Save Money on Your Heating Bill

Hello Galaxians,

It's cold outside! I don't know about you, but every year I'm concerned about losing heat in my home. I live off-grid and I don't have an electric or gas bill, but I still have to worry about the cold air that comes into my house. If I had better insulation in my home, I wouldn't have to shove so much wood into the wood stove.

When we first built our home, we used plenty of pink insulation under the house. Over the years, animals have ripped the insulation from beneath the house. This is a weak spot in our plan to stay warm and save time and energy cutting wood. We performed a home energy audit to determine other places to insulate as well. After doing this, I definitely suggest you try this on your own home to save money. 

Why perform a home energy audit? The air in your home is fighting a constant battle of equilibrium with the outside air. When it's hot outside, the heated air is trying to push its way into your cool home and when it's cold, the same principle is true. It's always seeking balance.

You can either download an audit from the Internet, or have one professionally done. Some local electrical companies may come out and perform this for free. By doing this, you can save between 5% to 30% in savings by conducting a home energy audit.

1. First, check which spaces in your home are heated and make a notation of the unheated spaces. Is your garage or basement hated? How about your attic? The areas between the heated space and the unheated space should be well insulated, otherwise you will lose much-needed heat to those areas.

In the attic, make sure there's a vapor barrier under the attic insulation which will prevent air movement between the unheated attic and the rest of the home.

2. Check for air leaks. Look for gaps inside the home where cool air breezes in. If you can see daylight, you've got a problem and you will need to caulk, add foam or install weather stripping. 

There are two ways to determine if there is air leakage. One way is to visually inspect problem areas, such as around the windows and doors. The second way is to note the actual air movement. Air movement is easily detected on a windy day by simply moving your dampened hand over suspected areas. You should feel a cool sensation when there is air flow. 

CHECK FOR AIR LEAKS
1. Turn off all gas burning appliances, such as stoves, water heaters, propane refrigerators and any other flame source.
2. Shut all windows and exterior doors. Don't forget to close the fireplace flues.
3. Light an incense stick and pass it around the edges of common leak sites. If the smoke wavers or is sucked out, or is blown into the room, there's a draft.

Another way to check is to shine a flashlight at night over all areas you suspect has a gap outside the house while a second person watches for the light inside the house. This works on larger gaps, but smaller holes may be harder to detect.

An additional way to check for air leaks is to shut the door or window on a piece of paper. If you can pull the paper out without ripping it, you're losing energy.

SUSPECTED AREAS INSIDE THE HOME: 
1. Baseboards and ceiling trim. Check the area around baseboards and where wall and ceiling meet. Use spray foam or caulk any area that has air leakage.

 2. Electrical outlets and switch plates. If you feel coolness when you place your hand over the outlet then you're losing precious energy. Make sure the electricity is turned off so outlets are not "hot." Don't remove the cover plates until you do this first. Check all outlets, not just the ones on the outside walls, because you have electrical wires and sometimes pipes that are located in inner walls and these pipes and wires are sometimes exposed to the crawlspace or a drafty attic. See if these outlets and switches contain rubber or foam gaskets and if they don't, you could save money and energy in the long run by installing them. Rubber and foam gaskets can reduce your energy usage up to 20% by sealing off the wall cavity behind the outlets and switch areas. 

3. Doors and window frames. Check for cracked or missing weather stripping, cracked caulking, and any broken latches. Look for cracked window panes that rattle and need to be reset in the frame or secured with window putty. Install weather stripping on the doors and caulk any air leaks. 

4. Electrical, gas piping, cable television or phone line entrances. Seal any widened holes into the house. There are often gaps in the wall where pipes and wires pass through. Sealing this will cut down on rodents and snakes entering your home. Seal these with spray foam. 

5. Fireplaces. Check the fireplace damper and stove pipes. Any large holes need to be filled with fire-related sealant. Make sure it is tightly sealed when closed. 

6. Attic hatches. If there isn't a proper seal between the attic hatch and the heated portion of the house, then add weather stripping around this area.

