Demonstration house doctor program. Final project report

Technical Report · Wed Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1982

OSTI ID:5165130

McKeever, M R; van Houweling, D

Central Oregon Renewable Resources, Inc. (CORR), a non-profit educational organization, received funding from the United States Department of Energy's Appropriate Technology Small Grants Program to demonstrate the House Doctor retrofit program in Central Oregon. The House Doctor program was created at Princeton University. Princeton's energy conservation research project at Twin Rivers, New Jersey, discovered that traditional attic insulation techniques fell short of their predicted fuel savings by between 30 and 70%. The cause of this startling discrepancy between actual and predicted reductions in heat loss was found to be a complex collection of attic bypass routes which were allowing heated interior air to escape around and through the insulation. Tests by the Bonneville Power Administration confirm that simply adding insulation to a house does not reduce air infiltration. CORR's House Doctor program was in most respects an unqualified success. Although CORR was not able to convince people to learn to be house doctors themselves, the Blower Door was shown to be a very effective diagnostic tool and substantial reductions in air infiltration were realized from a one day House Doctor visit. Costs to savings ratios appear to be very favorable. It seems only a matter of time before house doctoring becomes a standard part of the repertoire of the region's residential conservation programs.

• Research Organization: Central Oregon Renewable Resources, Inc., Bend (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: FG06-81R001327
• OSTI ID: 5165130
• Report Number(s): DOE/R0/01327-T1; OR-81-013; ON: DE86000338
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320101* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Residential Buildings-- (-1987)
AIR INFILTRATION
APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY
BUILDINGS
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
ENERGY CONSERVATION
ENERGY LOSSES
FEDERAL REGION X
GRANTS
HEAT LOSSES
LOSSES
NORTH AMERICA
OREGON
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
USA