Point the gun and shoot

After all the energy audits, we came to the conclusion that blown-in insulation would be just the thing to keep us warm and toasty this winter.


Energy Tech Solutions arrived with their Infrared (IR) gun in addition to the drills and hoses for insulation.

They pointed the gun around the house to double-check their earlier estimates and found that most of our walls actually did have insulation! 

 zip-wall added to control dust.

There were a few empty walls - the Baby-Beechnut's room received a healthy dose of padding, as did the dining room,

 holes above the slider in the dining room.

guest bathroom, the underside of all the stairwells, and they even added some to the floor in the Big-Beechnuts room, by plugging a spot in the eaves.

 Adding insulation around the bay window

When they performed the blower-door test, they found the house was still drafty, but that it could be remedied by caulking all the windows.


Energy Tech Solutions did a great job at controlling the dust with zip-walls and patching all the holes they drilled. We are very happy with this work and Jeff had a blast playing with the IR gun.

In Hotter Water

Although you wouldn't know it from reading this blog, there has been a flurry of activity here regarding insulation. Its that time of the year when Jeff claims 62 degrees is the real "Room Temperature" and he starts to mutter about the cool breezes coming in through the front door, all the windows and even most of the electrical sockets. Note: We did turn the heat on before November 1 this year.

We've had several meetings with different companies to have our house audited for energy consumption to identify the areas that should be insulated and how we can qualify for the rebates.

Knob and Tube Wiring

We had to have all the knob-and-tube wiring removed from our house (this photo is from someone else's house on Flickr). It still had current running through it!

We had the basement air-sealed with foam insulation injected between the foundation and the sill. 

That should remove some of the drafts in the basement. By the way, this was FREE! Contact CSG to see if you can get this.


Our gas company came out to look at our boiler and told us we had too much gas coming in from the street and they turned down the flow.


Someone along the way suggested we begin to think about a new hot-water heater. Shortly after that conversation, the water wasn't as hot. Showers seemed tepid. We started to get nervous. Then it hit me. Jeff checked the temperature setting on the hot-water heater and found it was set to the lowest temperature. Problem solved! A quick adjustment and we have hot showers again!