New Energy Saver in the House...

Sigh... Doesn't it always seem to figure, as soon as you think you are at least caught up if not ahead a little when a bottle of laundry detergent falls into the washer & blows it to pieces (I had to leave the lid open because the trigger fell apart) this is the same part we had to have fixed a few months ago so there was no way I was spending another $100 on this 7 year old washer (that's 2/3rds the original price, pushing 3/4). We had Lowe's cards from Christmas, they were going to go to a couple of kitchen cupboards but I can't be with out a washer.

We got so LUCKY! Someone had returned a pair of GE front loaders the day before. We grabbed the washer at $200 off regular retail, bought the extended 5 warranty (cuz ya never know) & paid almost the same out of pocket as we did for the old one. Bonus: Energy costs on this washer are $10 with electric hot water at $0.086/KWH, our rates are about half that, so we'll see just how much this saves us. The old one was listed at $76 per year.

Take a quiz, see how you score.

***Link Fixed *** Srooy I didn't get a chance to double check it after posting (used the software not online..)

Give the Household Energy Use Money Saving Quiz a try. I scored $825. I only disagreed with one answer that I got wrong because I'm not sure what the correct answer was, all of them were in the range given in the answer??? 5 - 25 %, so 15% would be in the middle right??? It got it's point across at least.

I took the grocery savings quiz too & scored a $975! Not bad, guess I a as thrifty as I think I am!!!

The Clothes Line...

There is nothing more frugal or green than hanging clothes out to dry, unless of course you beat them with a rock in the stream to wash them first (eww). I was recently made aware, that 35,000+ home owner's associations in CA have banned the back yard clothesline (Laundry List). ***Gasp*** On one hand I am shocked that CA has proven (again) that I want to live there less than I do in NY & how can a state that is currently considering legislation to ban the incandescent light bulb condone the banning of the most Green practice I know...

Ok, so you don't want to see you neighbors undies hanging outside, yuck, but what is wrong with sheets & blankets. Personally, I love to dry somethings outside. Jeans, undies & towels are a big no no. Towels especially, for some reason I have always had them get stiff & scratchy, not how a big fluffy towel should be!

It is a sign of spring here, when the quilts & sheets start dotting the landscape. The laundry line is a far more compelling sign than that of run over skunk (also a sign of Spring!)

You haven't lived until you've driven by an Amish house with the collection of blue & black strung all over. It's just a lovely sight.

5 minute finances #10- Buy some clothespins and a rope

I miss my clothes line & we will be rehanging it as soon as the weather is cooperative. I had one strung in the only possible place, between a tree & our garage. It was movable because it wasn't the most out oF the way location, so why it was pulled to the point of falling down I will never guess... I think they forgot it was there? The green rope was camouflaged against the yellow garage? As long as it gets rehung I really don't give a rip... :D.

Stop the Ride's wordless Wednesday photo is of her laundry out on the line...

An update on our insulating adventures...

Still in the Prince's room...

Well we are getting hit with some ridiculously cold temps & wind chills here. (It is 8 with -10 degrees F as I am typing) The wind is coming from the southwest so it hits his room full force. We are trying to keep it around 68, the rest of the house is 72+.

I believe we have pin-pointed the major source of our air flow problem. It is the floor. Half of the room was constructed over a crawl space. Every inch of the addition (the second turret if you have visited Renovating the Money Pit) was constructed with out thought to insulation. At one point before the vinyl siding went up insulation was blown in, however there were no stops in the walls so all of the insulation has mushed. So anyways, the floor seems to be the source of the major heat loss (or cold drafts coming in). It has carpet & padding but it is still hard to walk on it today with socks on. I am considering removing the carpet & padding & putting down a layer of plastic sheeting then putting the carpet & padding over that. It seems to have worked in front of the door in his room.

Again I used duct tape !!! Can we survive with out it???

I am not sure we can do much about this as all short of ripping off the siding & stone work to put up a vapor barrier & then re-side. Maybe in the spring dh can go back down into the crawl space & put up some kind of barrier, we have already filled in with insulation between the floor joists.

The above picture is my "duct" tape winterizing on the windows. You can also barely make out the insulating we did last year on the outer storm windows (we filled in all visible holes with great stuff!). The issue we really have is how do we replace these windows with more efficient newer ones? We don't have a lot of money for repairs at the moment, but it wouldn't matter because 90% of the windows we need to replace are special either in shape or size. We have 2 extremely large curved windows in the north turret plus 10 smaller curved windows between both turrets. Short of having new windows made to order (does anyone still do that???) I think we have to do a complete replacement where we will have to change the size of the window opening & repair the walls in & out, sigh...

