Folks:
I’m proud to have joined the Moustachian ranks officially earlier today. I’d like to start off my post recounting my journey to whom I am today. I grew up in a household were money was always tight, but was never discussed or budgeted. I got married to my wife who came from a very financially savvy family, but we really didn’t start being intentional about finances until 2007, when she was in a car accident while I was in graduate school. On that night, I had a spouse in the hospital, a totaled car, $30K in graduate student loans in both of our name, and about $2K in the bank with minimal assets. From that moment forth, we vowed to be frugal, try to do things ourselves, and to get rid of our debt.
Fast forward to seven years later. We paid off our graduate school debts quickly, bought a house in the market doldrums of early 2012, have a six month savings cushion in the bank, have maxed out on our Roth IRAs. We have furnished our house (a 1957 ranch house in Dallas, Texas) with craigslists specials, paying full price for only a few home improvement projects (doing foundation work just wasn’t something I was interested in doing). As we enter our second year of homeownership, I’m trying find ways that we can further reduce some of our housing expenses, namely our electrical, gas, and water use.
The previous owners put in new energy efficient windows in the summer of 2011, while they also put on a new roof. They gave me data showing that energy bills for the house dropped at this time, but I only have the kilowatt use since August 2012. It is listed below.
Month KW August 1,260 September 970 October 893 November 488 December 356 January 254 February 256 March 208 April 193 May 266 June 486 July 786 August 1,235 September 1,158 October 1,044 November 345 December 228 January 304 February 261 March 270 |
We have an average of 511 kwh per month, and you can see the brutal Dallas heat in the summer really drives a great deal of the use. We have ceiling fans in four of the rooms (family room, and the three bedrooms) that we run continuously, but nothing in front formal dining/living room which has a south facing window. We run our dishwasher three times a week, our washer and dryer twice a week, and have the air conditioner set at 79 during the day and at 75 during the night, and the compressor was added in 2010 and has a SEER of 14 (we have a natural gas powered heating system, and have the heat set at 60 during the day and at nights, and at 65 when we are home during the evenings). We have loose insulation in the attic that provide R-19 insulation. Our appliances are all energy star (fridge, washer, dryer were all purchased in 2012, computer and tv in 2010 and are on anti-vampire power strips), and all our non-recessed lighting is CFL. We have two clock radios plugged in all day, but both use minimal energy.
I am trying to think of ways to improve our household energy efficiency and to reduce our energy bill. I had a free energy audit done back in December 2012, and the consultant recommended replacing the two entry doors, which are original to the house and obviously leak energy regardless of the season. I’m having the doors replaced by energy star versions at some point in may, and plan on installing them with my neighbor. We have 8 halogen recessed lights (70 W each) that I believe account for 34 khw per month (we have these lights on for two hours a day), meaning that it is about 10% of our total energy use when the AC isn’t running. I’m replacing these with Philips LED bulbs in April, and they should use 5khw per month. I’m also getting an outdoor clothline system so that we can reduce the number of dryer loads we do in the non-winter months. Finally, I’m going to use some of my birthday gift cards to buy a Nest thermostat to replace our 10 year old non-programmable thermostat.
However, I think that the biggest area of savings is in regards to the attic, and here is where I especially need some assistance. We have a pull down attic door that is not insulated, and you can feel the air flowing through the wood. The ladder is original to the house, and I’m thinking about replacing the ladder with the energy efficient Werner ladder that claims to reduce energy loss. However, I’m tempted just to create a DIY foam board “coffin” to put above the attic door and to weather strip the ladder. I also have noticed how hot our front living/dining room gets in the summer, and I’m wondering if it is because we have no sofit vents for the roof over this room. We have two other sofits vents on the front of the house and four in the back (this is for a house with 1,550 square feet), and two gable vents each of about 30 square feet. Would it make sense to put in two sofit vents by the front living area?
If there are any other suggestions for reducing our energy use, I’d love to hear it any advice. Thanks again, and my apologies for this long post.
Sincerely,
Peter