annakitchen

Every renovation (even re-painting) presents an opportunity to make your home more efficient. Don't squander it. photo: Energy Circle.

We have written a great deal about how much you can do to take on the electricity demons in your house, from using smart strips to replacing bulbs to monitoring your electricity use.  We stand firm on the principle that the most effective energy saving approach begins with a home energy audit conducted by a certified energy auditor.  During that audit, chances are you will hear a fire hose of information all at once, with advice ranging from dealing with the moisture in your attic to caulking up the front door threshold. The sheer volume can be a little bit overwhelming, not to mention the amount of work anticipated to get it all done.

But during a recent interview with Gail Lawlor, I was reminded of this key fact: You don’t have to do it all at once. Taking on your house is not the same as swimming the English Channel (once you’re in, you’re in). It’s more like making friendship bread.  (The kind you get in a zip-lock from a friend, punch a couple of times a day for a week and eventually mold into a perfectly decent loaf). You do not have to take on your whole house at once, and you do not have to condemn it in order to begin.

After all, none of us wants to consider our house a big awful leaky mess.  That’s just too overwhelming. What’s more, it can’t be a rotting sieve. You live there. You invite friends in. The truth is, we think of our homes as a series of collected spaces - the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, the basement…  And when we set about to make improvements, we tackle each of these spaces individually. “This summer I’m re-doing our bedroom,” or “We’re renovating the kitchen.” Almost nobody I know announces over a bottle of beer that they are gutting the house they’ve lived in for years and starting from scratch. We take on one room at a time, and do the best we can to make it feel fresh and new.

This summer, don’t. Don’t even touch your house this summer…. unless you are willing to take the extra couple minutes and bucks to make the part of your house that you tackle energy efficient. Just weave it in. Caulk along the walls that you are about to paint, then paint the caulk, too. If you are caulking where the floor meets the wall, use a silicone based caulk so that you can wash the floor without worrying about it. Seal up drafts along your windows while you have paint on hand to cover up the caulk. And then, sit in that freshly re-covered chair and take comfort in knowing that the cool air you are paying for is staying with you, and the bugs will be held at bay.

Don’t touch your house - any part of your house - without taking into consideration how the changes you make to that space will impact the rest of the system.  Air sealing means you have closed off unwanted paths for air to escape. That’s a good thing, because moist air can lead to structural damage during its escape. So… “make it tight,” Lawlor says, “then ventilate right.” Sound daunting? It shouldn’t. In many houses, adequate ventilation means nothing more than running a good bathroom exhaust fan for longer than usual.

Not rocket science. Do-able. Maintain the integrity of your house, save money, and make your house more comfortable… One room at a time. Sure you can.