It’s usually this time of year and we’re experiencing the first –10 degree cold snap of the year, and I’m looking out my window at the houses around me, and seeing the clouds of vapor coming out of all the chimneys, I start to think about if the furnace was shut off, how fast would the house cool down in an hour. That might be an experiment. Wait until it’s 0 degrees outside at night, turn the furnace off for an hour and see how fast your house cools off. That’s how fast it’s leaking heat. It reminds me of when I was a kid, and someone would leave a door open, and my dad would yell “What’re you trying to do, heat the whole out doors?” Shortly after my wife and I were married, we bought a house, and that winter when it went down to 10 degrees, the furnace ran full time to maintain 70 degrees. If the wind was blowing, the drapes would move. That meant that the heat was leaking out of the house as fast as the furnace was making it. My New Years resolution was to add insulation and seal up any leaks I could find. That spring I added insulation to the attic (there was maybe 3 inches of cellulous), and sealed up any leaks I could find. I even pulled the trim around the doors and windows and caulked them. It was much more comfortable in the house that next winter, but I realized that to really do a good job of sealing and insulating, it would be best to do when you built the house. That’s what I like about SIP’s. The strength and insulation is built in, and all it takes is a caulk gun during the assembly process to seal almost every leak. Best of all, it’s a simple system. A good rule of thumb is to just keep it simple.
Steve
GrandCountySIPs.com
