The Benefits of Superinsulation Home Improvements
The same reason that home owners in every state are not only interested, but concerned. The heating and cooling of our homes is becoming increasingly more expensive. Another concern is that fossil based fuels are something that is available now, yet there is a finite supply. I was a teenager in the ’70’s when the lines to get gas were long and rationing was the terror. People were talking about building earth sheltered homes, solar and wind power. The crisis past and most people went back to their “normal” lives and the energy crisis became a distant memory.
Luckily for us, many people kept doing research on how to wean us from fossil fuels and many companies kept perfecting the materials needed to superinsulate our homes. So here we are the summer of 2008 heading into the winter of 2009 with gas prices for our cars reaching new all time highs every week. Right along with the rise of automobile fuel, heating oil, natural gas and electricity are on the rise. How high will they go? What are you going to do about it?
One of the greatest things about being an American is the ability to control our own individual destiny. Many say that we look to our politicians for leadership and guidance when times get rough. I say, “screw the politicians.” When I was in the Army our motto was “lead, follow or get the crap out of the way.” As individual Americans we don’t need politicians to help lower our home energy bill, we can not only lower it but virtually eliminate it ourselves.
The “government” makes recommendations as to the minimum insulation level homes should be. For example in many areas the recommendation for insulation is R-19 in the walls and R40 in the attic. Superinsulation is the minimum of doubling the “government” recommended R value for your area. What most people do not realize is that by superinsulating our homes we can virtually eliminate our home heating and cooling bill.
At this time every day in our new papers, on cable and the network news a major topic is our current energy crisis. Candidates for president in the 2008 election have all talked about the energy crisis. Ideas being floated are; drill here, drill now, nuclear power, wind power, solar power, better battery technologies, raise taxes on the oil companies, etc. Some of these ideas may give us more energy, but what about drastically reducing our need for energy? As an affirmed capitalist I believe in the laws of supply and demand. If we reduce the need for energy, the price will come down and we will become less acceptable to fluctuation of prices in the energy markets.
When it comes to our homes we have a few options available to help reduce our need for bringing in energy from an outside source. We can use as much day lighting as possible. We can superinsulate and seal our homes. We can use ENERGY STAR rated appliances and equipment that reduces our energy need. And if we can afford it we can install solar and wind power and go “off the grid.” I have a friend that although he can not afford a huge array of solar panels went to the local Harbor Freight store, purchased a small solar panel and hooked it up to a charger for his radio batteries and now listens to the radio for free. Sometimes it is the little things that count.
When I wrote the article “3 Steps Towards Home Energy Efficiency” I realized that many people are becoming interested in this subject and have a lot of questions. Some have emailed me to find out the answers. Please feel free to do that, either through email or by leaving comments at my articles. I try to check the comments periodically. Good luck with becoming more energy efficient and with superinsulating your home.
