Posts from — January 2010

Caulk Caulk Caulk Caulk.

That’s the answer to one very effective way we’ve made our 100 year old rustic Carolina farmhouse more energy efficient.

To weatherize our home after our disastrous 1st winter in which we heated all of lower Pittsboro, North Carolina, we caulked and caulked and caulked some more. Oh – did I forget to mention that in that first, expensive, wasteful winter WE WEREN’T EVEN LIVING IN THE HOUSE AT THE TIME? All of that energy was being spent heating a house to just-barely-warm so Mark, our lead auditor, home renovator,  and the husband of this writer, could work on the house before we moved in our family.

Over the course of that winter we used 150 tubes of caulk in our house. Yes, 150. I am not exaggerating. I can produce the receipts if you want.

This house was very, very leaky – largely because every single wall of the house except for the small bathroom/laundry add-on that was here when we moved in, is constructed out of bead board. Not the bead board you buy at the big-box lumber store that comes in flat, solid sheets of paneling; no, bead board that is made from individual boards. Every place the boards fit together was a place for a potential air leak. Every air leak was a place to caulk. The boards range from 3 1/2″ wide to 1 1/2″ wide.

The math: 2700 square feet = 9 rooms (plus 2 big hallways) built of 2 1/2″ (on average) boards = a heck of a lot of cracks to seal = 150 tubes of caulk.

The crazy thing about the caulking is that when we started it was largely for cosmetic reasons. We repainted the entire downstairs and once we’d put on the primer we saw the cracks and the cracks and the cracks. They looked bad! So we caulked them up. We weren’t going to do the kids’ rooms (upstairs), but at the last minute I decided that all the dirt falling down from the attic through the cracks in the ceiling was a health hazard – so we sealed their rooms up, too. Thank goodness we did. I can only imagine the dirt and the air leaks and high energy bills we’d have if we hadn’t done that.

We had a great deal to caulk in this house. It made a huge difference. We’ve lived here 4 years and we’ve never had energy bills like that first year, (in fact, our bills now are a little less than half) and a lot of it is owed to the caulk. We don’t have a lot of insulation in the walls (although we do have a well insulated attic and crawl – more on that later), so if you think about it all that stands between us and the outside are the boards that make up the walls and wood siding…and caulk.

Even if you don’t live in a house with 50 cracks in every wall, however,  you, too, can benefit in the power of caulk. Caulk is cheap and pretty easy to use and although we recommend gloves to preserve your manicure, water-soluble caulk is pretty much non-toxic and can be smoothed out with a fingertip.

Places for any homeowner to caulk:

• around the escutcheon plates of your plumbing fixtures (the plastic plates that cover the plumbing where it comes out of the floor/wall)
• around any obvious cracks (like where baseboard or crown moulding touches the wall)
• around electrical outlets/light switches (here’s an article on how to do this effectively)

Caulk caulk caulk. The d.i.y. weatherization person’s very best friend.

Hey – here is part 1 of this series on how we weatherized our old house.

And here is part 2.

Here’s a nice little article/blog entry about how homeowners can prepare themselves for Cash for Caulkers/HomeStar should it go into effect.

Number one on the list of suggestions? Get an energy audit by an “accredited buildings professional.” Nice!

Earlier this month we got a ton of calls here at Home Performance NC. Mark, our lead auditor, thought it was probably due to the weather taking a turn, but based on the topic of conversation that morning ’round the old water cooler, I think it was the advent of everyone’s electric bills arriving. Kind of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario, but interesting to think about just the same.

I think I’m right. Here’s why: for about 3 days everyone I ran into went on and on about how high their electric bills had been for December.

My prediction: at the beginning of February we’re going to get more calls. Lots more calls. Because although it’s warmed up here in central NC the past couple of days (on Sunday it was almost 70 degrees!) we had a couple weeks there of very cold temperatures. Northeners would laugh at this, but for 2 weeks in a row it was below freezing!

That is mighty chilly for the Piedmont.

On the plus side: below freezing temperatures are supposed to kill ticks.

On the minus side: below freezing temperatures lead to heating units running and running and running. Which means high bills.

How to combat the bills? Get an audit and weatherize the heck out of your house. Then relax and wait ’til spring.

Check it out:

When a home energy audit pays

Thank you. Thank you very much.

We do have a slight disagreement with the article, or maybe with Cash for Caulkers. It’s hard to tell where this is coming from.  ”This” being the amount of money they’re budgeting for weatherization retrofits:

…getting all that work done might run into the tens of thousands of dollars. And any new federal program – which is still being drafted and is not guaranteed to become law – would cap the government reimbursements at $12,000…

Uh, what???? That is a TON of money! Seriously. I guess if you replace every appliance in your house and get a brand new HVAC system and foam insulate everything it might cost you that much, but that’s a little far out of the ballpark of most home’s weatherization retrofits. Like out of ballfield and up to the moon. Here’s more:

Homeowners need not despair. There are some simple improvements that are relatively cheap and can pay for themselves quickly. Just adding the insulation, caulking and lights might run an average homeowner $5,000 to $7,000, he said.

