Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Energy Audit

At the end of 2009, I signed us up for an Energy Audit/program through the city. I received a letter a few months later telling me that we made the waiting list. Then I believe another telling me that the $ for that year had been exhausted and that we were on the list for 2010. December rolls around and we finally get a letter asking us about our electric/gas/etc bills are. We only have electric wall heaters and try to avoid using them as much as possible (problem is they kick on during the super cold winter nights anyway). We replaced the broken pellet stove with a new Hearthstone wood stove at Thanksgiving in 2009. Because our house is a sieve, we have been going through A LOT of wood & Bear bricks. Already almost 2 cords of wood and on our 2nd pallet of bricks for this winter!
Anyway....this morning was our energy audit. Now I can't remember if this is a grant to cover the costs of what the Auditor recommends OR a program the city has to offer the upgrades at low interest, long term plan. It turns out that we are eligible for a new refrigerator(!) toilet & insulation in the attic. Apparently he mentioned the water heater but didn't say anything about replacing it or insulating the ceiling of the basement (so much cold air comes up through the floor into the main part of the house). Unfortunately windows are not part of what they do (we are working on that on another front...)
Next step is a mock up or list maybe(?) of what can be done and what the following steps are. Maybe at that point we will understand what exactly the deal is.

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like it could turn out to be pretty cool. Keep me posted on what the deal is, we might need to look into this too!

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