Do you ever feel like you just can’t keep up? I certainly do! October 2 was “Energy Efficiency Day”. I had every intention of doing something to recognize it on my website and in social media. But I didn’t. Instead I spent my time studying the best practices for homeowners and small businesses to save energy in their own buildings. I’m learning a lot – it feels like drinking through a firehose. And a lot of what I’m learning is challenging the tried-and-true practices, like insulating below the floor in a crawlspace. I’m finding that the conventional way – stuffing fiberglass batts into the spaces between joists – just doesn’t work. I had it done in my own house a few years back, and last time I looked in the crawlspace, maybe 20% of the batts had simply fallen out to the ground below. A lot of them were also partially hanging down. I looked at another house, more recently built, which had fiberglass batts between joists, and they are all sitting at the bottom of the joist cavity with a 4″ air gap above them. What are they doing? Absolutely not much.
So maybe my time researching options for these problems was better spent than just jumping onto the rah-rah of Energy Efficiency Day. But, happy EE Day anyway!