7. Window air conditioners. Check wall or window-mounted air conditioners for any gaps.

8. Dryer vents and fans. Check dryer vents and other miscellaneous vents and fans for gaps.

9. Attic space. Check for nail holes in the roof that aren’t sealed. If you can see the light of day, you’ve got a leak. If you have an attic room that is heated, check the walls to ensure they are properly insulated.

10. Walls. Are your walls properly insulated? Make a cavity in an unobtrusive place in the dry wall to see what kind of insulation is there and if it has settled. Considerable heat is lost through the ceiling and walls of your home if insulation levels are less than par. If you have an older home, insulation can sag in the upper parts of the walls near the ceiling. Also blown in insulation can settle leaving the upper portion of your walls un-insulated. We found this to be true when we took off the dry wall for a remodeling job in the garage and discovered the insulation that was stapled up years earlier had come loose and sagged leaving the upper portion of our outside wall without insulation. We always wondered why that part of the house was so cold during the winter months and hot during the summer. 

11. Recessed lighting. Recessed lights are famous for having air leakage. They should be “Air Loc” models or rated for insulation contact. Rated fixtures have a sticker inside that says “IC”.

12. Joints. Check the joints between different construction materials such as brick or stone and the wood walls, foundations or wood siding.

13. Cantilevered floors. Cantilevered floors are the part of the home that juts out past the foundation wall including bay windows, window seats or bump-outs. Floor insulation is often overlooked in these areas and can cause a huge problem with air leakage. 

SUSPECTED AREAS OUTSIDE THE HOME: 

1. Exterior corners. Look for gaps in siding and trim. 

2. Outdoor water faucets. Look for gaps around piping. 

3. Pipes or electrical lines. All areas that have pipes or electrical lines coming into or out of the home, which includes dryer vents, vents for the compost toilet, water pipes, wires, plumbing and sewer pipes. 

4. Foundation. Check anywhere the foundation meets the exterior siding. 

5. Windows and doors. Check around windows and doors. If doors or windows rattle with movement, you have air leaks and this is definitely an area that needs to be fixed. 

6. Fireplaces. This is the area that usually has the most damage, but often goes unnoticed. Undiscovered leaks can go on for years and cause structural damage. Check the junction where the fireplace meets the roofing material to ensure this is sealed. 

7. Skylights. This area demands close attention. Check for leaks of any kind that have gone unnoticed. 

Besides making sure you’re not losing heat from the walls themselves, there are two other places that need close attention that can make or break your home energy efficiency; one is the attic and the other is underneath the house. 

1. Attics. Check to see if there is a vapor barrier (tar paper, the paper attached to fiberglass batts, plastic sheeting) under the attic insulation.  If there isn’t a vapor barrier, consider painting the interior ceilings with vapor barrier paint to reduce the amount of water vapor that can pass through the ceiling. Moisture can diminish the efficiency of insulation and cause structural damage. Also check to ensure attic vents are not blocked by insulation. Seal any obvious holes and check that electrical boxes are sealed with flexible caulk. If the insulation isn’t up to par, consider adding more insulation to the floor and ceiling. 

2. Basements. If your basement is unheated, check that you have at least an R-value of 25 on the ceiling.  Also verify that all water heater, hot water pipes and furnace ducts are properly insulated.  Heated basements have a common problem of air leakage where the wood frame of the house meets the concrete or block foundation. 

Another area where leakage is found is at the rim (or band) joist where the rim joist forms the perimeter of the floor framing above it and the floor joists butt into it. Multiple cavities are created along the length of the wall inviting air leakage. 

3. Crawlspaces. If there is a major draft in this area, ensure it has proper venting, as well as that the underside of your floor to your living space is well insulated. 

As always, consult the experts. 

https://www.energy.gov/public-services/homes/home-weatherization/home-energy-audits

Stay warm fellow Broke Galaxians and I hope you save on your energy bill, 

Peace Peeps, 

Broke Girl