Energy Efficiency: It’s a Money Problem
When we bought our current money pit, erm, house, we expected to get pretty good energy efficiency due to it being a concrete and Styrofoam construction method, think adobe style with 1’ thick walls. Yes, 1 foot thick (0.3 m) walls that provide extra wind resistance to over 300 mph (allegedly), better fire ratings, and definitely better insulation properties than a traditional built home. When we replaced our furnace and AC unit last year, we opted for a more efficient system because it costs less to operate, uses less resources to run, and we thought it would go well with the rest of the energy efficiency aspects of the house. What we didn’t realize is that the home was built with the concrete walls because the previous owner was terrified of tornadoes… Um, maybe move out of tornado alley? IDK… Just a thought.
Beyond that fear, they didn’t care at all about energy efficiency. We’ve been making some efficiency improvements around here and even during these past 2 cold spells, our downstairs has stayed above 62 F WITHOUT the heat coming on all day! This was during a 3 day cold snap with temps around the 30’s F and the latest cold spell with temps of 26 F and 30 mph constant winds with 50 mph gusts. The inside temp finally got down to 62 F by 5pm, but again, this is without the heat coming on ALL DAY! How did we pull this off? By throwing money at it of course!
The Money Pit
Our house has been a mixed bag, in that we love the location, property, and layout of the house but we don’t love the amount of money that we’ve spent to get this house working as it was designed. As I’ve written about (though literally no one read this post, lol) we found out our AC/furnace were undersized and did NOT cool the house effectively. Initially I railed about the home inspector not saying anything, but I must recant! Yes, I was wrong, not exactly right.
I found my notes from being here during the inspection and I clearly have written down “AC may be undersized for this sized house. Possible the adobe style efficiency let them put in a smaller unit, something to watch”. Yep, damnit, he did notice and after reading that I remember discussing it, hence making the note. That was a chunk of change, but I did shop around and got our more efficient units for under $9k totally installed, which was about half the other quotes I had received.
Since then, it has worked really well, but our electric bill still seemed to be higher than our Houston house which is almost 1k sq ft bigger. Yes, that much bigger and cost less, WTF?! Also, we had a propane bill of ~$400/month! Yeah, $400!!! Each GD month!! Yipes!! I’m gonna have to find a job just to cover utilities. Yipe!! So, what the hell is happening and why isn’t our house more efficient?
Insulation: Does This Make My House Look Fat
If you think of insulation as “the fat” of the house, like blubber on a whale, you quickly realize that more is usually better. Our house had blown in insulation and it looked pretty decent where I’d seen it. It covered the 2×8’s on the floor, and seemed to be deep in other places. However, when I started crawling around up there, it was pretty deficient anywhere outside of the main lines of sight. Surprise, surprise…
Our Master bedroom was a hot/cold spot and unsurprisingly I found 3-4 areas of drywall that only had 1″-2” thick of blown insulation and you could even see the drywall in some places. More searching around and I came across a LOT more places with thin insulation. Last black Friday, Lowes had 30% off of insulation, so I got $1400 (with the discount) of R-30 insulation batts and 3 pallets showed up a week later.
I spent 4 days crawling around and destroying my knees placing that all around and above the bonus room, all the bedrooms, anywhere else I saw lacking insulation. It worked so well, that when Spring came, the upstairs room stayed warmer than the attic. Yep, the insulation was working!! However, we were still having $400/mo propane bills, so what gives?!
Windows and Doors – A Home’s Weak Point
Well, we knew that the previous owners did a lot of choosing the cheapest option and the windows and doors were no exception. Last summer, I tried my go-to by installing solar film on the critical, west facing windows and it helped, but it didn’t seem to help much. In our Houston house, that provided enough to make a noticeable difference, but not here. The windows still felt hot/cold and seem drafty. The back door especially. Yikes! You could feel heat/cold within a foot or 2 of it, and no matter how many door insulation strips I put around it I couldn’t totally seal it up and NOT see pinholes of light, here and there. So frustrating…
Hoping to find the best prices, I contacted 5 window and door companies, and I heard back from 2 of them. Yeah, only 2… One was Pella, and the other was a local place that flamed out and never contacted me back after a couple of emails. We had Pella come out and give us their sales pitch for replacing the back door only. Yep, we were just wanting to get rid of the massive energy suck that is our 12’ wide back door. The salesman came out, did his pitch, and we had our new door ordered. After a week I pressured Mrs. SSC into getting quotes for our 3 main leaky windows. These were our 5’x7’ dining room window and a similar West facing window in her office, and the small slider by my upstairs office.
