Leon's Car Care Center www.leonsmufflers.com
Leons Car Care Center is a family owned and operated business that has been in Eureka for over 48 years. Leon's provides general automotive care with an emphasis on exhaust systems. The building is a 17 year old steel I-beam structure with an attached wood frame office. The main source of lighting in the shop prior to the upgrading to more effiecient fluorescents were large Metal Halide fixtures. These lights were supplemented with wall mounted fluorescent light fixtures for work bench and lower applications. The building design itself has many windows built into the upper reaches of the structure to allow natural light to penetrate, decreasing their reliance on electric light. To further complement this design feature the second floor of the shop is made of a wide metal grate to allow light to reach the shop floor. Fluorescent fixtures are the primary source of lighting in the office. The shop employs two large air compressors for use in powering their tools as well as 7 vehicle lifts, with one large RV lift. There are a number of computers used in the shop as well as in the office building itself. Natural gas heaters were installed in the shop building for the comfort of the workers in colder months as well as their ability to maintain a drier shop floor increasing safety and cleanliness.
The Redwood Coast Energy Authority www.redwoodenergy.org
The RCEA is a Joint Powers Authority commissioned by seven local municipalities under contract with PG&E to promote energy effeciency. The organization is funded through taxes collected by PG&E and the California Public Utilities Commission. According to their website they also operate under a smaller contract with the US Department of Energy (DOE) to promote solar energy use.
RCEA Sponsored Retrofits
In June 2008 the Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) completed a lighting retrofit project for Leon's Car Care Center to increase energy efficiency, replacing older, less efficient fluorescent lamp ballasts with newer, more energy efficient ones.
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Energy Miser
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Vending Machines
Project Summary
| Total Installed Cost: | $2,046.49 |
| Instant Rebate: | $642.60 |
| Estimated Savings: | $389.20 per year |
| Estimated Monthly Savings: | $32.43 |
| Simple Payback: | 3.6 years |
| Return On Investment: | 28% |
| Power Reduction: | 1.08 kW |
| CO2 Emissions Reduction: | 1,213 lbs/year |
(Calculations based on average cost of $0.01667 per kWh and 09Com-600-SFL-170-CFL-60-CTR rebate)
*(Project Summary courtesy of RCEA Program Manager: Dana Bourdreau, Auditor: Budd Dickinson)
Later, in 2009, independent of the RCEA, Leon's went on to replace all their metal halide shop lights with fluorescent lighting. The RCEA has also overseen the installation of an energy miser on the vending machines in the office building. The miser acts as a motion sensor in conjunction with a timer that shuts the appliances down after a period of inactivity. According to retailer Austin Energy,the potential savings from an energy miser on a cold drink machine is 40%, and on a snack machine is 80%.
Further Considerations
General Manager Dale Warmuth is conscious of the impact that energy use has on his business, and is delighted at the savings that his company sees in their efforts to improve effeciency both financially and ecologically. Mr. Warmuth has seen a 33% decrease in consumption since the retrofits. He was satisfied with the level of service that he recieved from RCEA, and continues to pursue new and more efficient practices. Leons is considering upgrading one of their two piston-run air compressors to a Rotary Air Compressor. This would decrease energy consumption in addition to decreasing shop noise and improving air pressure consistency among the pneumatic tools. The air compressors are the main source of energy for the power lifts used in the shop. They run almost constantly in the enclosed shop creating a substantial amount of noise and are a significant source of the shops energy consumption.