I live in northern New England where the winters are generally long, dark, snowy and very cold. I like to joke that New England in winter is basically antarctica with a bunch of Dunkin Donuts. I've been making energy efficiency improvements over the last few years to make the house feel warmer in the winter and save money on heating and was wondering if others might have any cost effective ideas that I've not thought of or heard about. Here is a list of what I've done: Had another R30 worth of blown in cellulose added to the top of existing R30 fiberglass batts in my attic along with air sealing Replaced weatherstripping on all windows and doors, added corner seals to exterior doors Had rim joists and walls in below grade basement spray foamed Installed outlet insulation pads and plugs for unused receptacles on all exterior wall outlets Blackout curtains in all bedrooms that we close when sun goes down Installed rockwool insulation in unused open hearth fireplace (I had two nickel sized holes in damper that were leaking air and this made a big difference) I have put the shrink wrap on some of the windows but wife says it's going overboard and unnecessary so I don't do it every year
I use an energy monitor to track consumption. Home heating is "free" because I have wood heat. The only other large consumers are water heating and the clothes dryer. The rest, including refrigeration and lighting, is just noise. How do you heat water? Can't do much about a resistance clothes dryer except to use a modern washing machine that spins the bajeepers out of the laundry before going to the dryer.
I used to have a pellet boiler for heat and domestic hot water but I was always having issues with it so I got rid of it. I just replaced the 26 year old oil boiler with a brand new Buderus that will do my hot water as well as heat.
Unsure how old your home is. Mine is 65 years old and I moved into it in 2013. While installing the main floor pellet stove, I found that the insulation in the walls of the main floor was very thin. I ended up removing all the sheet rock for the exterior walls and installing R13 batts (I have 2x4 build, so that is as much room as there was in there). Also found during that project, that the top 8-9" was completely open to the attic/eave space, so scabbed in plywood, sealed with caulk (I can't control the foam stuff - LOL), and insulated those areas too. Since I have a hip roof, that was quite the project in itself. During the wall project, I took the opportunity to have all new, double paned, argon filled windows put in. I probably didn't have a net gain in efficiency because I changed out a couple of large paned windows with bay windows, but I was okay with that. A couple of years ago I installed double celled shades in the bay windows. With the existing heavy curtains over those, that helps a lot keeping cold air contained (or hot air during summer). Since I WFH, it is easy for me to open and shut shades/curtains to either let solar heat in, or keep it out, depending on time of year. Being in your same area, I do have a couple of months in winter where the curtains/shades are always closed. You also didn't mention if your basement floor is exposed concrete. If so, putting in a floating floor will help a lot. Nearly all my lights have been changed to LED bulbs to help save energy. But, I changed them out as the old bulbs naturally burned out anyway. During winter, I am able to change my electric dryer to exhausting inside. I have a wide open basement, and the RH in this place gets down to around 20% humidity, so it doesn't cause me issues - YMMV. Maybe I should also mention that I only do 2 loads of laundry per week. I should be changing that over within the next few weeks. Speaking of low RH, if you don't already, using a humidifier in the living areas will help greatly with making the air feel warmer. However, the RH issue has a lot to do with your heating method, so you want to make sure you know you need humidity added before doing so.
There are so many cool houses and properties in New Hampshire at reasonable prices. So your major energy consumption is oil. If that modern equipment was all properly installed and maintained then there's not much else you can do on the production side so you need to focus on using less if your goal is to reduce costs. There is no low hanging fruit left from what you have written.
That is not something I thought I would read at this time with housing prices thru the roof around here for the last few years. Family has to make something like $180k per year to afford to buy the average single family house.
Yeah, I've been looking around the country. NH is cheap. Also, 180k is not much anymore and that term "to afford" is a loaded term full of people with mandatory expenses that aren't really mandatory. Basically, it's expensive everywhere but you get a lot of bang for your buck in NH and the home/property options are nice.
