Nationally-known energy consultant Doug Rye spoke to two groups of Hoosiers in late winter. Many attendees took notes on his advice that saves money, energy and the Earth.

COVER STORY: Blueprints go Green!

April brings Earth Day — and with it comes a strong focus on environmental stewardship.

For the past several years, groups of Indiana's electric cooperatives have been bringing nationally-known energy consultant Doug Rye to the state to talk to consumers about home energy efficiency and comfort. The common-sense advice he gives in his seminars is a win-win-win proposition for all. Not only will following his tips save consumers money, they save energy for the consumers and their co-op and conserve our Earth's finite resources.

Rye's most recent seminars in Indiana were in Ferdinand, Loogootee, Wabash and North Vernon in February and March. Here's a peek at what attending one of his seminars is like.

by Richard G. Biever, Senior Editor
April 2005



Doug Rye's seminars offer tips that save money, energy and the Earth

A Doug Rye home efficiency seminar is a little bit like an old-time traveling medicine show crossed with a tent revival. Rye rounds an elixir guaranteed to cure the common home of high utility bills while teaching about comfort and savings.

But there's no snake oil here. The product he pitches is advice based on over 30 years of research and application. It's been proven to save energy, and that saves homeowners money and saves our nation its resources.

Rye preaches the benefits of energy-efficient, all-electric homes and admonishes energy waste with a plain-spoken folksiness and humor. It's a message that keeps him traveling nationwide much of the year. In late winter, the Arkansas resident brought his message back to Indiana where he's become a frequent guest of electric cooperatives around the state. This time, he spoke to hundreds of Hoosiers at seminars in Ferdinand, Loogootee, Wabash and North Vernon.

Rye, a licensed architect, guarantees that by following his blueprints for new and existing homes, consumers can heat and cool a 2,500-square foot home for about a dollar a day.
"If you build a house with high energy costs, it's your own cotton-pickin' fault," is one of his oft-quoted creeds.

As our nation gets set to celebrate Earth Day, April 22, and keeps a close eye on rising fuel costs and Mideast tensions, Rye's words of advice are more pertinent than ever.
"God gave man a planet that is beautiful and can supply all of our needs," he says. "We have a responsibility to take care of this gift called Earth. Every day, the world wastes resources …. We can provide our energy needs if we simply conserve and change our wasteful ways."

An audience with ‘The King of Caulk and Talk'

Two or more hours of talk about energy efficiency should be about as dry as fiberglass insulation. Right? Not with Rye.

Using only an easel pad, black markers and a few props used for illustration, he engages his audience — sometimes upward of 450 to 500 people — with his home remedies. The evening passes quickly.

Rye introduces himself as the "King of Caulk and Talk." He's a little bit comedian and a little bit curmudgeon; a little bit humorist and a little bit therapist; a little bit Will Rogers and a little bit Dr. Phil. His rhetorical questions and turned phrases elicit laughs throughout the night. But he's no-nonsense when he talks about what ails our houses — and our nation.

"I'm sick of buying energy from people who hate us," he says, referring to some of the Mideastern countries. "I want America to grow up."

He says Americans waste way too much energy. We waste it through inefficient home heating/cooling systems and cheap, inefficient water heaters; poor home insulation; poor ductwork; poor home design and building standards. If we become more energy efficient, he notes, America won't need to import as much foreign oil and natural gas. "We're doing some really stupid, stupid things in our country," he says.

Before the group in North Vernon, his voice rises as he recalls the oil embargo of 1973, incredulous that the lessons didn't stick. "Man, we were almost energy efficient for a whole year," he says. "We even had people putting weather-stripping on the door!" When the crisis ebbed, he continues, "We all said, ‘Whew … that was close. Let's go back to wasting it again.' …. Our country needs to wake up."

Our country's dependence on foreign oil and vulnerability to foreign supply that the 1973 crisis exposed started Rye down this road he's been on ever since. He first began researching energy efficiency when energy prices first skyrocketed. Back then, he was an architect for the Farmers Home Administration with U.S. Department of Agriculture. He was asked to find out why so many low-income families were having to move out of their homes. The reason he found: their utility bills were more than their house payments! Bills were high because of poor building standards.

In learning to become an architect in college, he says there were no classes on energy efficiency. "I didn't know anything about energy efficiency," he says. Over the past 30 years, he's made himself an expert. "It is my mission to help people," he says. "That's what I do: help people."

