And make sure your home is as efficient as possible, too. I’m not discounting the increase in fuel costs by any means, but a lot of times people will only look at the direct expense (of fuel) rather than ways of increasing efficiency.
For example, at the Flagstaff house we had an energy audit done right out of the gate that showed some glaring efficiency issues that we expected based on our survey of the house when we bought it. The house is about 2,000 sf, wood frame construction from 1975 on a crawl space. The floor of the house was not insulated, and never had been since it was built. Blow-in insulation in the attic space was a mess from being moved around during several renovations as well as having settled. In fact, it was so bad in some spots it caused ice dams on the roof that resulted in ceiling damage in one part of the house, yet the PO didn’t do anything about it. We took an aggressive approach, which wasn’t cheap, but had insulation installed in the floor/crawl space, the attic insulation straightened out and more blown in, and a blower door test done before and after with any and all gaps or leaks addressed. A new furnace was installed, however, this was a choice on our part due to the age of the existing furnace (28+ years) that was in the mid to upper 90% efficiency range. Windows and doors were already good, so no need to do anything there. While they weren't efficiency considerations, we added air conditioning to the house with the new furnace and a mini-split to an addition that was poorly insulated and conditioned. Total cost? About $8,000 not including the AC and mini-split. We recovered about $1,000 of those costs in rebates from state, local and Federal rebates and tax credits. It will take some years to recover the costs, but the real gain is in the level of comfort that exists in the house. Parts of it were colder than heck, and I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like with no insulation in the floor (we had the insulation work done in September.) The PO installed a wood stove, but we never use it as it’s not necessary. The gas bill last month for heating, water heating (demand water heater) and cooking was $93.00. Coldest month of the year so far, and we keep it at a comfortable 68F during the day while turning it down to 66F at night. Ambients can often get down into the single digits at night in the winter at this location, so having that tight envelope with a solid amount of insulation makes the place very efficient. For those of us who lived through the energy crunch in the 1970s, the one good thing it did was forced people to look more closely at efficiencies in how we use energy as well as alternatives. -D > On Mar 6, 2022, at 1:05 PM, Randy Bennell via Mercedes > <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > > Time to look into alternative heat sources. > > > On 3/6/2022 11:13 AM, Dimitri Seretakis via Mercedes wrote: >> So what about home heating oil? What happens next winter when I have to heat >> my house? At this rate it is doubtful that prices will normalize by then and >> I go through a full 250 gallon tank of oil during the winter and that’s >> keeping the house at 60 degrees on average. If oil hits $8 per gallon by >> then which is not a stretch then I will be paying $2000 per month to heat my >> house. >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Mar 6, 2022, at 10:50 AM, Kaleb Striplin via Mercedes >>> <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: >>> >>> If I am not mistaken, It never got that night the last time. >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Mar 6, 2022, at 9:10 AM, Rick Knoble via Mercedes >>>> <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> Did Karl want to start a pool on LA gas prices? >>>> $7 a gallon here. I checked and GasBuddy concurs. >>>> >>>> This will not end well. >>>> >>>> >>>> Rick >>> <Screenshot_20220305-191729_Brave.jpg> >>>> _______________________________________ >>>> 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 >>>> >>> _______________________________________ >>> 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 >>> >> >> _______________________________________ >> 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 >> > > _______________________________________ > 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 > _______________________________________ 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
