Home heating discussion (split from a ski question thread)

Geoff said:

The energy efficiency of homes in the north is just going to keep getting better.

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Better insulation is teh single biggest source of potential carbon emmission reductions- and it's a negative cost, to boot.

ctenidae said:

Better insulation is teh single biggest source of potential carbon emmission reductions- and it's a negative cost, to boot.

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What do you mean by "negative cost"? Do you mean that the savings in heating costs covers the cost of insulation in a relatively short time?

Sort of....
An attic blanket or blown insulation in an attic with little insulation certainly behaves that way

Weatherstripping and caulking to stop air leaks definitely has an immediate savings

I doubt you get back the heat savings replacing old windows with argon Low E windows. Screw-on argon thermopane storm windows probably do pay back.

Here's an extreme example:

I've been gutting walls & ceilings, re-framing, re-wiring, and re-insulating. Turning an R4 wall into maybe an R11 wall. There is no way I'd recover that cost as savings on heat in my lifetime. Doesn't matter. The old 3/8" sheet rock looked awful and I didn't trust the wiring. I'd rather look at fresh paint on a skim-coated 1/2" sheet rocked wall. I don't have any drafts. I can't hear the neighbors' lawn mower.

^^^ That's like one of those weight loss before & after photos where they use fluorescent lights, bad clothing, and 3-day bender for the before....and hollywood staging for the after!!!

Actually...looks great.. Nice work.

o3jeff said:

I just ordered 100 gallons this morning, $3.85:sad:

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They delivered it yesterday, was actually $3.75 a gallon.

Geoff said:

What do you mean by "negative cost"? Do you mean that the savings in heating costs covers the cost of insulation in a relatively short time?

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Exactly- the savings in heating and cooling costs add up pretty quickly. Especially in warmer places that do a lot of cooling.

http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/s.../mgi_carbon_productivity_challenge_report.pdf

McKinsey did an oft-cited study in 2008 on reducing GHG emissions, and insulation is a big winner. Commercial and industrial buildings probably more so than residential, but updating older construction can have a big impact individually right up front.

An IHS study says that developing shale gas reserves is 40-50% cheaper than conventional gas, leading to a reduction in power prices of 10%. They estimate that means over $900/year in additional disposable income per household by 2015, going up to $2,000 by 2035. Nothing to do with insulation, of course, but it's still a substantial amount of money, I think.

Cannonball said:

^^^ That's like one of those weight loss before & after photos where they use fluorescent lights, bad clothing, and 3-day bender for the before....and hollywood staging for the after!!!

Actually...looks great.. Nice work.

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The "after" photo was taken with my Olympus PEN E-P2. The "before" was taken by the guy who is doing my work on his iPhone.

And since I've hijacked this, there's the next "after" with the walls skim coated



Back on-topic:

I just opened my Vermont January propane bill and auto-pay receipt. I'm metered off a big shared tank at my townhouse. I'm paying $2.19/gallon and burned 52 CCF / 143 1/2 gallons in January. The energy cost is about 3x what I pay for natural gas in my other place.