Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 54

With winter officially here and the temperatures dropping, much goes through my mind of late. First thing is, "it's cold!". Another is the warm and comfortable temperature inside the house. And still another is how hard a struggle it is at times to maintain that cozy and comfortable warmth within. We are in the midst of an early cold snap this past week. With the temps bottoming at -18F at night and just scraping a smooth 7F by day, the task is an around the clock effort. We primarily heat our home with a wood stove and a stock of 12 cords of firewood for the long 8 month winter season. However, we do have an oil burned central furnace for back up heat and for those nights and days when we dip well into the minuses, and the wood stove has a hard time keeping up. Wood is free minus the labor to harvest downed trees and felling beetle kill...fuel simply equates to $$$. Thus, wood heat brings home the ribbon!

So the other night before we went to bed, I set the furnace to kick on at 65 in case the fire died and we didn't wake to re pack the stove. Sure enough, at 2:00AM the furnace kicked on and I woke. I layed there listening to it run, and found it hard to get back to sleep. I got up, re-packed the wood stove and tried to go back to sleep waiting for the heat to pick up enough for the furnace to turn off again. Fortunately for me, I fell asleep waiting and never had to bear witness to the amount of time it took!

The next morning my wife asked me how I slept. I told her, I was fine until the furnace came on. She asked me if it was the noise that woke me. My reply: "I layed there listening to all the dollar bills drifting out the air gaps throughout the house!" Oy! It is no secret to us that since we bought this place almost 3 years ago, that is was and still is in some need of serious weatherizing. Although we have done a bit to it with weatherizing, the Alaskan winters have proven each year that as cozy as this humble abode is, it leaks!

There is something about the word 'audit' that just gives me the willies. Although I have heard about the energy audits that are offered in our area, I have always thought two things. One: the IRS of energy, and two: it's going to cost me a fortune! But I recently found out in regards to both...I was wrong! After my wife went to an 'energy audit' seminar last week, in fact the IRS has nothing to do with it, and although it will cost me money, there will be several tiers of upgrades we can chose from and the state will pay 50% of the costs. Woo-hoo!

Unfortunately there is a waiting list, but we are officially on it and when our number is up, we will have an auditor come out and run tests for heat loss around the house, and advise us on the ways to repair and/or upgrade to cut energy waste and high heating costs, and as well allow more of that precious heat to stay within the confines of our home. This will inevitably equate to less wear and tear on my body needing less wood for the winter, savings for those days and nights that we do have to run the furnace, and of course utter and sheer delight coming in from the cold.

We were at a friends house the other night, whom has recently completed his energy audit work. He has a log cabin like ours. Good God man, his house was of divine warmth and merriment! My wife studied on just living there!! He was about as excited as a clam in sand over the amount of heat he has retained and the anticipation of the savings he has to look forward to. This visit was what set the wheels in motion for us. Now we are both looking forward to finding out where our heat loss is and what is best suited to maintain our warmth.

In a time when the dollar seems slim and needs to be stretched so far, it just makes good sense to start looking at possible options in your area that can help you to seal up that home and save some money from heat loss. Alot of new construction homes are air tight, sometimes a little too much so, and if you are someone who lives in one then I would think you are in good shape for maintaining heat and energy savings. However, with so many older and aging homes out there, many fall into the category of energy inefficient. Even with dual glazed windows, the gas used between panes does not last forever, and after some time those windows do lose efficiency. All the way down to not enough insulation in the attic or crawl space, or in our case, where sub zero temps are common, those cracks in siding that suck the air right through. If you have never seen 'ice cactus' in your home, it is a spectacle!

It may not be a bad idea to take some time and contact your energy provider to see just what they may be able to do to help find ways to further insulate and seal up your home for efficiency, and help to save some of that hard earned and precious money. Each area or state is different but whether it be aid through your local agency, or aid through your state, it is out there in the form of tax breaks, financial aid and/or partial reimbursement, and an education on just where you can zap out the cold and zip in the heat! And, if you are like me and take heed to the furnace running through the night, counting not sheep but greenbacks, you may find yourself rested and lively come morning, knowing that help is on the way in the form of savings and heat from the cold outside.