Eat your greens. Floss your teeth. Insulate your attic. While we weren’t energy-saving wizards, we thought that we’d covered most of the bases of healthy and energy-efficient living. But the energy bills kept on coming and the floors were cold. That’s when we realized that we were living in a sieve.
It was a nice sieve. Bamboo floors, hemp curtains, walls painted in low-VOC off white.
It was the blower door test that revealed the problem. Imagine this: a man comes to your door with something resembling a giant fan, installs it in said door, and seems to suck all of the air right out of your house. What the test reveals is the little areas in your home where the heat leaks out and the cold seeps in.
What it revealed to us was that tiny seepages of air added up to a big hole in our house. While we couldn’t see these leaks, they were there.
Where does air leak out from your home? You might think of the obvious places, such as windows and doors. Yes, they do need to be sealed and installed well. But have you considered outlet covers? The many electrical outlets in your home are connected to the walls of your home, and these are connected to the outside. Outlet covers are the leaky faucets of the energy world. Slowly but surely, their costs add up as the energy leaks out of your home.
The solution? Insulated outlet covers. Give your outlet covers a winter jacket, and they’ll stop leaking. Those cold floors will warm up and your bills will go down, all for a cost much less than installing a new window.
Your house is a like a living, breathing thing. Air moves in, and air moves out. That’s good to a degree. However, to be energy efficient you need to have intentional ventilation. Plugging up the tiny leaks in your home will stop your money from creeping out through the walls.
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