High home heating oil costs, how’s your Maine house insulation?
In Maine, heating with wood is not a new fad.
Maine is 91% wooded land, covered with mixed and softwood trees of all species. If burning wood to heat your Maine home is nothing new, the high price of oil gallon packs less of a sting. You hear lament from those who don’t have a wood or pellet stove about how expensive heating their Maine home is going to be this winter. Time to think about insulating more. To spend less on Maine home heating energy costs.
Many of Maine houses were built when oil heating prices per gallon were in the teens, the homes very large to fit in all the family members. Heating with wood is nothing new to most local Maine house owners.
Less money spent on something else the plan to shoulder the weight of extra expense heating the Maine house.
Assume the position and open up the wallet wide. To pay for the higher heating oil from the beep beep beep backing up tank truck with the long hose and screw on nozzle. Most Mainer home owners don’t take the price hike of heating oil laying down. They go into battle stations to do something about lowering the house energy heating costs on Maine homes.
But if you are elderly, not so spry hefting a 16 inch or whatever size piece of hardwood to feed the Maine house heater stove.
Those are the really vulnerable Mainers on a small fixed income where there is no slack to tighten up the finances.
Folks who want to continue to age in place in their own home sweet home. But worry about how the heck are they going to heat the Maine house this winter? With the extra burden of high heating oil per gallon costs to tackle?
This blog post is about making your Maine house easier to heat and the added benefit, to coo the home.
Insulating the older Maine housing stock and ways to economically stretch hard earned dollars. To cut back on heating oil consumption with some effort in beefing up the Maine house insulation.
Oh great, another blog post on insulating your house in Maine.
I heard the groans and loud audible whispers. Haven’t we got a slew of those that come up in a Google search already? I think more push to better insulate our older Maine housing stock and ways to underwrite it for the home owner is critical. Rather than just roll over and just complain, paying the long dollar for heating oil. Let’s get into insulation battle mode to attack the aging housing stock in the big, drafty existing small Maine town communities.
It’s supposed to be 83 degrees today on a July Maine summer day. But in the back of my mind I have been worried about what needs to be done now.
To prepare for Maine winter and knowing more insulation also makes the Maine house easier to cool. Not just tied to heating at whatever adjust house thermostat setting.
Mainers get up early, open all the house windows to capture the cooler temperatures.
Then shut the blinds, close all the doors, darken the place up to enjoy the cooler temperatures as a Maine summer day as the sun rises heating up the outside of Vacationland. A smaller one room air conditioner is installed. Maybe the Maine home owner is lucky enough to have a heat pump to cool a portion of their place. We don’t try to heat or cool the entire Maine home. Just the living absolute necessary portions then closing off the rest no one is using.
Hot or cold temperatures wherever your home in Maine is located and how to cope best with them.
It is way way easier to maintain a comfortable Maine home’s inside temperature if there is less living area to worry about and adequate insulation is in place. How much insulation is up in the Maine home attic, the cap over the ceilings over your head and under the roof?
Maybe some shade trees could help shield the home in the summer months and are needed. Insulation, be warm, save money.. that’s what Efficiency Maine is all over to reduce your energy costs.
When was the home in Maine insulated last and with what material?
Usually, the not knowing is because it’s hard telling accessing your attic area under the eaves. Many times where the square scuttle hole is to get into an attic is missing. Not easy to find or not out in the hall obvious. Maybe it’s stuck in one of the bedroom closets filled to the brim with clothes, boxes, luggage.
No hatch after looking everywhere? Make one, then let’s get a ladder. Open up that hatch on the Maine home. To see what’s in the attic for insulation. Now that you have access to the attic, what should the insulation R-value be? The pull down stairway attic entrance are quick and easy to access the attic. But when they are not being used during the winter months, they better be thoroughly sealed off to avoid lots of precious heat loss.
And just as important, to avoid expensive warm house air hitting the cold roof line and forming condensation, the ice hanging off the Maine house eaves.
Ventilation is a twin sister to insulation issues and just as important as you button up the Maine house from the outside weather elements. Staying warm over a long Maine winter, the state got 25 million energy saving weatherization dollars last November to help fight the cold.
What Maine weatherization programs are out there to help elderly, anyone low income to improve their home’s insulation?
Making a Maine apartment the tenant has to heat is just as important to be proactive in reducing heating oil, electricity, gas, etc consumption. When Mainers are under stress, they don’t sit on their hands and feel helpless. Lowering the cost of heating the Maine single family or multi unit rental apartment house, where you work, a school, hospital, any building is priority one.
What other areas to improve for your Maine home or apartment building insulation?
Basement walls insulated four feet down, with the Maine house box sills filled too will help some of the heat loss.
Storm doors, a campaign to update not just the windows but the cavity around them all help make the Maine home more efficient to heat and cool too. More tips on insulating Maine houses to not over spend trying to heat them.
Statewide in Maine, I think more effort to tackle the insulation values in all the state’s housing just makes perfect sense.
Spending a little money to save a lot of it is common sense. Plus it makes Maine jobs. Someone has to feed the insulation hopper out in the yard with bags of cellulose as the guy or gal on the other end of the hose carefully fills the attic cap. Or taps the drilled holes in the side of the Maine home that need some insulation love filling the wall cavities.
Here is another important link to visit to get help with insulating your Maine home.
Also places to check out for energy credits, deals on buying the insulation product you need as we wage war on the high cost of heating / cooling Maine houses.
How are you doing making your Maine house more energy efficient to beat the heat costs, to enjoy warm winters and cooler summers?
Share the ways you are shaving the energy costs so everyone can stop shivering and warm up to pro-active measures to insulate the Maine housing stock. Like a Maine farmer always thinking a season or two ahead, Maine home owners do the same thing. Even with 80 plus degree summer temperatures, you see Maine home owners with woodchuck like high piles of woods behind their houses.
Cords of cut, stacked, seasoning wood for the next heating season is just boy scout readiness and making the most of any situation coming up the pike. Kinda partial to Jotul wood heater stoves. What’s your favorite brand? Thanks for sticking around to the end of this blog post on Maine heating, insulating your house.