I hope that the frigid temps will end soon, I really don't like the constant reminding that I live in an old drafty house :D! $$$ flying out the cracks!

Sunday Insulating Adventures

Well, we have made it through another week. It finally got cold here, so we have been running around trying to find some of the major leaks in the house. Not an easy task in a home built in 1867.

The house is covered in plugs from blow in insulation, however we discovered (after purchasing the house) that there are no stops in the walls, so basically most of the blown in stuff settled. I would have thought that would be a good thing for the first floor, but no. Not sure what they did, but the add-on turret is cold & apparently has no insulation in the walls. I discovered this while putting the Prince's socks away. I was blasted by a shot of cold air, I had to inspect. It was coming through a crack in the wainscoting. I am guessing our house was vinyl sided before you wrapped first, since it wasn't wrapped at all.

I am not sure of an immediate fix for this I guess we weigh the rip out the walls & insulate (DIY), trying to salvage the wainscoting. Or we could call for quotes on blow in foam. I am just afraid that stuff will ooze into the house & be everywhere.

Duct tape is a great tool! I used some around a window in the Prince's room, voila no drafts. Guess I need to do the other 2 windows. I really just wanted to caulk but all dh could find was the adhesive...

We also discovered that the heating duct in his room had separated from the vent, so that has increased the amount of heat actually getting to the room. We sealed that with duct tape, taped around the basement window right below the vent & wrapped it with insulation.

Then I noticed that the beams under the pocket doors were- um - weird. There was a breeze blowing up through the floor there, so now the beam is wrapped in insulation & I can stand in the doorway & not feel like I'm doing a Marilyn impression!!!

I guess the frugal tip here is that it is never too late in the season to winterize & sometimes it's easier to pin point the problems once it's cold. If it is something you absolutely can't do until spring - write it down! I know we were going to do a couple of things in the warm weather that we forgot about until it was 14 degrees!

Check out DIY Home Inspection for a list of items you can check & fix yourself. Made me wish I'd had some incence sticks when I was trying to feel for drafts.

What to do today -

Trent at the Simple Dollar has an interesting list up of what can I do today to make me rich in the future.

Loved the list.

Drink cheaper coffee - I already drink cheaper coffee (I don't work outside the home, so while I think I am at least a half a pot a day I'm not ordering double shot grande mocha lattes).

Make your own fast food - Do bologna sandwiches count??? I do cook a lot of meals at home, but then there are 4 of us, eating out is just too expensive, even if we eat off the value menu!

Read a book - Ok, so we have TV & we already cut it back as far as we are willing too, guess it's a luxury expense. But, the kids watch a lot of the educational stuff & if we cut it back to the basics we'd lose dh's hockey!

Get cheaper hobbies, well..... I just don't think so! I sew, dh golfs, the Prince even has clubs... It's not like I spend more than $10 a week over the course of a year... well, dh got new clubs & I got the serger last year (his terms, grrrr), we do watch for coupons for golf & it's not like they go every week. They only went 2x last summer.

Air up your tires - we don't have a vehicle on the road at the moment, not an issue

Use free software - we already use free antivirus & spyware. We did have to buy a spyware when dh's work software got a nasty bug.

Buy in bulk - well I love Sam's Club, I just can't seem to get out of there cheaply... plus as I noticed at the store on the 3rd, sometimes more doesn't mean less$ in fact in most cases it actually cost more. IE sugar, usually I buy 10 pounds at Sam's but we haven't been & I needed it, so I was going to go for the 10 pound bag, it actually cost $0.02/pound MORE than the 5 pound??? go figure

Plan careful road trips - well not having a vehicle of ones own you do that anyways...

Check the library - while I love the library as a resource ours basically stinks, so occaisionally you find what you want, but sometimes it's far less frustrating to go to Amazon.com

Drink lots of water - One I should have put under my health & fitness 2007 goal, I know I need to drink more than I do.

Keep a list of what you spend - don't do this, maybe I should, but then I need to have a notebook & remember to keep it with me & not lose it...

