I am always looking for ways to trim household expenses.
I split coupons, shop sales, turn the lights off when I leave the room & keep our showers as short as possible. I’ve realized that heating & cooling accounts for approximately 50% of our household energy USAge, then because of this, I’ve focused on tightening up the apartment to prevent the heated & cooled air from leaking out. I’ve gradually replaced every single window in the house. I installed thermal pane, Energy Star rated, low E windows that were extremely costly. I carefully caulked & insulated around them. I also purchased current exterior doors & weatherstripped them. I’ve added ceiling fans to help push the heat toward the floor in the Winter time & encourage it up & out during the summer. I have thermal lined curtains that I close to block out the sun on warm summer time mornings & open to let the sun heat up the rooms on freezing Winter time mornings, however just recently, I realized that the insulation in the attic needed to be replaced. It was apparently compressed & injured by moisture & rodent infestation, then the attic is designed to serve as a barrier between the living space & the outdoor conditions, when always insulated, the attic can significantly improve comfort & reduce the workload of the heating & cooling system! However, with insufficient insulation, the attic tends to get extremely warm in the summer time & horribly freezing in the winter. Warm air tends to travel to cooler arenas. That means the heat from the attic moves into the air conditioned living area during warmer weather. In the winter, the heat from the oil furnace migrates up into the cooler attic, but replacing the insulation in the attic was a cost-effective system but also an terrible job. I spent an entire day crawling around the warm attic, dealing with wet, dirty insulation & then installing current insulation.