Going Green and Saving Cash: How One UU Church Made Its Building Energy Efficient 

Unitarian Universalist congregations with older church buildings can face higher energy costs and carbon emissions—damaging both the environment and the group’s finances.

Despite the downsides, congregations often lack the resources to fund wholesale renovations and upgrades that would make buildings more energy efficient.

With targeted renovations, savings in carbon emissions and money can be massive. According a 2022 article from the Enviornmental and Energy Study Institute, one Connecticut church was project to save an estimated $53,353 per year in energy costs from its building improvements. But these upgrades often cost many thousands of dollars, which can make energy improvements of any kind feel inaccessible to church communities.

The Winchester Unitarian Society in Winchester, Massachusetts, made a series of incremental improvements and saved money while reducing carbon emissions, according to their Buildings and Grounds Committee. The Society was founded in 1865 and built its first church in 1870. The current structure was built in 1899, with significant additions in 1928 and 1952. Over the past two decades, the congregation has been working to make its historic building more energy efficient through a range of interventions, such as switching to LED bulbs and insulating the building to avoid heat loss.

UU World reached out to Winchester’s Buildings and Grounds Committee, committee chair Chuck Khuen, and interim minister Rev. Seth Carrier-Ladd to learn how they did it. Collectively, they share takeaways for other churches with limited budgets.

What challenges did your church encounter in your process of becoming more energy efficient, and how did you address them?

Our limited funds to upgrade the 120-year-old steam-heated building were a major challenge. There was also a generally accepted belief that unless we were prepared to tear out the entire heating system or redo huge sections of the church, which would cost a lot of money, we would not be able to accomplish our goal. The challenge of raising the funding needed seemed insurmountable, so we were just living with it and pushing the problem into the future.

Given this mindset—that the project was too big and expensive to take on—an additional barrier emerged. Most church volunteers and committees don’t believe they have the expertise to take on a large building renovation and all its complexities, plus the daunting fundraising effort.

We found that the application of some good common sense, and the general handyman skills that many have in our congregation, could go a long way. Our incremental efforts over the past fifteen years were driven by two ‘handy’ congregants on a very small budget. Retired systems engineer Chuck Khuen and Joe Randolph, an electrical engineer, knew that the church couldn’t afford to replace the entire heating system, but doing nothing about it was no longer an option. They approached the problem systematically, beginning with finding out where the energy losses were occurring.

What changes has Winchester Unitarian Society made to its building to become more energy efficient? And which of these changes have been the most impactful?

In 2006, the Winchester Unitarian Society’s annual energy expenses exceeded $41,500 (which was $7,000 over budget) and were growing. This was out of hand, so two members of the Society’s Building and Grounds Committee decided that instead of paying approximately $7,000 additional funds raised to the energy suppliers, we would use the funds to see if the problem could be fixed.

We first took $2,000 of that $7,000 and hired an HVAC company to see where the building was losing heat. We did this after the recommendations of our first engineering study from Mass Interfaith Power and Light, a nonprofit that works for climate justice, which advised us to stop the heat loss first.

They found that we were heating our building with outside air, because our heating system was designed in 1899. Codes then required that any places of worship and gathering had to increase the amount of fresh air flowing through to reduce the likelihood of a virus spreading. Therefore, we were heating our 30,000-square-foot building almost entirely with outside air and had fifteen air vents in various locations to increase airflow.

We used the balance of the $7,000 raised to cover and plug all of the air intake and ventilation vents and openings the engineer had found. In addition, since we had a dual-fired burner on our boiler, we switched from oil to natural gas.

After having made those two changes, heating expenses dropped from $33,000 in 2006 to $14,000 in 2008—a 57 percent savings in energy expenditures. We didn’t have to replace the entire heating system to realize significant savings.

In 2010, we made the next round of changes, which included Wi-Fi-based, programmable thermostats, further tunings to the boiler, and weather stripping the entire building to continue our efforts to save heating energy. To reduce our electricity use we added solar panels and switched to all LED lights and all energy-saving appliances.

Since we started nearly ten years ago, the Winchester Unitarian Society has achieved energy and emissions savings of nearly 70 percent of its electricity consumption, 55 percent of its natural gas use, and over 674 tons of carbon emissions.

Tell us about the financial side of this process. What have these changes cost, and what are the long-term savings in energy expenses?