Dana B New England got lots of stares most VT NH for sure Maine a lil different BUT you need an energy audit usually free gas or electric company give you recommended action and benefits of options
Every one in different states say that; you and I know it depends on where; ocean more, 95 close to Boston way more! areas like colebrook or off route 2 in north on way to Maine which is all swamps, no roads and hour to gas station much less grocery stores houses way cheaper heck I am 30 minutes north largest city in Vermont and still have a land line.. Because cell phones don’t work here. not political BUT us govt during Covid doubled the amount of US dollars in circulation. Dollars no longer backed by gold. Full faith and credit of government.. used to be gold or silver certificates. so if you double amount dollar then value decreases supply/demand chart. Your house has not doubled in price. The town clerk has what house sold for 20 or 25 years ago. Then look up what gold sold per ounce at that time.. so if house is xx price that’s only part of equation the denominator is us $$ change us $$ to ounces of gold.. that tells you how much house went up and how much dollars devalued For others I have met bogieb several times she is a highly independent and educated woman who can research quite well.. she has met my wife who said wow she’s impressive.. I like to challenge what I believe to be common misconceptions. bogieb will think about this at 2 in morning when she can’t sleep anymore.. again this is economics and math which willing to explain
Well, it is only cheaper for the other 9 states that are more expensive - LOL And, for some of us, 180k is a lot, especially if you are not in a 2 earner family. It sure gives sticker shock to the people in the states on the other side of the spectrum
Thank you Canadian border VT , you and your wife keep giving me compliments . You are both great, intelligent people as well as obviously hard workers. I know there are reasons for the increase in values and decrease in actual monetary value. I bought this house in November 2013 and it has more than tripled in value er the latest preliminary assessment that I got last month. I just find it mind boggling that happened in 12 years - and most of that happened in the last 2 years (the only visible/notable improvements were the small solar array and the 12x14 shed)
Blame my beautiful bride (Elise) 4 years ago, I was in ICU, Elise Mom was living in our home cancer treatments. my dad had just moved out to assisted living 7 miles north Denentia, diabetes and lukemia. 15 yo lil girl trying to go high school by zoom. So from spine surgery to a month at rehab to home, Elise got 1 scheduled day off to drive me 2 hours to Dartmouth for surgery.. 6 months after everything coming to normal. Elise got injured at work almost 25 years same building. 4 months later terminated by certified letter, no one reached out work/friends never called. Elise said to me 20 years of my life, missing vacation birthdays covering colleagues, sick kids, woman suck they are so backstabbing etc etc So I said average is cream of the crap and crap of the cream. Change you to be better to.. rise above.. So we made decisions to give people sincere compliments instead of bitchin.. my observation people more comfortable with criticism.. So it’s my wife’s fault, I am just a redneck from wrong side of tracks; took Elise 20 years to date me because the rules I learned/grew up with..
Are you a NH Native? I was born in the people's Republic of Massachusetts but was moved to NH when I was only five and have lived here ever since. We know it's not cheap here, especially the property taxes but I've always thought it's a great place to live. We're one of the safest states, have some of the best air quality in the nation and the best summers/falls anyone could hope for. The only other place I could ever see myself living would be southern Maine as my wife and I are ocean people. We'll probably do something along the lines of a month rental in Florida/Georgia/Carolinas every February when we retire just to soak up a little sunshine and warmth but it doesn't seem to make sense to buy a second property down there.
Being that New England is the oldest part of the country, I live in a town where there are many old homes. My house was built in 2001 but there are many homes that were built in the early to mid 1800's and a few from the 1700's. Some of them have been retrofitted with proper insulation and weather protection but many of them have not. I can only imagine living in one of these homes in the winter. They're certainly charming to look at but not my style. We used to play the let's see how long we can wait to turn the heat on and then let's see how low we can set it every day so that it's just tolerable game in an effort to save money. Now that we're older and more financially secure it's all about being completely comfortable in our own home in every way, including being sufficiently warm in the winter. We find that setting the thermostat to 67-69 degrees when we're home and awake is what gets the job done in that regard.
Oh this is fun, so what you have there are average prices so you're half way. Now the very important next step is to look at what that average price gets you in those states. In NH that average price gets you a lot more house and nicer property than in other states. The average price is for the average house and the NH average house is just better which is where the better bang for buck idea comes from. I use zillow and you can search for homes at a price point. It's a good exercise for those of us that have been in our homes for 20 years! When I was looking for houses in your area and others I filtered for homes built in 1990 or later. My current home is from 1963 and I sure would like the better wiring, plumbing, insulation, air sealing, 2x6 walls, etc. of a more modern home. Newer homes are more subject to the risk of low quality though so you have to actually look at the house. Homes on small lots in a housing project might be more likely to be built as fast as possible with corners cut.