My thought was that with the dramatic difference between their lowest tier double pane window and our current windows, we should see a big efficiency jump just by replacing them even with their cheapest option. So, we got that quote and decided to spend that money as well. This put the door and windows around $13k, and believe me, I know we won’t ever see a financial payout, but dang the comfort payout has been EPIC!!
Being Comfortable is Worth It
My take on spending and saving isn’t exactly in line with some of those in the PF community, however, I don’t understand the point of saving up and becoming FI and then playing the martyr about living in a cold house, or not turning on the heat, or eating all rice and beans to have a low grocery bill. If life’s not comfortable, what’s the point?! Life’s too short to save money for the sake of saving money. After we got our door and windows installed, our AC started turning on less which was awesome! When we got our first cold snap, the main house didn’t drop below 64 F all day long without the heat turning on once. Woohoo!! Usually it would come on 3-5 times a day, easily. Sure it cost a lot, but for me, it was SO worth it!
Our master bedroom is on its own zone, and I noticed that even keeping that thermostat set to 62 during the day, the heat in there was cranking on about 4-5 times a day. Dangit!! Stupid money pit! I mean, I love this house, lol. I had previously bought an infrared gun because I still have a spending problem but I was using it to look for AC duct leaks, and other insulation gaps I may have missed with my old man eyes. I took it into the bedroom and sure enough, the windows were a solid 12-15 degrees F colder than the walls, ceilings, and everything in there. As a quality check, I scanned our new windows, and the 12’ of glass that is the new back door. Woohoo!! They’re within 2-3 degrees of the inside temperatures! Hell yeah!! Except you know what that means… More money!
When we were at the National Weather Festival a few weeks back, Anderson Windows had a table set up and I spun their wheel and landed on $1k off, and I got a 10% off deal for making an appointment. Me: Sure, I’ve got time, let’s set up an appointment, lol. They came out and after some measurements and “figuring” they gave us a $9k number for 3 bedroom windows and 1 bathroom window (goodbye 80’s acrylic cubes!!) and we literally laughed at that number. We were told, they’re not in the business of beating competitor’s prices, they just sell good quality windows and doors. The next price was the price with the discounts added in from the festival and a current promotion going on and that helped some, but it was still a little high for us. Then we got another price, “for today only, while the salesman is there” and it was nicer, but still not enough to make us jump on it.
Well, after some more “selling” and push back from us, the salesman offered an additional discount. That one dropped it to just over $6k which seemed closer to what we were willing to pay. We agreed and chose the 2 years no interest, no money down option because, why pay for it now if we can pay for it for free over 2 years? Yay, debt!! Plus, does that still count as a no spend November? It does in my book! Bwahahaha I’m just excited to not hear the furnace kick on when they get installed in another few weeks. I can tell I’m getting old because I get excited about things like making my house more energy efficient.
Money’s for Spending
Sure, our house wasn’t very energy efficient when we first bought it, but within a year, we’ve turned that around pretty dang dramatically. All it took was money! Bwahahaha But seriously, if you are in a position to afford to add insulation, new energy efficient windows, solar film, and more it’s pretty darn easy. Companies will line up to give your home an enrgy audit which you can use to make your house more energy efficient and help you quit wasting natural resources. They’ll even tell you where you’ll get the most return on your dollar, whether it’s insulation, windows, doors, etc… It’s cost us a lot, maybe around $20k (not counting the ac/furnace) but man, the house stays at a stable temp, the furnace and AC run less and I don’t see dollar signs floating away every time the furnace/ac kicks on now. Mainly, because it doesn’t come on nearly as much, woohoo!!
Summary
The house is coming along, and we about have it dialed in where we want it. Having replaced windows in key parts of the house, I now notice the draftiness, and inefficiency of the remaining windows. However, they don’t seem to affect anything enough to make them worth replacing anytime soon. In the meantime, I have a few more rounds of insulation batts to place, but I wanted to make sure it’s too cold for any creepy crawlies to come say hi while I’m up there. It has cost more money than we wanted to spend, but for the peace of mind and comfort factor, it’s been worth it to us.
