Hi Everyone,
It`s November and things are starting to get chilly around here. As such, this is a great time to talk about the Basketball-sized hole in your house! As the Chair of the Board for the Clean Calgary Association, we always work hard to have good speakers at our AGM`s. Our speaker for the 2006 AGM was Simon Knight, CEO of Climate Change Central, and this was one of his quotes "The average house in Canada has a hole in it the size of a basketball". This may sound crazy, but it represents the sum of all the tiny gaps and cracks in your home and it has a HUGE impact on your utility bills. Imagine if you had a hole that big in your wall in the middle of December. You`d sure do something about it quickly, wouldn`t you? Well, it turns out you DO have a hole that big right now, they`re just spread out around your house.
Now, I know that some of you don`t pay your utilities (your tenants do), but all the more reason to do them a good deed for Karma points. Chances are, they would sure appreciate a 5 or 10% reduction in their heating and cooling bills, too.
Prime areas for better sealing include:
Windows, Doors, Outlets, Switches
Old Windows and Doors are your worst culprits. To verify if this is a problem, simply move your hand and arms around the perimeter of the area in question. The skin and tiny hairs on your hands is so sensitive that it is easy to feel drafts. A good quality caulk will easily fix most gaps and cracks. For doors, sometimes the solution is new weatherstipping around the door frame.
Outlets and switches are also massive culprits yet often overlooked. I recently had an energy audit done on my home and was amazed at how much air flowed through those little outlet holes. How do we solve this? There are two solutions:
1. Most hardware stores sell outlet gaskets, little rubbery insulating inserts that sit between the switch and the cover plate.
2. Child safety plugs. Do you remember those plugs your parents used to stick in the sockets to keep you from sticking your fork in them? Those little gems actually do wonders for stopping cool air from entering your house. Use them on any outlets that you don`t use on a regular basis. NOTE: even interior walls can have drafts, so use them there too.
These things may seem like small potatoes compared to the size of your home, but here`s the thing: An air tight home that is well insulated gets hot and stays hot. A drafty home gets hot, then the hot air escapes, and it must keep working constantly to warm the cool air entering the house. The result is dramatically reduced bills and dramatically reduced wear and tear on the life of your furnace. So, there IS a benefit to you helping your tenants reduce their bills after all! I call it hedging your `furnace replacement risk`!
So do your wallet and the environment a favour this month and spend some time caulking, sealing, gasketing, and child proofing your properties.
Stop the air leaks and the wallet leaks will stop, too!
Until next month,
Happy eco-investing,
Kevin.
It`s November and things are starting to get chilly around here. As such, this is a great time to talk about the Basketball-sized hole in your house! As the Chair of the Board for the Clean Calgary Association, we always work hard to have good speakers at our AGM`s. Our speaker for the 2006 AGM was Simon Knight, CEO of Climate Change Central, and this was one of his quotes "The average house in Canada has a hole in it the size of a basketball". This may sound crazy, but it represents the sum of all the tiny gaps and cracks in your home and it has a HUGE impact on your utility bills. Imagine if you had a hole that big in your wall in the middle of December. You`d sure do something about it quickly, wouldn`t you? Well, it turns out you DO have a hole that big right now, they`re just spread out around your house.
Now, I know that some of you don`t pay your utilities (your tenants do), but all the more reason to do them a good deed for Karma points. Chances are, they would sure appreciate a 5 or 10% reduction in their heating and cooling bills, too.
Prime areas for better sealing include:
Windows, Doors, Outlets, Switches
Old Windows and Doors are your worst culprits. To verify if this is a problem, simply move your hand and arms around the perimeter of the area in question. The skin and tiny hairs on your hands is so sensitive that it is easy to feel drafts. A good quality caulk will easily fix most gaps and cracks. For doors, sometimes the solution is new weatherstipping around the door frame.
Outlets and switches are also massive culprits yet often overlooked. I recently had an energy audit done on my home and was amazed at how much air flowed through those little outlet holes. How do we solve this? There are two solutions:
1. Most hardware stores sell outlet gaskets, little rubbery insulating inserts that sit between the switch and the cover plate.
2. Child safety plugs. Do you remember those plugs your parents used to stick in the sockets to keep you from sticking your fork in them? Those little gems actually do wonders for stopping cool air from entering your house. Use them on any outlets that you don`t use on a regular basis. NOTE: even interior walls can have drafts, so use them there too.
These things may seem like small potatoes compared to the size of your home, but here`s the thing: An air tight home that is well insulated gets hot and stays hot. A drafty home gets hot, then the hot air escapes, and it must keep working constantly to warm the cool air entering the house. The result is dramatically reduced bills and dramatically reduced wear and tear on the life of your furnace. So, there IS a benefit to you helping your tenants reduce their bills after all! I call it hedging your `furnace replacement risk`!
So do your wallet and the environment a favour this month and spend some time caulking, sealing, gasketing, and child proofing your properties.
Stop the air leaks and the wallet leaks will stop, too!
Until next month,
Happy eco-investing,
Kevin.
