Daily Home Renovation Tips

This is the last of our posts for the month of January, when we are focusing on energy conservation related matters, especially the ecoENERGY Grant program and the Energy Efficiency Evaluation Report received from the first of the two ‘energy’ audits.

We’ve reviewed, discussed and displayed the primary portions of the report. Now what? What are we going to do as a result of the report.

Well, here are our plans based on the contents of the report:

1. Replace most, but not all of the 36 windows with ENERGY STAR rated windows. We just cannot afford to do all of them. As it is we are going to replace 28 of them at a cost of……gulp $17,000!!! And, that is after a 20% discount for doing it in the winter. Somehow the available grant money under the program does not seem enough incentive.
2. We are going to replace the front door. We know it was not mentioned in the report but we can feel the draft.
3. We are going to work on reducing the air leakage beyond the windows and front door
4. We are going to further investigate not only the tank-less water heaters but especially the Drain Water Heat Recovery (DWHR)  device which we knew nothing about before examining the report.
5. We will consider installing a timer on the en suite bathroom fan (sure wish I knew more about electrical stuff, but I don’t and I hate calling in an electrician for what should be such a simply thing).
6. We’ll see about rearranging the power bars for our entertainment center in the family room and my home office to be able to turn off all of those devices when not in use.
7. We will investigate further the solar wall system to supplement our heating in the winter. We’ve seen estimates of between $2,00 and $5,000 for these system. We do not understand why there is no grant money available for this even though it looks like a real saving on the heating bill.

There, I think that’s it.

Keep returning to our web site as we will continue to update you on our progress with our progress, or lack thereof, for the above 7 action items we have undertaken. It’s been quite the education for us as we examined the Energy Efficiently Evaluation Report received on our house under the ecoENERGY Grant program. We hope you have not only enjoyed our posts but also learned something along the way which you can use to reduce your energy consumption.