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APARTMENT FINANCE TODAY • January/February 2009

Green building ideas can make a big difference without a big cost.

By Bendix Anderson

Maybe you don’t have money available to install a set of solar panels or drill a geothermal well. However, there are many commonsense green building ideas that can make your apartment properties more energy efficient without spending a lot of money—and that can make a difference on your next utility bill.

Many apartment owners have had their operating budgets stretched to the limit by high utility costs with little relief in sight. The price of a barrel of oil may be a third of what it was last year, but in many areas, utility costs are down only slightly from their peak in 2008 and are still, on average, more than twice what they were two years ago, according to green building experts.

But apartment owners can fight back by talking to and educating residents about energy and water conservation. For example, an owner might suggest that tenants turn off lights and other electrical appliances when they exit a room. Additionally, apartment owners can train their maintenance teams to identify and address the particular ways their buildings waste energy and water. Many of these problems can be fixed at almost no cost.

“Every time you get into an apartment, it’s an opportunity,” says Courtney Moriarta, a senior engineer with Steven Winter Associates, based in New York City. “You can incrementally make your building better without making it a big production.”

Save water

It makes sense to start by saving on water, a cost that’s likely to keep growing steadily in many areas.

First things first: Make sure that faucets aren’t leaking. With a slow drip, approximately 36 gallons of water can potentially be lost down the drain; in many parts of the country, that’s about $75 a year just for cold water.

Also pour some red food coloring into the toilet tank: Does the water in the bowl change color? A surprising number of toilets have valves that leak but never make a sound, allowing up to 250 gallons a day, or $521 a year, to flow quietly down the drain, says Moriarta.

Install a low-flow showerhead that uses about 2 gallons of water per minute. Compared with a standard 5-gallon-per-minute fixture, you’ll save 900 gallons, or $11, per tenant per month in many localities, assuming a 10-minute daily shower.

“The thing pays for itself in a month,” says Moriarta. However, be sure to try the fixture out yourself before subjecting your residents to it. It won’t help if you install a fixture that tenants hate, motivating them to remove the water-saving feature.

Faucets also should get low-flow aerators: 1.5 gallons per minute for the kitchen sink, 0.5 gallons per minute for the bathroom sink. Also, make sure the aerators are working properly by measuring how long it takes to fill up a sink or bathtub.

Carry a thermometer whenever you enter an apartment. Hot water should come out of the faucet at 120 to 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Landlords who provide water hotter than that may be paying for tenants to scald themselves.

Seal the gaps

Many apartments are riddled with tiny holes, allowing heated air to escape into uninsulated areas and letting in drafts of cold air. Plugging these gaps also will help to keep pests such as roaches and bedbugs from spreading from apartment to apartment.

Building codes don’t require contractors to seal gaps like this one, letting heat out and pests like roaches in.

The next time you enter an apartment, especially an empty unit, bring a caulking gun to plug any holes smaller than a quarter inch. Larger holes may require a foam patching product or even a sheet rock patch. Be sure to check the openings around pipes, including near radiators and under sinks. Look for holes in the tops and the bottoms of closets.

Make sure the seam is sealed between the walls and the floor. “There’s almost always a gap between the sheet rock and the baseboard,” says Moriarta.

Identify other places in the building where heat can rise from the bottom to the top of the building. It’s easy to diagnose whether a building suffers from this problem. Are most of your coldest apartments on lower floors? Do overheated top-floor tenants open their windows to cool off?

Stairway doors should be insulated and airtight, especially the door to the roof, and they should not be propped open. Individual apartment doors should also be airtight if your building has an open stairwell.

Also, make sure that the controls that tenants have for their own heat actually work. Make sure the tenants can turn the radiators on and off , and make sure the heat is turned down in unoccupied apartments.

Switch to energy-efficient lightbulbs in common areas

If you’re one of the few apartment owners that still has incandescent lighting in the common areas of your buildings, now is the time to change. Switching to energy-efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) is one of the quickest and easiest green upgrades.

Efficient bulbs can use less than a quarter of the electricity used by conventional bulbs. Vendors like 1000bulbs.com list CFLs for less than $2 apiece. While that may be three times the cost of conventional incandescent bulbs, CFLs last more than three times as long as conventional bulbs on average, so they are still a bargain.

However, be sure to try the bulbs out before ordering hundreds for your building. There can be a range in the quality of light produced by CFLs, even between bulbs created by the same company.

Go into the basement

Visually inspect your heating, cooling, and ventilation equipment, and make a list of needed repairs and service. Make sure hot water pipes are properly insulated, especially in cold areas. Test the firing rate on heating equipment, and begin to keep a daily log of the temperature of your hot water heater. If your building has vents, make sure they remain clear and unobstructed. Check the sacrificial anode, part of most hot water tanks that helps fight corrosion, and replace if needed.

Check the timers on your heating and cooling equipment. “You’d be surprised how often timers haven’t been set or adjusted properly,” says Moriarta.

Just the beginning

The items on this list are just the beginning of future savings. More expensive fixes could include replacing inefficient windows and hardware.

For now, start to track your utility bills. If possible, break down the fuel usage per square foot. This will help you compare the buildings in your portfolio, identify the ones that need the most help, and track their improvement. Talk with management about developing a new resident orientation and handbook to make tenants a part of the energy-saving process. Emphasize how energy costs impact the rents that they pay and the maintenance that is done at the building. Many buildings will quickly begin to see results.