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The Swiss Cheese House

We have been in the middle of some renovation for the last couple of weeks now. Our goal is to get the house tightened down, insulated and warm.

Air infiltration has been a big problem in our home. You know the old saying, “Close the door, you don’t want to heat the whole neighborhood?” Well, even with the door closed, that is exactly what we have been doing.

Yesterday, we reached completion on most of the energy efficiency stuff in our home. This included attic insulation, insulation of the attic above the garage (which influences the family room next to it), insulation of the basement crawl space, and insulation of the basement itself. There were also numerous miscellaneous holes that got filled. Take out stock in caulk. Believe me, after this project, the stock price of caulk will be going up.

We also got the windows replaced, with the exception of the basement windows. Money just started to run down at that point.

It was amazing how many holes were in our home. I finally got justification with my husband about all of the various drafts in the house. When you put a scented Yankee candle on the dining room table, and the flame dances a jig, you know that there is your nice heated air rushing out somewhere.
While we knew that the house was drafty, it was amazing to find out how many actual holes were in the house. For example, just under our front stairs, several small holes were adding up to bring plenty of cold air from the outside front porch. This is not a place we normally would have looked for drafts.

Yesterday, our energy audit professional came by to do an “after” blower door test. This measures the amount of the air that is being lost out of the house. After the test, we learned that our energy efforts have reduced this number greatly. In fact, the numbers came down much lower than everyone expected.

Another benefit of shoring up the swiss cheese house is that without the swiss cheese, the woodland mice won’t be able to get in to our home from outside. The save goes for stink bugs, spiders, etc. This may save us the retainer cost for hiring a pest control service.

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About Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, online content manager, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania in the middle of the woods but close enough to Target and Home Depot. The author of many magazine, newspaper and online articles, Mary Ann enjoys writing about almost any subject. "Writing gives me the opportunity to both learn interesting information, and to interact with wonderful people." Mary Ann has written more than 5,000 blogs for Families.com since she started back in December 2006. Contact her at maromans AT verizon.net or visit her personal blog http://homeinawoods.wordpress.com