Energy Saving Tips

Everyone knows with the gas and the electric rates' rising, with an out of control furnace, is really not what anyone need come wintertime. You wouldn't want the good, warm air seeping from the cozy indoors to the very cold outdoors. But there are plenty of ways that heat can escape. Around 2% of the home heat can be lost through electrical outlets, according to "The Homeowner's Handbook," that was published by OMD Enterprise Inc.

The other "escape routes" would include the bath fans and kitchen hoods that are vented to the outside of the home, 4%; doors, 11%; plumbing penetrations, 13%; fireplaces, and 14%; heat ducts, 15%; walls and ceilings that lack insulation, 31%.

The residents would do well to then determine areas of the heat loss, such as checking for air leaks around windows, when then only amount to a 10% heat loss in a home. While using plastic window coverings, and weather stripping for the windows and the doors, and by insulating the walls and the attics are do-it-yourself ways to make a home more energy efficient. The do-it-yourself owners of old homes should make sure that they don't have "knob and tube" electrical wiring before they insulate.

The knob and tube wiring's nickname comes from the ceramic knobs that are used back then to insulate and to secure the wiring runs and the ceramic tubes used to protect the wires when they would pass through the potentially abrasive materials such as wood joists and studs. It is very important that you don't insulate over the top of that, or you will start a fire. Because that type of wiring has got to have it. With older homes, you need to rewire and then insulate, those are homes built around 1960 and before.