Frigid Weather

It’s warmed up to a balmy 17-degrees outside today but with the wind chill it feels more like 4-degrees.  It was bitter cold last night and the car wasn’t too excited about starting up for the drive home from work.  This morning the house felt more like a meat locker inside…making us realize just how truly un-efficient this rental house is.  If you’re faced with high heating costs or just the aggravation of trying to keep your house at a comfortable temperature, you should think about doing your own energy audit.

It’s pretty simple.  You just need to walk through your house and begin considering where you could be losing heating and cooling efficiency.  Unless you’re doing a remodel or buying a house, there’s not much you can do about existing insulation in your walls and ceilings.  However, if you can find out what the insulation value is inside your walls  you can determine the efficiency of that.  A lot of common home insulation is rated around “R-11″ or “R-19″.  The higher the number, better the insulation is.  Some homes will have r-values reaching into the 30’s or 40’s.  According to the Department of Energy, eco-friendly homes built with straw bale walls have an R-50 value!  You can read more about their test homes and the different insulation comparisons by clicking this link.

The biggest source of decreased heating and cooling efficiency is air leaking in and out of your house.  The home we rent is only outfitted with single-paned windows.  That’s extremely inefficient because there is such a rapid exchange of cold air through these windows into the house.  It’s the opposite for summer, with a rapid exchange of heat into the rooms.  The house is outfitted with honeycomb shades on most of the windows.  If lowered prior to dark and kept closed until the sun is well up, they seem to do a decent job of retaining heat and keeping the chill out.  But if the house was outfitted with double-paned, “Low E” windows it would feel much more comfy in here.

There’s also a set of French doors off the dining room and kitchen that are poorly sealed.  You can see the light coming through gaps in the frame and weatherstripping on the door.  About $10 worth of weatherstripping and caulking and a half hour of work could greatly improve the cold air that moves through these doors.  We also hang curtains over it to keep the cold draft out and place an old rolled up blanket at the base of the door to prevent that draft too.

If you’re faced with any of this dilemmas, you should check out the Energy Department’s Home Energy Audit.  It’s easy to click through and tells you all the potential trouble spots in your home.  Best of all, it’s something you can do in just an hour or two or even spread out over several days.  In the long run it could help you save money and keep your house a little more comfortable.