Clark:
Time will tell how our bills are effected. Perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. It's gonna take at least a year. As you know though the whole idea of this thread is to figure how to quantify the savings. I should be getting a tax credit too.
Living in the mid south, we have 4 ceiling fans in our house.
BTW - before having the additional insulation blown in I caulked/foamed/etc ceiling light fixtures, smoke alarms, bath fans, etc and tightened up the insulation that was there, installed really good ventilation baffles, and yes, I spent a number of hours in the attic, the good news being that much of my attic is at stand-up height. Doing this kind of work when it's cool helps a lot too. I also added insulation and rigid air barrier to most of the attic kneewalls which accounted for a lot of the expense. Also BTW - for the most part, we don't use vapor barriers in our climate.
RE sealing for infiltration, at my current 55,000 sq ft new construction rental project although it is on tight budget, at least it is Energy Star and between my laborer, the insulators, and I, I'd say we have used over 500 tubes of caulk thus far, we are about 2/3 done, and I have no idea how much foam they have used but it's a lot. The trades - elect, HVAC & plumbing, are responsible for doing their own fire caulking, so that needs to be added in too. |