Air Sealed the house

[Piotrsko]

There are local and federal tax rebates for home insulation but they require a contractor's installation, permits and related governance intrusion (at least in Reno or Lost Wages) Unsure if the original survey for efficiency is included....

The annoying thing is indoor air quality remediation because your byproduct pollution from everyday living is expensive if you want efficiency

[Goldenstate]

I can certainly understand the requirements for having a contractor to verify the correct installation of energy savings improvements in a home.

I had some sun screens installed on three sides of the house as that was all that was cost effective for my location. No need to put the screens on the north side as the sun only made contact with those windows about 4-6 weeks per year. Had to do the whole house or no tax write off. The cost savings of not doing the sun screens was better than the write off so it was an easy decision to thumb my nose at the smaller savings of the government write off.

As I started to seal up the top plate and install the interior wall insulation, I began to notice that when opening a door from the outside, I could feel a pressure wave against the door like never before. As I continued to seal up the house, the pressure wave effect on opening the door was slightly greater all the time. If I had a window open, the pressure wave on opening the door was not there.

Another thing I noted was sometimes I could seal up the top plate and insulate a wall section or two, the water suddenly became warmer faster and even hotter at a faucet or shower than ever before. I had not expected that bit of a bonus, but sure does feel nice now that the weather has turned colder. Made me think that perhaps I could have tried to focus on wall sections that might contain hot water pipes to get the warmer water bonus first.

[redpoint5]

My pantry motion sensor lights come on when strong gusts of wind occur outside. I took a peek with FLIR this weekend and couldn't find the cold spot. I'll wait for a very cold and gusty day to see if I can locate the problem area.

I've got a flimsy yet large dog door in the basement that should probably be duct taped, since we don't have dogs yet.

I need to foam the holes I drilled from the attic between the walls to run cat6 cable. I figured between the walls, with fiberglass insulation over the holes would be fine, but it probably still creates drafts, especially since I didn't seal the wall penetrations for the 2-gang box I installed. Maybe I'll just buy a bunch of those foam seals for 1 and 2 gang boxes and install them when I paint the interior.

Very rough math, my highest heating month is January (switching to Aerohead mode)...
*My energy monitor says I average about 70 kWh running the HVAC blower in January
*The blower only comes on when the furnace is on (and gas furnaces are either on or off, no variable output)
*It consumes 700 watts while running
*70 kWh per month divided by 0.7 kW blower consumption = 100 hours of furnace operation in the month of January.
*100 hours divided by 31 days = about 3hrs 20min per day, or 13.4% of the time.
*120,000 BTU (furnace consumption) = 1.2 therms
*1.2 therms per hour times 100 hours = 120 therms
*120 therms times $1.33 per therm = $159 to heat a 3,600 sq/ft house in the month of January.
*Confounding factors include 2 NG fireplaces that have no method of measuring use, and are omitted from the heating calculation above.

The way for me to track efficiency improvements is to monitor HVAC blower energy consumption in the heating months (Oct-May)

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by ALS

I'm hoping people on here realize after reading our stories that there is lot more money to be saved over the long run, by making their homes more efficient.

Not only it pays off, it's also much less of a PITA than having to do repairs or retrofits more often

[Piotrsko]

Two comments:
1: you can get too efficient and the house becomes very uncomfortable, stinky and humid

2:redpoint5: are the gas fireplaces afttermarket additions or original installs? The aftermarket ones aren't as sealed generally

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

:redpoint5: are the gas fireplaces afttermarket additions or original installs? The aftermarket ones aren't as sealed generally

Original, and from what I've read they are fairly efficient (not much worse than my 80% NG furnace). Probably more efficient now that I installed PC cooling fans that actually move air, instead of the pointless squirrel cage blowers that just make noise while consuming 70 watts.

[ALS]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

*120 therms times $1.33 per therm = $159 to heat a 3,600 sq/ft house in the month of January.

I'd love to be paying $1.33 per Therm. Last months Gas bill has a cost of $1.7517 per Therm. The worst part is that I live in the Marcellus gas field.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by ALS

I'd love to be paying $1.33 per Therm. Last months Gas bill has a cost of $1.7517 per Therm. The worst part is that I live in the Marcellus gas field.

I recall something about my utility having negotiated a long-term contracted price when it was cheap. Next month the bill increases 35% because the gas company is "going green", and will single-handedly solve global warming. The upshot is nobody else needs to worry anymore, because all it took is an instant 35% rate increase for a tiny fraction of the worlds population to avert catastrophe.

I'm glad to do it though, and expect there will be monuments erected in my (and the handful of others) name(s).

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

1: you can get too efficient and the house becomes very uncomfortable, stinky and humid

Enthalpy wheel:

Thermal wheel
A thermal wheel, also known as a rotary heat exchanger, or rotary air-to-air enthalpy wheel, energy recovery wheel, or heat recovery wheel, is a type of energy recovery heat exchanger positioned within the supply and exhaust air streams of air-handling units or rooftop units or in the exhaust gases of an industrial process, in order to recover the heat energy. Other variants include enthalpy wheels and desiccant wheels. Wikipedia

[JRMichler]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Two comments:
1: you can get too efficient and the house becomes very uncomfortable, stinky and humid

Wrong. An airtight home needs mechanical ventilation, which is normally combined with a heat exchanger to make an HRV: Heat Recovery Ventilator.

A well insulated house will get humid inside when it's humid outside at temperatures too low to run the AC. The remedy is a dehumidifier. My house has a Walmart Energy Star dehumidifier in the utility room. When the indoor relative humidity gets over 50-55%, we open the door to the room and turn on the dehumidifier for a couple of hours. We empty the bucket once a day and keep the indoor humidity below 50-55%. The result is a comfortable house with no mold or stink.

Old timers claim that a house "needs to breathe". That refers to a house that leaks a lot. Cold air comes in, gets heated, and leaves. Those houses have high heating bills, and get so dry inside that they need humidifiers. You get the same effect by opening windows on cold days.