Uh…more like $1000-$4000, buddy. But I guess we’re in central NC, not the center of Manhattan or San Francisco, where I imagine everything costs 3x as much as here.

Okay, okay, I found another article that mentions the $, but here it says that the $12,000 is 50% of the homeowner’s total reimbursement, which could be up to $24,000.

Holy moly! I’m guessing we’re talking more than weatherization, then. Like geothermal, or solar. Which is completely cool (and methinks we’ll be doing some upgrades to our house if that’s the case) but falls more in the lines of a complete energy overhaul than a retrofit. But tomaytoes, tomahtoes, right? Bottom line, actual weatherization should not cost much more than a couple thousand dollars, and most of the time it costs much less than that.

Anyway, the program sounds good and I really hope everything works out the way it’s predicted to. I truly believe that energy audits and weatherization are effective ways to improve your home, save you money, and save the world and I’m glad that other people (lie our president) do, too.

In my last post I focused on Progress Energy’s rebates for duct testing, which can be applied towards a full energy audit done by one of their approved contractors, like us. This post will outline how Progress Energy helps its Carolina customers follow up an energy audit with weatherization to improve a home’s energy efficiency.

Basically, PE provides rebates for weatherization in the areas of duct sealing (covered in the last post), air sealing, and insulation. They will also help homeowners replace their heat/AC systems if you replace them with high efficiency systems. And finally, they offer rebates on window replacement. We don’t happen to think that replacing your windows is the best way to use energy efficiency dollars, but in case you disagree with us or have other compelling reasons to change our your windows please take advantage of this rebate.

Here are the details on PE’s rebates for air sealing and insulation:

They will give you a rebate of $.375/sq. ft for air sealing your attic and improving your insulation levels up to $375, if…

• You are improving your insulation from less than R-19 and going up to at least R-30. (For more information then you’ve ever wanted to know about “R” values and what they mean, please go to this website).
• AND you have a centrally ducted Heat/AC system
• AND you have the work done by someone on their contractor list (and YES, we are on that list, too)
• AND you are a Progress Energy customer.

That last one seems a little dumb to have to add, since we are talking about Progress Energy, but I guess they get enough non-customers asking for their rebates that they had to put that in the description.

Anyway, this is a really, really great deal for homeowners. But here’s the kicker: do not, I repeat, DO NOT do the easy thing and just hire an insulation contractor to dump a bunch of insulation on top of what you already have. No sirree! Be sure to have your audit first so you can show your contractor where you have leaks in your attic, then SEAL THE ATTIC (!!), then add the insulation.

Seriously. Dumping more insulation on top of an unsealed attic is like…I can’t think of a good analogy right now – but it’s not a smart thing to do. Sealing the attic is the #1 most important thing in this whole equation.

Seal it. First, have an audit (and get your rebate for duct testing). Then seal your attic…then, and only then, increase your insulation.

Please.

This is a re-post of something I wrote last fall, but it is totally worth it to re-post it in case you didn’t read it before or if you somehow have missed what an AMAZING deal Progress Energy is giving to its customers in the Carolinas. Out of all the energy companies that serve central NC, they are giving the very best incentives to homeowners who want to make their homes more energy efficient. We can only hope that other power companies in the area catch on to the value that PE is giving their customers.

Here’s the original post, which only focused on Progress Energy’s DUCT SEALING rebates. The point of this post is to show you how you can use this rebate to help pay for a full energy audit:

If you have Performance Energy as your power company I’d like to take a minute to break it down to you how much money you can save by getting a professional Energy Audit (which includes duct testing) and then having your ducts sealed.

The prices I’m listing below depend on the house, the number of HVAC units, and the condition of your ductwork, but here’s a general roundup:

Energy Audit: $300-$450
Duct sealing: $250-$400
Progress Energy rebates:
Energy Audit: up to $90
Duct sealing: up to $240

If you have a BIG HOUSE and 2 HVAC units your price for the audit and sealing will be in the $800 range…but your rebates will be $330. So the whole shebang will cost you $470. And since industry experts estimate that sealing your ducts can save you 10-20% on your home heating and cooling bills…you do the math. How quickly will you earn back that less than $500 payout? Not to mention that you’ve also had a full energy audit done, so you’ll know exactly where to put other money to get the best return.

If you have a smaller house with only one unit, your costs will be more like $550. You’ll be eligible for a $180 rebate, which puts your costs around $370 or so. Again, how soon will you earn your money back if you’re saving 20% on your heating and cooling bills? With a year…then after that the savings go in your pocket.

For a list of Progress Energy approved service providers, go to their website. I’m sure you’ll see that our company, Home Performance NC is one of those listed!

Next: Progress Energy and more weatherization rebates