large number of appliances today also use energy while plugged in but not in use: VCRs, televisions with internal clocks, answering machines and rechargeable razors.

Plenty of plug-ins

"They're electrifying everything," said Robert Latta of the U.S. Department of Energy.

"I don't think there's any `killer' appliance," Latta said. "The homes get bigger. There's more lights in them. There's more outdoor lighting."

"People don't have one color TV in their home; they have three or four."

Appliances now account for more than one-fourth of home electricity use, and they will be the source of almost all the growth in residential electricity consumption over the next 20 years, reports the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

About 14 percent of homes today are built with air-conditioning systems, according to the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. Part of the reason is that more new homes have heat pumps, which can also be used to air-condition a home.

Homes heated with natural gas and heat-pump devices do not have to be built to the same energy-efficient standards as homes heated with electricity.

Developers can also make "tradeoffs" on construction of homes heated with natural gas, for example, placing less insulation in walls in exchange for installing better windows.

The difference in code reflects the energy situation a decade ago, when the codes were revised. At that time, natural gas was cheap and abundant, and there was more concern about reducing electricity use.

Developers have used their lobbyists to fight changes that would make building codes more stringent.

Last fall, during its regular review of regulations, the state Building Code Council recommended few changes to the requirements for homes with gas heat or heat pumps.

Stan Price, a member of the code council and executive director of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council, a trade association of businesses that provide energy-efficient products and services, said he and others had hoped the council would recommend much higher standards.

Not enough votes for change

"There was quite a group of people who did feel strongly that this was an appropriate change to make, but it didn't have enough votes," Price said. The Building Code Council could revisit the code on its own, or if asked to do so by the governor. Neither has happened.

Builders have argued that changes would make houses even more expensive. Requiring more insulation in walls, for example, would require larger lumber and raise the cost of a house, they have said.

That argument is a "red herring," said Price and others. The larger lumber would add "a few hundred dollars more, possibly" to the cost of a house, he said.

New homes can be designed to face the winter sun, or with outer eaves that reflect summer sun or ductwork to reduce heat loss.

Older homes, too, can benefit from more insulation, energy-efficient washers and other appliances, low-energy fluorescent bulbs, vinyl-framed windows that trap heat and newer water heaters wrapped with insulation.

But Chuck Murray, an energy specialist for the Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program, said, "There's no function that makes a house more energy-efficient than making it smaller."

That is a move Americans seem loath to make.

Chris Solomon can be reached at 206-515-5646 or csolomon@seattletimes.com.