I took advantage of our utility’s energy inspection programs, which provide a number of services for free or at a reduced price.
They came out and did an energy audit on the house which turned out fairly well. Insulation and windows all passed. Next - the blower door test! At the insistence of a former neighbor who is a commercial/industrial HVAC engineer, I went through the house and sealed (caulked) every last little gap around junction boxes, light switch boxes, receptacles, anywhere there could possibly be air intrusion/extrusion. That cost me maybe $10 in caulk and the better part of a day, I would say. The blower door test came, and we ended up with something like 0.3, which is very, very good. Found one or two places where I could seal a little better or my caulk didn’t stick well, and that was it. Bought a Nest thermostat. Snagged the first gen model on a deep discount at Lowe’s, something like $160-$170, I think. Prior to that we had the standard calendar style programmable thermostat. The last AC season we saved about $20-$30 a month on electric bills. I compared degree days, too, so I was sure there wasn’t a major variable with the weather, and there wasn’t. Since then I put in a solar powered roof mounted attic fan. Not sure how much of a difference that’s making, but I’m sure it’s contributing. If anything it’s extending the life of my roof. That was about $400. If I look at my costs so far, it will take 2-3 years to recover them in round numbers. In the next 4-5 years I’ll probably need a roof, so we’ll look at the possibility of adding some energy saving materials there, too. The one thing that makes me crazy about Florida is the use of single pane windows. We tried to put double pane windows in our last house when we built it, and the builder refused. Part of that is probably because we had really run them ragged on additions and changes (prior to construction, I would point out) but they just wouldn’t do it. My current house has single pane windows but they have a UV coating on them that nearly eliminates the heat load from the sunlight. That helps, but the other thing we wanted them for was noise - double pane windows really cut down on outside noise. Dan > On Dec 1, 2014, at 1:03 PM, Mitch Haley via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> > wrote: > > Last Tuesday I ran an insulation blower for a friend who buys, rebuilds, and > resells houses. After we blew R-39 into the attic on top of what little was > already there, he mentioned that he only bought one house which was already > adequately insulated. > > He couldn't figure out why people didn't do the simple stuff like make sure > the attic was well insulated, as it was easy and more than paid for itself in > one winter. In most places where you can't save enough on a winter's heat to > pay for a foot of cellulose in the attic, you could probably save enough on > A/C in one summer to more than pay for it. > > A little less mainstream, the folks on cleanmpg.com forums claim that you not > only save fuel, but you can increase tire life by running higher tire > pressures than car manufacturers recommend. Considering the resources that go > into making and disposing of automobile tires in the USA, that's worth > considering, and much easier than insulating a house. > > http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-14643.html > > Mitch. > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those > individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has > no control over the content of the messages of each contributor. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
