When you become a homeowner, you agree to take on a seemingly endless list of tasks. Just when the kitchen appliances get replaced, the heating and air unit goes out. When a colder-than-usual winter hits, you realize those old aluminum windows are practically useless.
There is a science behind the business of homeownership, and Bruce Glanville made energy rating his career so homeowners aren’t pouring money into a house that’s bleeding energy each month.
“If you go into a home where the family is struggling financially and it’s economic triage - food, health, utilities - what do you pay?” says Bruce. “A good weatherization job can cut their energy bill in half, and that makes a tremendous difference.”
His early career was in the marine industry building custom yachts and working on film and commercial sets. In 1996, Bruce took a job with HGTV working on in-house production, which helped spark his interest in building science. By 2002 he’d moved on to test area homes for TVA EnergyRight, a pilot program geared towards research and, eventually, conservation. However, it was the math and science aspects of his job that grabbed his attention - the testing and results. Bruce decided to go out on his own as an energy rater and work directly with the public.
“It’s been a little altruistic, having spent as much time as I did in commercials. There’s a socially-redeeming value here,” he says. “I’ve done a lot of work for Habitat and low-income housing. TVA issued $30 million worth of grants for weatherization. The City of Knoxville applied and they got a $15 million grant. The city turned that over to CAC, and a few raters around like myself did initial testing. 1230 homes achieved greater than a 30 percent energy reduction. Everyone can benefit from that.”
Context is essential here. Bruce works energy models and measures results. He also sees how advertising extorts the lack of knowledge among homeowners. When a window company advertises that it can cut energy bills by 50 percent, it’s a lie, according to Bruce, because it doesn’t account for occupant behavior, what the building is capable of, and other variables. Essentially, a new window with a tight seal may be a good idea, but there are a dozen other factors that determine whether or not new windows will make a big dent in your bill.
“The truth of the matter is that it’s usually driven by economics and impression. People complain that their home is drafty and their bills are too high. The window salesperson shows up and says they’ll reduce the bill and reduce their carbon footprint, but that’s a sales pitch,” says Bruce. “I can go into a typical house and do air sealing, plugging the holes, bring the insulation up to standard, and lower the energy bill by 30 percent. The money spent on advertising - roofing, siding, windows - they’re just not accurate.”
Energy rating looks at the whole house, not just where the drafts are. There are gas leaks, radon, and mold. There are concerns with combustion appliances and where those machines are positioned in the house. Bruce performs a blower-door test to get a baseline, then he runs a calculation to see where the leaks are. He admits the whole process is “geeky”, but it’s scientific. It’s numbers-based. There’s no advertising pitch, saying, “I can test your house and show you down to the last BTU how much energy you’re losing and how you can address it.”