Around half of the energy consumed by the average household is due to heating and cooling, but temperature control makes a big impact on the environment and budget.
When living in a section with harshly cold winter weather and sizzling hot summers, minimizing the cost of heating and cooling is a priority.
I’m always searching for ways to tighten up the home and prevent energy waste. I’ve slowly updated every single window in the home with a thermal pane, an Energy Star rated window. Every year, I caulk and weatherstrip around doors and windows. I’ve installed ceiling fans to help push the heat down toward the floor in winter and boost it up and out in the summer. Just recently, I realized that I needed to update the insulation in the attic. Although my partner and I insulated when we first moved into our home, that was nearly twelve years ago. Over time, moisture, rodents and mold had compromised the integrity of the insulation. It was no longer providing an efficient barrier against the weather, and we had some growing concerns with ice dams building up on the roof and icicles hanging off the edges. My partner and I briefly considered handling the project ourselves, however ended up hiring a licensed HVAC company to complete the job. The cost of materials and labor was not overly expensive and neither one of us was eager to crawl around the small attic. The HVAC repairman completed the attic insulation in an hour. There wasn’t a mess either. The improvement in comfort and efficiency of our house was apparent. We noticed that although the A/C wasn’t running as long or working as hard, we all benefited from more even temperatures from room to room. When winter arrived, the cost of running the heating system was considerably lower.