In 2006, our total energy costs exceeded 9 percent of our annual expenses. After the initial heating system changes in 2008 and further work in 2010, we realized a 57 percent savings in energy expenditures. With all of these improvements, the Society’s energy costs went down from 9 percent to less than 4 percent of its operating budget and have stayed there. In the end, the Winchester Unitarian Society invested about $60,000 over fifteen years to accrue $294,000 in energy savings through 2023, and we are still realizing the benefits.

The Committee has continued its efforts to reduce energy costs and adhere to its mission of cutting emissions. The Society is currently conducting a detailed engineering study to select the best method to insulate its Religious Education Wing walls and replace the windows with new, efficient windows that match those on the rest of the building. Both are responsible for significant heat loss.

In addition, the Society has started the process of buying out the current owner of its solar array, moving toward realizing 100 percent of the produced energy and investigating upgrading the solar panels so that the solar array produces nearly all the electricity the building consumes. Finally, the Society is evaluating alternative heating systems and alternative biofuels moving forward and hopes to replace its boiler by 2030 to accomplish this.

How has this project been informed or inspired by your UU values? To what extent do you consider this to be spiritual work?

The members of the Society are committed ethically and morally to reducing carbon emissions because as Unitarians, it is one of our operating missions to protect the environment. It is also just the right thing to do. Being conscious of emissions and carbon and wasting energy is in UUs’ DNA, reflecting all our interdependence on the health of our planet.

Another equally important focus of the Society’s efforts was to free funds for the Society to use in its UU mission-focused work, including social action, social justice, spiritual development, youth programs, pastoral care, and music. Winchester’s Interim Minister Rev. Seth Carrier-Ladd notes, “Valuing the interdependent web of all existence and protecting the Earth has long been a staple of Unitarian Universalism, written into both our beloved Principles and our new statement of Values. Instead of accepting the status quo, the members of the Winchester Unitarian Society were open to change. They were willing to adapt and embrace new practices, new technologies, and a new way of thinking about an old problem. There is nothing more spiritual than living our beliefs and values into being in the world.”

What advice would you give other congregations seeking to make their building or buildings more energy efficient?

We have found the success we have achieved in energy savings to be highly rewarding and are grateful for the ongoing reduction of annual operating costs. We want to share with other churches that these energy savings are possible, even with a historic church or old building. Congregations don’t have to necessarily replace entire heating systems but can approach the energy problems their buildings are having by figuring out where the energy losses are occurring and addressing them one by one.

We have found that the incremental approach to energy savings is widely recommended. Based on our experience, the following list of affordable actions to save energy and costs summarizes our advice:

• Assign the responsibility to a small group (two or three at most) to get this done. Some engineering, construction, or design skills are valuable, but the basic handyman skills that come with home ownership will often suffice. Most important is having a bit of time available and a serious commitment to the project.
• Attack the building envelope first. Finding and reducing as many of the places where heat is escaping is essential—especially for churches in colder climates, like ours—before looking for more efficient ways to produce heat. Insulation of all kinds is one of the easiest items to get reimbursed, and the insulation vendors are good at helping you find opportunities. This is also a good area for a targeted engineering study, but you do not have to wait until you have everything identified. Find a leak, fix a leak. Every bit you save by not heating the outside, you save every day going forward.
• Manage your calls for heat. If you do not have zones for your heat, add as many as you can. Then switch to programmable thermostats, Wi-Fi enabled if possible. These are available (through an HVAC contractor) for even the old, two-wire thermostat systems that are the standard for nearly all older buildings. Then, of course, program them to only call for heat when you need it.
• Tune your boiler to run as efficiently as possible. There are incentives to switch away from oil, if appropriate. Even swapping out an old boiler, particularly for one or more highly efficient, new hot water boilers may not be a bad investment. This allows you to leverage your existing (and expensive to replace) heat distribution systems. Remember, even if you plan someday to move to a new ground or air-source heat pump system, you are going to want efficient and reliable backup heat for very cold days.
• Switch to all LED bulbs (even the fluorescent bulbs) and energy efficient appliances. There are incentives for both. You will be surprised how much energy those old freezers and refrigerators you have are using.

• Finally, beware of the ‘study it’ trap. It is attractive and comforting to take the route: ‘First we need an overall plan with everyone’s input.’ Each action taken on the above list will pay immediate dividends that you can enjoy while you are studying longer-term solutions. Most likely, a comprehensive plan will be very expensive and require some sort of capital campaign, further delaying gains. Our incremental approach cut our energy use by well over 50 percent and saved us nearly $300,000 in operating costs over the last fifteen years.