Losing

I keep losing things. My most recent rash of losses began when we bought this house. I was losing heat throught my ceiling and attic because my insulation was, in some places R-0, in others R-10, and in a lucky few places, R-25.

This caused a loss of money, as I continually paid more and more on my Natural Gas bill each month. To put this into perspective: my old house was 850 sq. ft. and my entire annual gas bill, including gas dryer and water heater, came to about $720.

In our new house of about 1700 sq. ft. (built in 1939) I am paying almost that much for January and February, and we use an electric dryer now.

We decided to have a Home Energy Audit done on our house because the goverment gives grants to cover the cost of lots of improvements. The audit costs about $300, but identifies the weak areas of your home, indicates what you should do to fix them, and informs the goverment of everything. Once you've completed your work, the auditor comes back for a second visit, tests your house again, and reports the improved numbers back to the goverment, who then cuts you a fat cheque for a million dollars.

When the auditor came in late September, I took pictures of his fan system that evacuated the air from our house. This is how air leaks are found. Here's where the losing theme comes into play again - I lost the pictures I took (along with the pictures I took of me making my Doc Brown costume. Yes, even more losing).

Our audit indicated, among other things, that we currently have a low level of insulation in our attic, and that if we improved the Resistance value to R-40, we'd receive $400 from the Provincial Gov't and $400 from the Federal Gov't. Sweet!

The Report:

Your house currently rates 35 (out of 100). If you implement all of the recommendations, you could reduce your energy consumption by up to 24% and increase its energy efficiency rating to 51. The average efficiency rating for a 1939 house in Canada is 44.

The standard energy efficiency of new homes built in Ontario is 75. To qualify for an "Energy Star" rating, your house must be 80-100.

We got estimates for doing the work, and things got even sweeter. We could insulate our 900 sq. ft. attic with blown fibreglass for $810. But, if we wanted to save even more money, they suggested doing R-50 for an additional $80. I said yes. Who wouldn't? Maybe someone who didn't have $80. But not me!

The crew came within a few days and filled our attic with practically 3 feet of fluffy, scratchy insulation, pumped through a large plastic tube. It was all over the floors and stuck to our clothes.

Upon completion, our house was so warm that everything began melting. We've had the a/c on 3 days this week, and there's no end to the heat wave in sight. But seriously, I have to say I'm quite pleased and hope that my losing streak is now over.