Energy Efficiency Poll (OT, obvs)

stoneycakes · October 2014

I have a limited amount of money to spend on the house before winter. We're trying to make it more energy efficient for heating. What should we do in the living room?

sarenu1 · October 2014

Just as a side note, we have really old windows. But they seal pretty good.

We replaced our furnace 2 years ago for a super efficient one. We really noticed a difference in both the way our house is heated and our bill. My next project will probably be windows and a new Central Air system (ours is super old).

And I've lived in homes with bad windows, it sucks. Get the sliding door replaced with a good model.

unaveragejane · October 2014

I'd probably take care of the drafts first. If the door is one you can get by without using for the winter, you could cover it with plastic and thermal curtains for the time being. I know nothing about pellet stoves. How is your insulation? And will your power company do an energy audit for you?

Rrrrrachel · October 2014

Have you had an energy audit?

PipSqueak0313 · October 2014

If replacing the sliding door right now is out of the budget, and the door is not needed on a normal basis, I would close the door as best as possible and then use some of the foam weather stripping to help seal the door and then cover with the plastic sheeting designed for winterizing sliding doors. That way you have money to use to winterize any other leaks you can find and no risk of big hole in the wall blowing freezing air in due to bad luck with both old and new doors being broken/unusable at same time. And thanks for the reminder that it's time to winterize my house before it gets too cold to work outside.

BoothBaby · October 2014

Instead of replacing the entire door, could you have the seal strips replaced? I feel like a contractor could probably replace any worn out rubber strips to help it seal better, and it should be much cheaper.

stoneycakes · October 2014

Yeah, I should get an energy audit, but I don't think it's free in my state, unfortunately. I have considered just trying to replace the rubber seals on the door. Covering it up entirely is not a good option for us because it provides most of the light in the living room.

Rrrrrachel · October 2014

We got one cheap cheap through our natural gas company. Otherwise they run about $300 here.

Brandiewine11 · October 2014

I would just seal the door with the clear film for the winter. We rented a house with horrible old windows and that worked really well.

We have 2 pellet stoves in addition to our propane boiler. We replaced the oil burning boiler after we moved in. We love the pellet stoves. One is in the living room and it allows us to keep that room warmer than the rest of the house since we spend the most time in there. With the placement of our stoves, we can actually heat the whole house if necessary. This allows us to optimize our heating bills based on the prices of pellets vs. propane each year.

Sealing up any drafts and adding extra insulation will give you more bang for your buck as a first step though. Just adding an extra heat source won't help if its all going out the windows....