Which efficiency upgrades make the most sense?

[Adam Zapple]

Hi Everyone,

We were thinking of improving the energy efficiency of our 70 year old home.  I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge/experience of which efficiency measures had the best return on investment.  FYI, in our first year in the home we spend over $3000 just on heating oil and a boiler service contract.  We live in CT.  We've since started using an existing wood stove insert which has cut that number by about 20-30% but would still like to pay much less for heat.  Here is a list of possible projects for the near future:

-Insulate the attic floor laying R30 fiberglass insulation over the existing insulation which is not thick enough.
-Add a second wood stove or pellet stove in the home either as an insert in our second fireplace or free-standing in our bonus room over the garage.
-Replace older windows with high efficiency windows (we've done some already on the front of the house, I install them)
-Replace front door which was installed slightly crooked and is old and drafty
-Our 2nd floor is cantilevered about 1 foot over the first floor, we want to open the soffit created by the cantilever and spray foam or replace fiberglass insulation in that space
-Use some type of spray in insulation in walls throughout the house
-Replace inefficient oil fired boiler (over 20 years old) with propane boiler/ on demand hot water heater.

Any advice or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated

[Another Reader]

Since you don't have cheap natural gas, I would focus on the less expensive items that give you a lot of bang for the buck.  The attic insulation, along with sealing all penetrations into the attic space from the conditioned space will probably be the easiest and least expensive. 

Given price spikes due to shortages, I would not spend a lot of money on equipment to pick one truck-delivered fuel over another today.  Propane might be the next heating oil.  As demand goes up, so will the price.

[Greg]

Air sealing and insulation are your best investments.  Then look at the efficiency of the various consumers in your home like electric appliances, water heating, and lighting.

Consider ductless heat pumps for your home.  Very efficient, quiet, popular in the PNW and with the energy-efficiency folks.

I'd look at replacing your boiler with a modern condensing boiler like a Rinnai that can heat water for heat as well as fixture use.  Energy Star rebates are available.

[Milspecstache]

I like the ductless heat pumps as I have one set for downstairs and am installing a 2nd set for upstairs.

Anything you can do yourself is very good as you save all of the labor costs.  If the windows are old and drafty I would definitely replace them, same for the door.  Putting in additional attic insulation also seems smart.  I would also be considered about the cantilever. 

Wall insulation is difficult to upgrade.  What is the condition of the exterior wall siding?  What are your interior walls made of?  Drywall?

[TomTX]

Fiberglass batts are okay for insulating an attic. Blown fiberglass is typically crap, with a poor effective R value (it tends to overfluff, which allow convection and kills your R value) For blown - I would (and have) choose cellulose.

First things first, though. Seal up every possible gap, crack, crevice, outlet, switch, door, etc. Then go up in the attic and seal every duct, boot, vent, light fixture, plumbing stack, etc. When you did your own windows, you filled all the gaps with canned foam and sealed all the cracks with caulk before putting the trim back on, right?

This is CHEAP and almost certainly the most cost-effective way to improve energy efficiency*. A couple tubes of caulk. A couple cans of spray foam. Some weatherstripping. Some of those precut foam things to go behind outlet covers. Plus your labor, of course.


*Other than turning off stuff when you're not using it. ;)

[chasesfish]

I'm a huge fan of the windows upgrade, but I was going at it from reducing A/C cost.  I live in Georgia and replaced older wood builder grade windows with double pane, tinted vinyl windows and got a nice bill reduction.  It also really cut down on outside noise, which was a big plus.

It doesn't have the quickest ROI.

[GuitarStv]

I know that for very little money, blowing extra insulation into our attic (we're at about 20 inches or so) made a significant reduction in our heating bills.  Caulking and air sealing of course is a no brainer and should be done.

