Maine home insulation, making warmer winters, cooler summers happen.
More comfort at your home in Maine wherever you hang your hat starts with planning. No matter what the cost of energy to heat or cool your Maine home. No one likes to waste hard earned dollars.
But true Mainers watching the gas pump and heating oil prices hike higher don’t panic.
Live a few years in rural Maine and what to do to make the most of things is not so hard. Living in Maine makes you way way more resourceful, independent, creativel.
Less emotion and more plan of action is how Mainers maneuver harsh weather, spells of poor heath or during economic setbacks.
The towns in Maine are smaller and tighter and work together to conquer problems. Accepting the mantra “if it is to be, it is up to me”. Taking charge for the plan of attack on whatever the issue living in Maine as a full time native.
So Maine home insulation.
How to tackle the living space you call home. To make sure cracks and crevices are well sealed. Tight is right. Making sure that Maine home attic areas are super insulated and well ventilated.
Big homes in Maine, those are the biggest energy hogs to ride herd on all year long.
Large families, growing up on farms and working the mills, out in the back forty woodlot in Maine meant bigger housing needed. Large families of yesteryear number ten and more were common in Maine. More than the now standard 1.6 children per family in the USA. Maine has a lot of larger, grand older housing stock to insulated and heat as efficiently as possible. No one has money to burn in small town rural Maine.
Chances are this is not your first blog post in the search for insulation tips to save hard earned dollars used to purchase energy.
Energy conservation is best approached from lots of angles. First, how big a place do you need now? Your real estate housing needs changes as families arrive and eventually leave the nest. Or housing multi generations under one roof to be the most economically efficient. The trend to share the roof line is a healthy one on many levels.
Those grandchildren benefit from gram and gramps helping instill values and developing the right Maine attitude for success in life.
The kids enrich the the older generation’s quality of life too. And Mom and Dad sure could use the helping hand and back up support when their parents live local or share the same mailbox address.
Insulation tip number one is share space rather than lots of room but only a few people wasting it.
How much space do you really need and what are the reasons to use more than you need?
In rural Maine, the desire to make others envious observing how much space your McMansion takes up is gone.
Practical, frugal, form follows function rules the day. Not trying to be snarky or put on airs to impress anyone.
Insulation tip number two is reduce what you use as family size shrinks.
Consider adding an efficiency apartment to Air BnB or rent out someone all alone. The income from the extended stay renter say that works as a traveler at the local health care facility can enrich your life and the tenant’s too!
Close off what you don’t use. Less square footage means an easier time keeping it warm or cool depending on the month showing on the kitchen calendar.
Sometimes selling the big ark and downsizing to something one floor and smaller just makes sense.
Trading places with someone in the accumulation phase and raising or blending families who has out grown their current 2 bedroom ranch style home.
Insulation tip number three involves a physical inspection of your current Maine home.
Before throwing lots of money into the latest trending energy saving devices, examine the Maine house or apartment for tightness.
Loose as a goose with gaps air can come and go as it pleases is going to waste lots of energy dollars.
What’s capping your attic space, how efficient your windows and doors are, what heat loss happens in your basement area?
What is in the walls for insulation and before you add exterior vinyl siding, consider some outside foam board insulation.
Making heating and cooling your home a game, a sport, rising to the challenge.
Lots of rebates for energy savings if you look online or at the local Maine hardware and building store. Here’s is the Efficiency Maine home insulation website short cut link.
What you purchase for water heaters, home appliances, lighting fixtures and the how to warm and cool your living space has many facets.
Here are at home cost incentive options to save money at your residence. Saving money on your energy costs is not just limited to your Maine home either. Work, schools, health care facilities.. what gets chewed up on the commercial and institutional side of energy costs matters just as much. More on that work side of energy efficiency and incentive rebates options.
Growing up, each late fall the Maine farm house was banked with fir bows and sheathing.
The trip to get fresh bows from the farm’s wooded sections was a ritual.
One practiced right along with having a year ahead supply of cut, stacked, seasoned fire wood. Wood to heat your home as a renewable resource was everywhere and tightening up the old farmstead was not as critical. Not like now where heating oil is precious and comes at a high cost.
In those early years, the state highway department crews put up snow fences along the major roadway arteries. To control drifting snow and save money spend winging back the new storm flakes to keep traffic moving efficiently.
We dressed differently than some today too when winter weather was happening around us growing up in small town rural Maine.
Waiting for the school bus at the end of the farm house driveway, you had the winter coat zipped up tightly. The one bought with your own money picking potatoes with all your family and friends out in the farm field. Mittens, hat, stockings and scarf knit by mom or gram and maybe a long underwear layer. Prepared, comfortable, braced to weather any storm in life. Not shivering and feeling helpless wearing a short sleeve shirt, no hat, no gloves or coat.
Not trucked by your parents door to door and hanging inside 97% of the time year round.
No, no. Just one trip on the big yellow number 13 bus at 7:15 each morning with delivery home at 3:30 in the afternoon. Just in time for farm chores and some time before supper to play outside with family and friends.
When there is less money to manage, better use of the funds happens. Here’s more Maine energy saving blog posts to glean.
Creative, practical, everything designed for survival of your family and Maine community.
That’s the same approach used to how best to manage high energy costs. Most Maine homes have a variety of heat sources so the ability to “play” the energy market happens. Not being pushed into a corner with no options is not how hardworking Mainer’s run their lives. Staying a step ahead and expecting setbacks, preparing for them before they happen.
What are you doing to step up the game heating or cooling your Maine home?
Heat pump hanging off the side of your house or ceiling fans being installed to move the air up or down depending on the season? Any cutting edge energy saving building tips to share for new construction? Or old tried and tested methods to squeeze the maximum BTU value out of your hard earned energy dollars?
Do you heat your Maine home with cords of wood or pallet bags of pellets?
Considering buying an electric car or a moped or peddle bike? Do you ride share to your Maine job? Or telecommute to work remotely in Maine? Winter in Maine is always in the corner of your eye or back of your mind.
Now is the time to tackle the Maine home to make sure the energy dollars are not going up the chimney.
Making a game of how to heat your place best and to be the most comfortable. For peace of mind and comfort wherever your live, work or play in Maine.
Working hard to up on the latest insulation, weatherization Keeping the winter cold, Jack Frost from your door because your Maine home insulation is to snuff. All the latest weatherization energy saving rebates have been explored and tapped.