More tips today and tomorrow. Then we move on.
http://life.gaiam.com/article/top-5-places-top-25-ways-weatherize-your-home
Top 5 Places & Top 25 Ways to Weatherize Your Home
Excerpted from the Solar Living Sourcebook by John Schaeffer. See the book for a helpful cutaway illustration pointing out 42 places to weatherize that are discussed in this weatherization article.
Short of printing your own money, weatherization and insulation are the best bets for putting cash in your wallet — and they’re a lot safer in the long run than counterfeiting. Weatherization, the plugging and sealing of air leaks, can save you 25 to 40 percent on your heating and cooling bills.
The average unweatherized house in the United States leaks air at a rate equivalent to a four-foot-square hole in the wall. Weatherization is the first place for the average home owner to concentrate for the most benefit with the least effort and expense. You’ll save money and help the planet!
The following suggestions are adapted with permission from Homemade Money by Richard Heede and the Rocky Mountain Institute.
1. In the attic
- Weatherstrip and insulate the attic access door.
- Seal around the outside of the chimney with metal flashing and high-temperature sealant such as flue caulk or muffler cement.
- Seal around plumbing vents, both in the attic floor and in the roof. Check roof flashings (where the plumbing vent pipes pass through the roof) for signs of water leakage while you’re peering at the underside of the roof.
- Seal the top of interior walls in pre-1950s houses anywhere you can peer down into the wall cavity. Use strips of rigid insulation, and seal the edges with silicone caulk.
- Stuff fiberglass insulation around electrical wire penetrations at the top of interior walls and where wires enter ceiling fixtures. (But not around recessed light fixtures unless the fixtures are rated IC [for insulation contact]). Fluorescent fixtures usually are safe to insulate around; they don’t produce a lot of waste heat. Incandescent fixtures should be upgraded to compact fluorescent bulbs).
- Staple Radiant Barrier under the rafters or joists to reflect 97 percent of the radiant heat that strikes it
- Seal all other holes between the heated space and the attic.
:}
Go there and read the other 4 sections. More tomorrow
:}