This is part of a continuing series on ways we’re updating our almost 60-year-old house following the recommendations of a home energy audit.
We’ve made several easy, and mostly affordable fixes so far. One of the easiest was replacing the filter on our air vent. Our home came with a specially made one that you’re supposed to wash out once a month.
The guy who performed the energy audit pointed to the dust all around the vent and told us that you can’t get those vents clean enough for them to do an effective job. He suggested getting the regular blue ones and replacing them once a month. He said that it would help our system work more efficiently.
I know that we are generating more waste now. I may try to see if there’s something I can do with the old filters. At least we might be able to recycle the cardboard surrounding the filter.
The size of our vent is odd, so we had to special order the filters. But we have a new one in now.
Climate scientist James Hansen, who co-authored a paper in 1981 about climate change, recently spoke out about the importance of blocking the Keystone XL Pipeline.
I thought this was really interesting. It’s amazing that so many of the predictions he put forth in 1981 came true.
This is another part in the continuing series on making our almost 60-year-old home more energy efficient.
The main reason for our energy audit was the temperature in our nursery. In the winter, it was so much colder in there than the rest of the house. While in the summer, it was a lot warmer.
The man who came to do the audit, crawled into the crawl space, and found out why: The people who used to own our house updated the master bathroom by putting in a bath/shower combo. We have no idea when they did that, but they didn’t seal the area under the tub. It was just open to the elements, and the master bath backs up into the nursery.
The energy audit guy told my husband to buy a sheet of R5 foam board and use that to seal up the area under the bathtub.
It didn’t take my husband that long to seal up the area. We are now waiting to see if this makes a difference. If it does, then we’re thrilled about the ease of this project.
We’ve been working on these improvements for a few weeks now, and we’re already seeing an improvement in our energy bill. It could be the unseasonably mild winter, but here’s hoping our improvements will continue to make a difference.
This is part of an ongoing series of posts about ways we’re weather-proofing our home after an in-home energy audit. We’ve insulated switchplates, put blankets and covers around water heaters and pipes, and we’ve prepped for duct work.
When we first bought our almost 60-year-old house, we replaced most of the original windows with energy efficient ones. But there was an addition in the back. We didn’t replace those, since they were newer.
When the old windows were replaced, the men caulked all around them. We didn’t realize that the non-replaced windows would also need caulking, both inside and out.
The caulk creates a better seal.
It took 2 tubes of caulk and about 30 minutes. We are loving these easy fixes!
We had a home energy audit done a couple of weeks ago, and have been tackling the projects in the list provided. Luckily for us, we are able to do most of the repairs to our almost 60-year-old home by ourselves.
Our ducts were apparently a mess. We didn’t know anything about ducts, but I’m sure with the various updates over the years, our ductwork took a beating.
But before we can call someone to work on the ducts, my husband had to bring some of the electrical work up to code, and he also rerouted our bathroom vents, which were venting moist air straight into our insulation.
My husband is not an electrician, but he knows his way around wires. He was worried about the fixes, but said they were a lot easier than he thought they would be. He made sure that all the junctions were in boxes, and put covers on all the boxes.
He also said that fixing the vents was easy. He just extended them by attaching a piece of dryer vent to the van so it would vent above the insulation.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a home energy audit. Although we had done a good bit to weather-proof our older home, we found out that we still had some work to do. Luckily for us, most of the suggested improvements are easy and DIY.
First, we insulated all of the face plates on exterior walls. We did some other minor things like put an aerator on our kitchen sink faucet, but I didn’t think it was worthy of a post.
This weekend, my husband decided to head back into the attic. Our house is about 60 years old, but it does have an addition. We didn’t know much about the addition until this audit. We assumed it was added on in 2000. Turns out it was most likely put in in the mid 1990s. How do we know that? It also turns out that they put a water heater in the new addition, up in the ceiling. The water heater is dated 1994.
We had no idea about this water heater. It makes sense I guess. The addition includes a bathroom and the washing machine closet. But we really didn’t know. My husband isn’t thrilled, since it’s up in the attic and it’s big. It’s way too big for what we need in that area. I only do hot wash cycles when I’m washing diapers, and the occasional bleach load. We rarely use that shower. So, we heat up a lot of water for nothing. We bought an insulating blanket and insulation for the pipes.
It’s good to know we have it, though. My husband dialed the thermostat down to 120 degrees, and put the blanket around it. He also wrapped the pipes as well.
Not only did we have to wrap the surprise water heater, we also found out that the skylight we put in our bathroom this fall should be insulated.
The man performing the energy audit told us that during the summer, the pipe connecting the skylight to the ceiling will get really hot, and would make our bathroom way too toasty. We had no idea. Our bathroom has no natural light, and I was always cleaning mildew. The skylight has been great, and cut down on my need to constantly scrub our shower curtain… some. I’m glad we found out about insulating now, before it gets so hot in the summer.
Our next things to tackle — making sure some wiring in the kitchen is to code, and caulking the few windows we didn’t replace when we first moved in.
Saw this article a while ago, and just didn’t get around to linking to it. It’s about the need for investing in green technology, and why now is the time to do it.
