Daily Home Renovation Tips

Editor’s Note: Over the holidays we are re-publishing selected articles related to our ecoENERGY energy conservation experiences. Some of the grant amounts may have changed. To access the more than 20 articles we have written on our energy conservation experiences through the ecoENERGY Residential Retrofit program, simply use this link to access our ecoENERGY Energy Conservation page.

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The next recommendation in the Energy Efficiency Evaluation Report we received from the evaluation company under the ecoENERGY Grant program was a simple one:

This recommendation is further described later in the report as follows:

If we act on some of the earlier recommendations, specifically replacing the majority of the windows with ENERGY STAR rated windows, we are well underway to achieving this recommendation and it’s $300 combined grant, and of course the annual energy savings by having a less ‘leaky’ house to heat in the winter and cool in the summer.

But, there is more to this. Simple measures one can take, as advised by our evaluator, Bruce, will also help reduce the air leakage of 253 square inches during his visit include:

• Using strippable caulking around the entrance to the attic from one of the bedrooms
• Installing weather stripping and a sweep on the door to the cold cellar (remember, the cold cellar has a direct vent to the outside).
• While not on the report we know that the front door has a massive amount of air leakage….we can feel the cold air coming into the house on a cold or windy day

What’s more, if our air leakage improves not by 10% but by 20%, our understanding is that the grant money doubles to $600.

Many of the energy conservation related money saving tips and home maintenance tips we have written about over the past two years were directly aimed at reducing the amount of air leakage in our home, from the front door replacement and our ENERGY STAR windows to many different air leakage reduction efforts. Lots and lots of possibilities here not just for us for for every home.