Replace light bulbs with compact fluorescents done! The Finance Journey has a post about these lights & Wal-Mart

Write a grocery list. Usually I do a little beyond that & plan my menu. I got out of the habit, once I stopped shopping sales (Wal-Mart & Aldi have the best general prices & usually less than sales in the other chain grocery stores around here) Now when we were getting coupons in the mail for the new grocery store for free stuff & $5 off any order over $10, well I was all over that, but now I need to get back to it, since our Wal-Mart has started raising prices on some items already.

Invite friedns over - sure, except they are both single guys (at least the friends we get together with) I really don't want to eat anything they cook! So I either cook, or we order out for pizza & wings.

Programmable thermostat was the first real improvement we made to the house! The first winter we had it was nice, I got to see just how cold we really were! Now I'm not so sure it is a relevant piece of electronics! The coal furnace while tied into the thermostat, will not kick down if it's over, the damper will close but if it's windy it will not stop & we will be stripping down to shorts & Ts!

Turn your computer off - well that would make it really hard for dh to work since he's on the puter 3rd shift. We do turn the desktop off, that thing is an energy hog & runs so loudly that it will keep you up if you don't!

The 10 second rule - I guess I do this without thinking. I usually edit the cart before or at the checkout. I can usually pull a couple things out that are just not necessary after I've walked around with them for a while. And when I shop online I have done my research, so I'm not making spontaneous purchases.

According to Trent if you do all of these things you could potentially save $4600 a year, not bad if you have it to put into an account on Dec 31st! Woohoo. Unfortunately that isn't what happens here... I don't get to see the money I save as it all goes into the house or debt reduction, so I can at least feel good about the fact that $4600 of that is from my efforts!!! Gooooo Meeeee!

Snowy Day in WNY.

I am somewhat spoiled in the energy usage department... We live in a village with reduced electric rates & last winter we had a coal furnace installed,yes COAL http://www.harmanstoves.com/features.asp?id=29

So sitting here watching it snow like crazy outside isn't really bugging me, but... Our house was built in 1867 or so & is extremly drafty (or as I like to say WINDY). I am sitting in one of the cold rooms, previous owners didn't bother to run a heating vent to this room after they divided a bedroom into 2??? But the worst room is our sons bedroom. His closet door has to have something propped against it our the wind will blow it open...

Sooooo I know a thing or two about draft stoppers. We put plastic on the windows in that room the first year we lived here, only to have them BLOW OFF, our first real construction project will be window replacement! I have thermal lined drapes in there now. It is helping, just not lots, again windy! We have plans to insulate the closet soon. It is tucked under the tennants stairway & might as well be open to the outside. There was NO insulation at all in this closet. Someone actually stapled wallpaper over the bottom of the stairs & that was the ceiling.

I know those of you with older homes are relating! We have our hands full with this one!!!

Back to the coal furnace. I am not fond of it personally, however I cannot complain about the bills it generates either. I just haven't figured out how to get or keep it going (chalking that up to a totally sexist notion that it isn't MY job!). We were able to heat our home comfortably last year for approximately $600. Our first year gas bill was over $2000 for the winter, we are still paying on it! I really wanted the wood pellet furnace but our supplier was out & the gas furnace (which happened to be a whopping 15 years older than we were told) decided to die 3 days before Christmas last year. What ya gonna do, gotta stay warm. And warm we are! The average temperature of our house has gone from 62 to 72. Even the hardwoods in the kitchen aren't frigid to walk across barefoot. BTW did I mention that even installed we probably spent less on the coal furnace than we would have replacing the gas one! So lets review $2000 = 62 degrees with a baby in the house $600=72+ degrees in the house & I don't have to own stock in a slipper company.... I guess if you are looking for a change RUN don't walk to your local wood stove, pellet stove or coal store retailer. I have heard better things about local dealers than the big chains....SERVICE is a huge issue with me.

Well anywho, my frugal tip for draft dodging... sew up a door sock! I used a scrap of leftover fabric (big enough to fit across the bottom of the door), an old pillow for stuffing & a pound of white rice (uncooked & not instant). You could also use beans or anything heavy (rocks...), it's just to give it weight. I folded the fabric in half & sewed the long side & one short side. Turned it right side out. Stuffed it with stuffing from the pillow & then used a funnel to add the rice. Then I folded the unsewen short side twice to hide the unfinished edge & sewed across. After all it is for keeping out the cold not a fashion accessory. I have seen these in adorable patterns & cute-sie designs, but functionality is all that's necessary. Besides the kids are already tempted to play with it...if it was a doll or reindeer it would never be doing it's job!