I was reading the "10 Energy Efficency Tips" on our power company's website untill I got to number two:
"The best setting for your thermostat is 78. Each degree lower than that can significantly increase your cooling costs, especially in older homes with less thermal efficiency."
Had to stop right there. Geez what's wrong with this country anyway? Set my thermostat to 78 degrees? Why even have one? I don't know about you guys but if I set my thermostat to 78 degrees it would last until my wife got home then I'd be DEAD! This is Columbia not Texas! We don't have anything that even resembles dry heat. We've got the wet sticky kind...
They need to switch that tip to "crawl up in your attic and have a look at your ductwork, better yet have it tested." Do you know that 80% of homes have leaky ductwork? If it's over 10 years old it's not even sealed with mastic, just some old duct tape. Go feel around the joints and see if you can feel some leaks. I did. Man was that a surprise. Get some sealing mastic and get after it. Or you can call someone at the green council to test it, and fix it for you. Probably lots cheaper than all that money you're spending on your power bill.
That's the cool thing about green. You can build a new green home if you want, or you can green up the one you have. Energy isn't free anymore. It's not even cheap anymore. That said, there's no reason someone should suffer just to be able to pay the power bill. It's such a great feeling to realize that it's not me and my family wasting all that power, it's the house! And guess what guys, the house can be fixed!
- Submitted by Mark Bostic of Square One Design Service - www.squareoneplans.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
For the record, Mark gave this exact same opinion to the folks from our local power company in person not too long ago. They got a good chuckle out of it, but I think they got the message. Thanks to Mark for writing this one up for the green blog.
Post a Comment