gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
What are some obvious and, more importantly, less obvious ways you save money on your home energy bills? How costly and cost effective did each turn out? Edit: also, what did you find to NOt work or be as practical as you thought?
For instance, wrapping hot water pipes in foam insulation is very cheap and obvious, but I was always told that those bulky fiberglass hot water heaters were a waste, which ended up not being the case for me. I ended up buying one for cheap and used a thermometer to probe between the shell and the new insulation and was surprised to see a much higher temp than ambient (102.5F vs 54F - I probed near the top, so it would obviously be the warmest location, but it was still way more significant than I expected). Now, the heater is not new, so YMMV greatly.
The back of our house also faces south, so the sky lights and windows add a ton of heat in the winter, but suck in the summer. Thermal curtains make sense in the winter at night and our north-facing windows, but all I have are shades in the summer. I haven’t considered whether to add some sort of reflective blocker outside the windows (inside would still generate heat inside the space).
I also need to add more insulation to the attic and seal some locations. I’m also debating removing the bats of fiberglass in the floor joists and adding some foam barrier. The fiberglass bats are sagging and certainly not doing as good of a job as they could. I think some foam cut to shape and sealed to the bottom of the floor, with the bats beneath them would be a good improvement.
There‘re a ton of options, like solar, LED lighting, insulating garage doors, ensuring barriers and seals are good, spraying foam into walls, etc. What has worked for you?
Those are just some examples. What do you estimate your ROI to be?
For instance, wrapping hot water pipes in foam insulation is very cheap and obvious, but I was always told that those bulky fiberglass hot water heaters were a waste, which ended up not being the case for me. I ended up buying one for cheap and used a thermometer to probe between the shell and the new insulation and was surprised to see a much higher temp than ambient (102.5F vs 54F - I probed near the top, so it would obviously be the warmest location, but it was still way more significant than I expected). Now, the heater is not new, so YMMV greatly.
The back of our house also faces south, so the sky lights and windows add a ton of heat in the winter, but suck in the summer. Thermal curtains make sense in the winter at night and our north-facing windows, but all I have are shades in the summer. I haven’t considered whether to add some sort of reflective blocker outside the windows (inside would still generate heat inside the space).
I also need to add more insulation to the attic and seal some locations. I’m also debating removing the bats of fiberglass in the floor joists and adding some foam barrier. The fiberglass bats are sagging and certainly not doing as good of a job as they could. I think some foam cut to shape and sealed to the bottom of the floor, with the bats beneath them would be a good improvement.
There‘re a ton of options, like solar, LED lighting, insulating garage doors, ensuring barriers and seals are good, spraying foam into walls, etc. What has worked for you?
Those are just some examples. What do you estimate your ROI to be?
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