CT Business Targets Energy Efficiency

The recession has had a devastating effect on the construction industry and construction employment. At the same time, many homeowners are now looking for ways to make their homes more energy efficient. One Connecticut company thinks it’s found a winning formula to bring these two realities together into the next big business success story. WNPR’s Harriet Jones reports on the Dr. Energy Saver franchise.

Inside a huge industrial unit in Seymour, Tom Casey has built a complete, 1,000 square foot, two bedroom house.

"So, this is our house – we’ve got our front porch and our front door here. We’ve got a dining room, living room combination area…"

It’s here because this is a training lab for Casey’s business, Dr. Energy Saver, which now teaches construction professionals from all over the country to perform home energy audits, looking at how homes waste energy, and how they can be made more efficient.

"There’s a lot of very qualified people that are looking for employment. Traditional industries – carpentry, plumbing, heating and cooling, whatever, electricians – there’s not a lot of work going on so all these guys are either slow or laid off. We’re able to find a lot of construction professionals who are looking for something new."

Tom Casey himself had been performing energy audits as part of his heating and cooling business, Climate Partners, for about five years, when he was asked to work at the home of a business contact, Larry Janesky. He retrofitted the home for energy efficiency.

"Couple of months later, my phone rings and I got a message from Larry, and he says, 'Hey I need to talk to you, I got my utility bills – I want to talk to you.' Now that could either be a good conversation, or that could be a bad conversation!"

In fact, Janesky was calling to say for two consecutive months he had saved 45% on his utility bills, and he wanted Casey to perform the same work at his commercial business facility, Basement Systems, in Seymour. When the work was done there, Janesky was so impressed he offered to put up capital to launch a bigger business, and the Dr. Energy Saver franchise concept was born.

"Here we have our window and door display, and as you can see, everything works. And we have cutaways of what the problems are and what solutions are, so you can see different things you can do to the door to fix it. And then directly behind us we have the shelves that have all the solutions."

The 40,000 square foot training facility they’ve built in a former screw manufacturing plant in Seymour is the largest of its kind in the country. So far they’ve signed up 10 franchises as far afield as Ohio and Montana. Each franchisee pays a territory fee, and then $25,000 for a week of training in Seymour for its employees. In one part of the lab, trainees are performing a blower test, to check the leakiness of a heating duct system.

Jason White from Naugatuck already works in the home energy audit business – he’s come to this weeklong workshop to hone his skills, and he’s been impressed with the facility.

"It’s incredible – it’s got everything. All kinds of hands-on – you use all the tools you need for the industry. Coolest thing is working with the blower doors, and working with all the heating and cooling equipment."

When Dr. Energy Saver performs a home audit, the franchise will charge the homeowner just $75 – the standard fee charged by utilities for the same service. But the housecall usually results in a recommendation that the homeowner spend as much as $4,000 retrofitting to improve energy efficiency. Trainer Walter Erikson has been doing this work for two years now, and he says most homeowners take the news in stride.

"They know there’s definitely going to be a capital investment. We have the ability to show folks how to get a lot of subsidy money to help them pay for the investments. Both through utilities, through local, through federal incentives, and at the end of the day we actually show them what their return on investment’s going to be. Typically we try to stay under ten years."

Tom Casey and Larry Janesky certainly hope it’s a sustainable business model. They’re aiming to have at least 50 Dr. Energy Saver franchises up and running by the end of this year.

For WNPR, I'm Harriet Jones.