Older Homes Energy Saving Tips

Energy Saving Tips

Introduction:

Making energy saving improvement for reducing the power and fuel consumption of older homes is a great DIY project. There are several ways to reduce the energy costs on older homes that have little insulation and multiple sources of drafts.

If you live in an older home, especially if it was built during a rapid growth period to support industries expansion in the last century, it's very likely that you live in a wooden box that allows much of your heated or cooled air to escape with ease. The old form of home construction is responsible for your energy costs being three to five times greater than that of a similarly sized new home.

Making energy saving home improvements is vital to reducing the power and fuel consumption of older homes. Here are some suggestions and ideas that will help you to reduce the energy costs on older homes that are poorly insulated and have multiple sources of drafts. The two major issues with older home construction are excessive air infiltration (drafts) and inadequate insulation. The following older home energy saving tips will help reduce the energy cost of heating or cooling an older house.

Air Infiltration:

·       Air infiltration is the process by which air enters through cracks and crevices in the siding, roof overhangs, and around door and window frames. Infiltration is simply the direct result of loose construction where there are little to no seals between the outside and the inside of the home.

·       The way to reduce the infiltration is to fill the gaps around doors and windows to eliminate or at least reduce them.  You will never totally eliminate all the drafts, but you can reduce them to about one third or less of its current level.

Inadequate Insulation:

In older homes only a minimum of insulation was used, if any at all. Insulation is gauged by an r-value which is simply a measure of the resistance to hot or cold. The higher the r-value the harder it is for heated or cooled air to pass through the insulation.

The outside walls on newer homes are often insulated to an r-value of 19 or more. Their attic space is usually insulated to an r-value of 30 or more. Older homes have inadequate insulation r-values that hardly reach an r-value of 2 to 3 if you give credit to the layers of wood and siding. This is almost negligible.

The smallest bit of insulating can make a big difference. When performing heating load calculations a wall with no insulation gets a heating loss multiplier of 19, compared to having a multiplier of only 6 if a 3 1/2 layer of R-11 insulation were added. That first level of protection decreases the loss of heat through the wall by 3 times. An attic ceiling with no insulation gets a heating loss multiplier of 42. This too can be reduced to a multiplier of only 6 by adding that first layer of R-11 insulation which will decrease the heat loss by 7 times

More insulation means more energy savings. To further cut your heating loss in half increase your insulation value from 3 1/2 inch (r-11) to 6 inch (r-19) where space permits. Your goal is to increase your homes resistance to outside temperatures by twice its current value or more.

Windows:

Older windows that are single pane and has no storm windows or has missing or damaged storm windows, there is no way that you can effectively help the situation. It is cheaper to install modern replacement window that will seal dramatically better and also provide ease of use and cleaning.

If the window is single pane and has adequate storm windows, replace any missing or loose caulking around the outside edges of the window panes and re-caulk around both the inside and outside of the storm window, leaving the bottom weep holes un-caulked for ventilation. You could also encase the inside of the window by installing a heat shrinkable plastic.

Doors:

Older home doors can be sealed or insulated as follow.

·       If the door is a solid core wooden door with a large section of single pane glass, install a piece of Plexiglas one half inch larger than the width and height of the glass. Use clear silicon caulking to apply a thin bead along the perimeter of the Plexiglas and set in place on the wooden door over the glass area.

·       If a storm door does not exist or if the existing storm door is in poor shape, install a new storm door.

·       Install additional weather seals along the top and sides if air passes through when closed and install new weather stripping to the base if air passes through when closed.

Walls

The volume of air moving within the walls and ceilings when there is no wall insulation is staggering. To resolve these problems, other than performing an entire renovation where all walls and ceiling spaces are insulated, you can do the following:  

·       Insulate unfinished walls or ceiling areas in the attic. It may be necessary to cut through finished walls to get to some areas if access doors are not provided to get into crawl spaces.

·       Insulate by blowing insulation into all exterior walls.

·       In the basement where the top of the basement wall meets the first floor wall, insulate and seal any spaces.

Older homes can be made more energy efficient by reducing or eliminating air infiltration and install additional insulation.  

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