Do you have things you spent significantly on that others may not deem worth it? Would you spend more to make your house more efficient, knowing there’s likely NO financial payout, ever?
nicoleandmaggie
November 12, 2019Some cities will pay for energy audits. We had one and basically everything was ok except our can lights were awful. We did end up replacing those with safer LED versions that could be insulated.
Mr SSC
November 13, 2019That’s good to know about getting energy audits being covered in some areas. We opted to not do one here as it was pretty apparent where the energy leaks were, and they were pretty spendy, all things considered.
Can lights, yep, gonna look into swapping those out with LED’s very soon. They can’t be helping our overall electricity usage. And when Mrs SSc is comparing our electric bill to a neighbor’s bill saying “why isn’t ours closer to theirs?” and their house is 1000 sq ft smaller, and they seem to be way more strict with electric usage and monitoring surge pricing and that sort of thing. At least our electric company will send out texts when the pricing increases so you can ramp down the ac or heat if needed or not start the dishwasher, dryer, or any other heavy use electrical appliance.
Beth
November 12, 2019Nice summary. I did read your first money pit post. I am currently helping my friend upgrade her insulation as well. We crawl around her attic and are about half way done. She also upgraded her furnace from an ancient electric furnace to an energy efficient gas…her house cost much less to keep warm in winter and will be even better once we finish insulating above her bedrooms.
Mr SSC
November 13, 2019Thanks! Attic crawling is no fun… blech. That’s awesome when you can make a big change like upgrading a furnace. Ours was upgraded, but mainly from a SEER 14 to a 16 and adding the dual stage motors so they can blow at different speeds as needed (using less energy) instead of the on at full blast or off, style motors.
I’ve got some extra insulation from a separate project this spring that I’m going to spread around once we hit sustained cold around here. I’m too freaked out with scorpions, spiders, possible snakes, and whatever may be roaming around up there during warm temps to do any real work during those times, lol.
jMFS
November 13, 2019I bought $65 jeans from Chicago, and $20/pair wool socks… The jeans because they are as locally made as i could find, and the company pays its employees a living wage. The socks because they are really well made, last a couple winters, and make my feet feel happy through these cold snaps.
Now, my house is another story, lol. In April I bought a 1920 house with a 1960 addition. All the windows are single pane. I am looking into house hacking to help afford renovations. I am currently taping plastic over them.
Mr SSC
November 13, 2019Oh man, I lived in a house in KY that was built in 1910 and had won a “carpenter award” from the historical society making renovations and improvements much much much more difficult. That house was SO freaking drafty, and yeah, single pane windows, and no flooring insulation and omg, so cold. We would take showers and you could stick your head out and see your breath the bathroom stayed so cold. Ah, to be in college and not care so much about things like that, lol.
I could only do 1 winter there and that was enough for me, lol. Good luck with your renovations!
Amelia @ https://theusefulroot.com
November 13, 2019Holy crap that’s a high propane bill. To answer your question, yes, we think it’s worth spending money to make our house more efficient. We have propane too. We switched from heating the house with propane to an electric heat pump system. Our water heater is electric too. Just the stove and the dryer run off propane and our bill is about $10-$20 a month. We took out a loan to get solar panels and generate enough electricity to power everything. That’s so weird that someone built a concrete/styrofoam house just for the tornado protection but not efficiency. I have always heard that the very reason for building a home that way was FOR efficiency. Sounds like you’re getting it to come along though 🙂
Mr SSC
November 20, 2019Dude, I know, that propane bill sucks!! I was tempted to have our system be a dual source heat pump and propane, but opted for propane only, sigh… Our water heater is on demand, but also propane… People and their hangups, am I right? lol Seriously, a few tweaks and it’s amazing how efficient this home really is.
Frogdancer Jones
November 13, 2019I’m going through a similar thing with my house at the moment, except mine is a cascading list of repairs in my front yard, due to water damage on my verandah. It wouldn’t seem like it, but the damage to the verandah means I have to replace my front fence, rip out trees and get a new automatic gate. One job leads to another and another…
Ah well… it’s only money, right?
