insulate my house

Hopefully this weekend!

I live in SoCAL and use a space heater WHEN I need heat about two weeks a year, so I am not that worried about the whole house. I do notice that the hot water is much cooler in winter and would like to fix this and save money on water heating.

DH started by wrapping the water heater with a insulated blanket $14 +45 minutes to install. I have noticed the water temp is much improved, which means we are probably saving $ too. I highly recommend this as a first step. It was cheap and we can really feel the difference.

The water pipes are next as they are copper and have zero insulation. NONE. As this is an old house with a basement/ crawl space, so the pipes are visible and exposed. I am making this my project for the weekend.

Other easy things we have done to cut the heat bill and save $:

Install a curtain on one side of a doorway to cut the air flow down a hallway. No idea how much money this saves, but you can feel the difference in temp between the hall and the unheated den.

Install heavier full length curtains in front of full length bedroom glass doors. Noticeably warmer. Bonus light blocking.

Stop watering the year in winter. If the ground is damp why keep watering the weeds??? They just grow faster.

The insulation is in, and I’m headed back to the office. I’m told I have R40 coverage. Woot!

shouldn’t be too much longer now. Oh, and they sealed off all the openings so no more pigeons or rats can get in up there, or as the foreman put it, “I’m not changing the sheets for those pigeons”.

now they’re going to blow in the new stuff

I’m going for the good middle ground on this one (somewhere between satisfying and sufficing). This goal has been hanging on my list like a dingleberry for years. When I first added it, I was envisioning new attic insulation along with in-wall insulation. Since then, pigeons have invaded and been chased out and left voluminous mounds of poop as a cruel pigeon gift.

This Wed/Thu I’m having a pest removal firm remove all the contaminated insulation (the ‘geons were removed a couple years ago). They’ll let off some enzyme bombs and clear out all the poop. Next, they’ll insulate the attice with about 18” of blow-in insulation (it has about 8” of batting now). This should make a big difference with heat retention in the winter and heat reduction in the summer.

Wish me luck!

I can’t afford it but I’ve found a great website, blended with facts and some humor. I gotta get it done before this winter.

Here it is:

http://www.diyhomeinsulation.com/

I want high efficiency insulation either foam, or cellulite all in the roof and all the walls! I want to “Doug Rye” my house!!!

I have a whole lot of quotes now, plus the information I picked up at the Walk Against Warming. Dan and I will sit down and talk it over and try to work out which one will suit our purposes best.

I emailed seven people today asking for a rough quote and explaining that I was looking for the most environmentally sustainable sort of insulation they had. (I also read about this on teh internets.) Progress.

I went through the Puget Sound Energy site to find my insulation guy. He told me much of what I already knew – that insulating the attic a bit more would be the biggest bang for my buck. I was going to do this myself (as it’s easy) but PSE is giving a $300 rebate for the attic and I’m thinking of having these guys also blow insulation into my walls – may be easiest and cost-effective just to have them blow another 6 inches in the attic at the same time.

The big thing I learned was exactly how they go about blowing it in the walls of an older house like mine (1912). Currently there is no insulation in the walls whatsoever. Just plaster walls with rippled cedar siding. They pull a shingle for every chamber (I think framing of the 2×4s is 16” on center), drill a hole and blow in a bunch of recycled newspaper. Then they plug the whole and put the shingle back on. In the end I’ll likely have to do a little touch-up painting, but nothing too serious.

• Has anyone else had this done?
• Were you happy with the results?
• How much did you pay?

I’ll have the full dimensions of the walls when I get the quote back – that will make comparing to other homes easier. If anyone has insulated an older home I’d appreciate your insights. In my case I can’t effectively warm two of the outlying rooms when it’s really cold out. Also, my house gets hot in the summer – on the hotest days it’s 90F around 7pm (and stays in the 80s in the house all night)!