[Hedge_87]

We are in the same boat. Our house was an estate auction and because of the poor condition (mostly cosmetic) we got it for about half of what it would be all fixed up. As money and time allows we are replacing windows and doors. One room was so bad that we sealed it off temporarily for the first winter. It had an old sliding glass door that was not installed properly. One day after a pretty big snow storm I went in there to get something out of some boxes we hadn't unpacked yet. To my surprise I had a little bit of snow in there. Yea that door got replaced really quickly. I'm hoping to blow in another layer of insulation in the attic this spring. From what I hear this is one of the best for ROI.

[Adam Zapple]

Thanks for the advice everyone.  We've been pretty diligent with filling gaps and cracks.  We had a pretty serious mouse infestation left to us by the previous owners that's since been all but eradicated.  This caused me to fill everything I could find with door sweeps, spray foam, caulk etc.  I'll definitely do some research on ductless heat pumps.  I'm glad to hear people have had significant energy savings by insulating the attic because its one of those projects that doesn't really excite me but I know will probably be worth my time.  Most of the house is 1/4 inch plaster over what looks like 1/4 inch gypsum board.

[Greg]

Ceilings are the first place to insulate, followed by walls, then floor in terms of heat loss.  But, floor insulation feels nice on your feet.  Hot air rises, so you can have a lot of heat loss through the ceiling.  If you have little to no air leakage though, this is less of a worry as heat actually spreads evenly in all directions if there's no air movement.

It sounds like your house was built during the transition from lathe and plaster to gypsum wall board, when they did a little of both.  It was an improvement, at least fire safety wise. 

[greaper007]

I feel your pain.   I was in a 50s track home in West Hartford and heating oil was killing us.    Here's what I did.

Cheap stuff.

Every year I spent a morning putting that shrink wrap junk on the windows (also single pane).   That made an enormous difference and it only cost something like $30.

Then I grabbed some caulk and great stuff.   Starting in the unfinished basement, I caulked the entire sill plate and squirted great stuff in any hole in the wood.   You wouldn't believe how many huge holes there were in the sill plate for things like plumbing pipes or cable.    I also caulked the hell out of the basement windows (wasn't a good way to attach the shrink wrap junk to the windows).   I worked my way up, weatherstripping the doors and basically looking for any drafts.   Then I hit the attic.

More expensive:   There was about 1 inch of insulation in the attic, there was a vapor barrier though, so that helped.   First I air sealed everything I could.   The most important thing I hit was the whole house fan, that thing was completely uninsulated or even air sealed.    I taped it up for the winter and shoved some fiberglass batts into the recess between the louvers and the fan.    Then I rolled out the thickest insulating batts I could over the existing insulation.   I think it cost me a couple hundred dollars, but I was able to write a bunch of that off.

Today I'd just rent the blower from home depot and do blown insulation.   Works better and it's easier.   Just make sure that you give your soffit vents some way to breath before you do the blown.    Otherwise you're looking at a new roof in a few years.


Moral of the story.   Between this and dropping my thermostat to 57 I was able to save something like $100-$150 a month in heating.

[bostonmoney]

We just recently in MA (through mass save) did insulation and heat pumps to an old home that had NOTHING in the attic or walls.

Insulate, and air seal are your first step.  Check rebates, for the amount of insulation work they did with the rebates I would have paid roughly the same for a DIY... (Mass gives 2000$ towards insulation! Cant DIY though)

Also look into heat pumps.  I got a 3 head Mitsubishi electric system put in runs off a single compressor. 
Benefits:
Cheap electric heat
Very quiet
Dehumidifier in summer
"Central Air" In summer

Cons:
Not as efficient in some of the very cold weather, you will need your oil as backup heat.  How often thought (except this year) do you have days that are in the single digits often.  Very few.

I had them only put in one one side of the house, living room+kitchen+master bedroom.  My theory is during the winter months that are not crazy cold but enough you want the heat on, use these as that is where they excel in efficiency.  In the super cold months of jan and feb use the oil heat at a lower temperature to keep the house to X degrees and in the living space you are using use that heat pump to make it more comfortable.