He says folks ask how to lower utility bills without sacrificing comfort, for instance. The good news, he says, is that a home's comfort and utility bills go hand-in-hand. Do the proper things to lower the utility bill, like caulk and insulate, and you've done the proper things to improve comfort.

"People get high utility bills and what do they do? They call their utility company. [The utility] didn't build your house. Why call them?" he asks. "I have learned that you do not have to give in to your utility bills. You can take control with very little to almost no added expense."

To Rye, taking control means doing the little things like caulking. It also means overcoming the big myths in home building practices, materials and energy choices. He's out educate consumers and convince them to read the yellow "Energy Guide" stickers on major appliances. He's out to show folks that units with the "cheaper" price tag actually cost more in the long run.

Overcoming myths, caulking holes in the truth

The first myth Rye likes to dispel is the notion of the "breathing house." "Do you want your house to breathe?" he asks the audience in North Vernon. "What's another word for house breathing?" A smattering of uncertain replies are offered as he pauses. Then Rye gives the true answer: "Leak! Do you want your house to leak? It's the same thing."

Air infiltration, he says, cold or hot air coming in through cracks and around windows and doors, is the leading cause for home comfort problems and high utility bills. Most homes are built with enough air infiltration, or leaks, to equal one or two doors left open the entire year! The solution: "Close the door!" he says. "The best energy buy in America is caulking. Spend $2 for a tube and save a dollar a month for the rest of your life. That's a great investment."

For new homes, he suggests the homeowner go out with a case of caulk and spend a day before the drywall goes up caulking everywhere. "If a bug can get in, you caulk it."

For existing homes, he suggests first a blower door test be done by a professional to find the leaks and other problems, especially if the home uses gas. (Plugging problems in some gas homes could create backdrafts and a potentially deadly carbon monoxide problem, he warns.) Then take caulk or canned foam sealant and apply it to areas that leak, like around windows or under sinks where pipes come in.

Because of quality of air concerns and cost, Rye makes no bones about his choice of energy: it's electric. There's no gas in a "Doug Rye Home." "If you don't want gas in your stomach, why would you put it in your house?" he quips.

In most areas where natural gas is available, though, it's the heating source of choice. "We were raised thinking gas is cheaper than electricity," he says. He wants folks to think again, especially as natural gas prices continue spiking upward each winter and continue climbing in general.

The best gas furnaces are 80 percent efficient, he says. That means 20 percent of the gas purchased is wasted. "You don't see it going up the flue, out the roof to the birds," he says. But it does. It's wasted just as if, for example, you'd driven into a gas station and pumped four gallons into your tank and spilled one gallon on the ground, he says.

Electric heat pumps, he notes, are 250 percent efficient, three times more efficient than gas. And he doesn't accept the notion that the air from a heat pump is "cold" compared to gas heat. If the unit is properly sized and installed, he says, it should feel like a warm slow exhale on the back of the hand.

Geothermal heat pumps, which provide both heating and cooling, are even more efficient: 400 percent overall efficient. This means they produce four units of energy for every one unit spent. Geothermal units are five times more efficient than gas. In summer, they're almost twice as efficient as the typical air conditioner. In addition, the excess heat from a geothermal system is transferred to the water heater to provide almost 80 percent of home's hot water for free.

The most efficient gas water heaters are about 57 percent efficient, he points out. "Would you have bought that water heater if it said: ‘This water heater wastes 43 percent of the gas it uses?'" Rye recommends the super-insulated Marathon electric water heater with almost a 100 percent efficiency rating and a lifetime warranty.

Rye runs through a checklist of other things homeowners can do to improve savings and comfort: installing low-e double or triple-paned windows; choosing compact fluorescent lights over typical incandescent bulbs; using cellulose insulation instead of fiberglass. These things all add up. It's true they add up to a slightly higher sticker price initially, he says, but they pay for themselves through lowered utility bills in a short time — and provide better comfort and safety.

Throughout the evening seminar, he recites like a mantra another of his favorite creeds. By evening's end, folks in the audience join in: "Energy items don't cost you anything. They make you money!"

Phyllis Kirkham was among the choir. "I'm just amazed … So many things hit home for us," the North Vernon great-grandmother says of the seminar. "We're retired, so we need to be more energy efficient — and teach our kids."

Rye's words save energy which benefits consumers and the country. That's a blueprint for a better world.