EnergyMiser101

Home Insulation 3: Blowing In Cellulose

     Our home insulation saga continued this past week.  Three men from the company we contracted pulled into our driveway Friday morning with all the equipment they needed to blow cellulose insulation (shredded newspaper) into our third floor attic.

     Luckily they were three nice, neat guys, but I learned that installing insulation takes a lot longer and is a lot messier than I ever expected.

     My husband and I prepped the space by removing just about everything from our third floor living area. The few pieces of furniture we left, including a few boxes, sofa and small dresser, needed to be covered with a drop cloth. The dresser wasn't (OOPS) and you can see in the accompanying photo album that it was coated with dust. We didn't move things out of our attic, but put everything in a pile and left a clear pathway to the attic perimeter where the roof meets the floor.

Replace Your Power Drill Battery

Don't buy a new power drill, replace the battery to save money and starve the landfill.

     My husband, Joe, loves tools, so my mother gave him a Makita 7.2 volt power drill for Christmas in 1993.  It's been his reliable helper ever since, allowing him to put up bookshelves, a train table and a score of other items around the house.  A few years ago he noticed that the drill battery was starting to go, but he put off looking for a new drill. (Maybe it was his sentimental attachment to the old workhorse--the drill, that is, not my mother-- or maybe he just didn't want to spend the money on a new drill). 

Try a New Front-Loading Washing Machine

      If you need a new washing machine, buy a front loader. It's more money up front, but in the long run you'll be doing the environment, your pocketbook, and your clothes a favor.

     Our fourteen-year-old washing machine was on life support for a while. I'm not sure what finally threw it over the edge. Maybe it was my eleven-year-old daughter's obsession with cleaning every item of clothing she wears, even if she only has it on for fifteen minutes. Maybe it was just old age.

     Anyway, last Tuesday I ended up wringing out a load of bath towels because halfway through the wash cycle our machine took its final breath.

Drive Slightly Slower and Save

       For Spring break we drove from Northern New Jersey to Carolina Beach, North Carolina, where my brother lives. Just about everyone knows that the faster you drive, the more gasoline you burn. But, we thought this was a good time to put that principle to the test.
     During part of the trip my husband tried to maintain a speed of 60-65 miles per hour (mph), and in other areas with higher speed limits, he pushed our Subaru Outback to 70-75 mph. Because our car has a digital readout of average miles per gallon (mpg), it was easy to see how we were doing. The upshot is that at the lower speed, we achieved 33 mpg. When we drove 10 mph faster, we achieved 29 mpg.