Mr SSC
November 20, 2019It is only money… And yep, I’ve found the same thing happens around here. One job leads to another, and another, and another…
craig
November 14, 2019Our first move when purchased this home six years ago was get a energy audit from our local utility! For $25 dollars they sent a rep. with a infared gun and offered rebates to on insulation and heating and cooling upgrades. Took my Budget from $125 a month $57 on gas and a high of $80 for A.C. $25 dollars well spent and they did all the work for me. Left Cfl bulds and a new thermostat they install at no addition charge. May not be a option everywhere I’m in Ohio!
Mr SSC
November 20, 2019That’s awesome! I looked into an energy audit here and didn’t see that as an option from our utility company, but other companies happily provided that service for a couple hundred bucks or so. I just did my own and went from there. Again, if I end up in Ohio, I am prepped for all the efficiency help they will provide.
Adam @ Brewing FIRE
November 14, 2019Keep the energy efficiency posts coming! Since we bought our house 4 years ago, I’ve been trying to make continual improvements to the energy efficiency of our home. We’ve swapped out all the lights for LED, added insulation, solar panels, a new wood burning stove, and most recently a central AC system. Ironically, adding central air resulted in our lowest summer electricity usage by far, presumably due to the efficiency improvement from the new system. This weekend I’m heading up to the attic to add more insulation in some spots. I really want to buy an IR camera, but I can’t bring myself to spend the money. Maybe it would be worth it, though?
craig
November 14, 2019My gas company recommended 24 inch in the attic and as stated before helped pay part of the cost. The energy audits in my area are a joint effort of my electric and gas providers. If you don’t ask you may be passing help! On insulation they paid 45% of the cost( we had to use approved providers) . Also check to see if unit replacement offer a rebate from you energy provider. If you have the option see if have option to choice your energy provider. In OHIO we do your utility provides the infrastructure and you choice who provides the Gas or Power! Propane price vary all year long! If you have the option to purchase during price dips up to a year in advance you may only have pay a delivery fee when you need product! Hope this creates some options to save!
Mr SSC
November 20, 2019That’s aweome that you get so many benefits for making your house more efficient. Note to self, if I ever end up in OHIO, look into all their rebates and assistance for energy efficieny. I’m going to shop around and see what it would take to switch propane providers. Since we rent the tank, i feel like we may be on a yearly contract for that, but I see loads of different propane company trucks driving around, so there has to be decent competition pricewise.
Mr SSC
November 20, 2019Nice! Way to get your house efficient as well! Buying the camera may not payout, but it did help me find places that didn’t get enough insulation, or places in hard to access areas that I needed to add insulation to, even though I could only “see it” thru the ceiling with the IR gun. IDK, it’s fun, but it won’t payout, lol. Also, in TX, we got to switch energy providers every 6 months if we wanted to, but here it’s the more traditional “pick from the one company” that offers it in your area and hope they don’t suck… sort of model. ergh…
Jay
November 15, 2019Interesting. I have thought about it at lot since our house has high ceilings, is open and windows are drafty. Our utilities run on average $300-$500 total per month, so even if I drop it by $100 or so I’m not sure right now the payoff is good. Kudos to you for playing the long game though.
Mr SSC
November 20, 2019Oh, the payoff is horrible. It’s literally to subdue the mental visions of dollar signs running out the windows everytime I hear the furnace/ac turn on. That’s why I say it’s a money problem. everyone would most likely love to have their house be more efficient and use less resources. However, there is no financial payback that makes it worth it for most families. Hell, I wouldn’t do that if we were in a different financial situation, but here we are.
Steveark
November 15, 2019I’m amazed you found somewhere in Oklahoma without natural gas service. Propane is much more expensive than natural gas, often twice as expensive. Are you certain there isn’t any gas distribution pipe nearby you could tie into? Natural gas heat and especially hot water are cheaper than electric or propane.
Mr SSC
November 20, 2019LOL, me too! However, since we’re in the country, everyone out here has propane tanks, private wells, and private septic. Booo, on no residential natural gas lines, but there are plenty of commercial lines running right past our neighborhood. As far as I’m aware, there just isn’t availability for residential lines for our neighborhood, despite commercial lines being readily available. Then someone would have to build a transfer station, and maintain pressures for residential and setup that infrastructure and as of yet, noone has made that investment.