Insulating Your Home for Efficient Heating and Cooling
You’ve just setup your Satan’s Playground 9000 portable heating unit and are looking forward to finally getting a night of sleep that doesn’t involve breaking icicles off your toes in the morning. You’d considered getting the 8000 model but the 9000 lists as a supremely efficient, low-cost, portable heating device so you dropped the extra coin thinking you’d realize savings in the long run.
After removing two dozen comforters and blankets (stacked to within an inch of the ceiling) from your bed and stripping off the seven insulating layers of thermal underwear you’ve been traipsing around in, you crawl into bed with a sigh of contentment and significant relief that you won’t have to use your great grandfather’s heirloom armoire for kindling after all. But, come morning, you discover there are still icicles on your toes, the portable heating unit looks like it has just run a triathlon trying to keep your room above absolute zero and the power company sends a representative to visit carrying flowers, a bottle of champagne and a plaque honoring you as their “Most Valued Customer.”
What went wrong?
Whatever your objective, heating or cooling, your plans will be spoiled if your home or room is not sufficiently insulated. Given that we spend between 50 and 70% of our utility bills just keeping our homes comfortable, you can see how inadequate insulation can not only ruin your attempts at comfort but dramatically raise your bills.
While you can (and may need to) hire a professional to conduct an energy efficiency inspection of your home, there are some lower cost options you can do yourself in an effort to limit or eliminate weaknesses in your home’s defenses against the elements.
Start by checking your windows. According to the Federal Citizen Information Center, a typical home loses 25% of its heat through windows. Though expensive, high-efficiency windows with double pane glass and inert gas may be one solution, a first step is to simply determine if your windows are sealing well. Ensure your storm windows (if you have them) are closed, then close the window and feel for drafts. We’ll discuss cheap solutions for drafty windows in a subsequent post but step one is to identify how much of a problem your windows are causing you.
Next, check your exterior doors. One notable area is the bottom of the door. If you note a large gap in this area, you may be pouring substantial amounts of heat (and money) literally out the front door.
Often overlooked are attic accesses. Run the back of your hand along the seam of the attic entry and feel for drafts in this space. There may be inexpensive options to solve problems here as well.
The last two trouble spots are your attic and your walls. While decades old insulation in your attic should be enough of an indicator that it’s time to refresh the space with some modern and efficient alternatives, it’s far more difficult to assess what you have behind your walls. The exterior walls of your home could be sucking your heating and your money away at an alarming rate. There aren’t any easy or cheap solutions here but it would be wise to consult a professional and weigh the savings you’re likely to realize by solving any problem areas.
A professional can assist you with a lot of these elements (particularly wall and attic insulation). The use of a thermal gun can pinpoint problem areas in your home and eliminate the need to tear out all the walls and insulate the entire area. If your heating loss is severe, hiring a professional to review the situation is your smartest bet.
If your quick investigation has revealed a few problem areas in the windows and doors, check back with the Heating and Cooling HQ soon and we’ll try to help you solve those problems with as little impact to your wallet as we can manage.
Filed Under Insulation for Efficient Heating and Cooling |
Tagged With cooling, efficient, energy efficiency, energy efficiency inspection, heating, inadequate insulation, insulate, insulated, Insulation for Efficient Heating and Cooling, low-cost, portable heating, portable heating device, portable heating unit, windows
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[...] our previous post - Insulating Your Home for Efficient Heating and Cooling - we talked a bit about some of the vulnerable points that expose your home to needless heat loss [...]