All this will help with the insulation being done first.  The previous owners of the home used 1100 gallons of hating oil on average years.  We are ont rack this year (insulation and heat pumps in December) to use about 500-600.  Next year I am convinced it will be even less.  We do not baby out heat either, I want to get some controls setup to manage both systems more effectively.

I wish I can find a decent platform to integrate heat pump controls but Mitsubishi has proprietary controls making it problematic, my only regret so far.

[kolorado]

I don't know how much sunshine you get on your property, but it might be worthwhile to look into soda can heaters. I will be making one for our CO home this fall. After an investment of a weekend or two of time and perhaps $50-300 in materials depending on how much you can scrounge, you can essentially heat your home during the day for free. Then you can use those savings to improve and upgrade your insulation which will lower the cost of overnight heating. Just an idea.

[greaper007]

I don't know how much sunshine you get on your property, but it might be worthwhile to look into soda can heaters. I will be making one for our CO home this fall. After an investment of a weekend or two of time and perhaps $50-300 in materials depending on how much you can scrounge, you can essentially heat your home during the day for free. Then you can use those savings to improve and upgrade your insulation which will lower the cost of overnight heating. Just an idea.

Do you have a link, I'd like to hear more about this.

[kolorado]

I don't know how much sunshine you get on your property, but it might be worthwhile to look into soda can heaters. I will be making one for our CO home this fall. After an investment of a weekend or two of time and perhaps $50-300 in materials depending on how much you can scrounge, you can essentially heat your home during the day for free. Then you can use those savings to improve and upgrade your insulation which will lower the cost of overnight heating. Just an idea.

Do you have a link, I'd like to hear more about this.

Oh, there are thousands of videos and plans for these online! Here's one to get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLNViUsRCVU

[greaper007]

I don't know how much sunshine you get on your property, but it might be worthwhile to look into soda can heaters. I will be making one for our CO home this fall. After an investment of a weekend or two of time and perhaps $50-300 in materials depending on how much you can scrounge, you can essentially heat your home during the day for free. Then you can use those savings to improve and upgrade your insulation which will lower the cost of overnight heating. Just an idea.

Do you have a link, I'd like to hear more about this.

Oh, there are thousands of videos and plans for these online! Here's one to get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLNViUsRCVU

That's one of the coolest things I've ever seen, thanks so much for the link.

I have a great southern exposure on one side of my house so these would work great.

[Adam Zapple]

The best part of that project would be emptying the beer cans

[MayDay]

If you have original windows, please don't pull them out and put vinyl crap in!  Old wood windows can be fixed forever, which is so much better for the planet.  New vinyl windows will lose their seal, and it won't take long.  And then you are basically back to where you started.  New wood windows cost a fortune and the payoff is in decades, not years.  Fix your old windows and get storms instead!

[Rollin]

Depending on how long you plan on being in the home you may want to forgo the batts or blown in attic insulation and go with foam under the roof layer (in the attic space).  I looked at all the places I had to seal in my ceiling and determined it impossible to do a good job, let along a great one.  Once I foamed the attic I needn't worry about them anymore as I created "conditioned" space.  The cost is tax deductible for me too!

Windows are typically expensive for what you get in return.

[rocksinmyhead]

I don't know how much sunshine you get on your property, but it might be worthwhile to look into soda can heaters. I will be making one for our CO home this fall. After an investment of a weekend or two of time and perhaps $50-300 in materials depending on how much you can scrounge, you can essentially heat your home during the day for free. Then you can use those savings to improve and upgrade your insulation which will lower the cost of overnight heating. Just an idea.

Do you have a link, I'd like to hear more about this.

Oh, there are thousands of videos and plans for these online! Here's one to get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLNViUsRCVU

you just blew my mind.

my boyfriend is going to LOVE this!

[Adam Zapple]

I did the windows on the front of the house as much for aesthetics as for efficiency.  I'll leave the rest of them.  I have had several discussions with contractor friends about spray foam under the roof with mixed opinions.  Some say this voids the warranty on roofing shingles and has the potential to cause mold problems.  Others swear by it.