Keeping
Warm
Few
improvements in life happen by accident. Destruction itself could be
defined as imposing randomness on a well-ordered situation. The
point is that in order to improve your life, you are going to have to
make specific improvements happen, rather than to allow the
situations around you to push you in any direction they happen to be
blowing. The default path is generally to "just shut up and
pay," and the default thinking is "you really have no
choice".
In
most parts of the country, the largest portion of our utility bill
goes toward heating the home, and it is our good fortune that this is
the easiest portion to do something about. The most cost effective
and effort effective actions revolve around conservation.
There
is no point in considering alternative forms of energy if they are
just going to be wasted like the conventional forms you are presently
using.
Begin
by tracking down drafts, and weaknesses in your insulation. Depending
upon your particular balance of aesthetic and economic preferences,
get storm windows or plastic over all your windows.
The
next step would be to evaluate the importance of heating certain
rooms in your home. If you have a bedroom that is not used during the
day for instance, shut off the heating register and close the door
during the day. In the case of a bedroom, you might even be willing
to forgo heat altogether if you have enough blankets. One avenue of
conservation that is frequently overlooked is increasing the
insulation on forced-air heating ducts. Also make sure that return
air ducts are also insulated; in many installations they are not.
An
entire category of heat transfer that is often overlooked is thermal
radiation. Longer-wave infrared radiation passes through wood,
insulation, and even masonry. Think about it: We’ve all seen movies
where people within structures were made visible through thermal
imaging. This is because of heat escaping through radiation.
In
hot climates savvy homeowners line their roofs with an aluminized
bubble-pack material to provide protection from solar thermal
radiation. A space blanket provides comfort by reflecting body heat.
Close your eyes and hold a shiny piece of aluminum foil close to your
face, and you will be able to feel the reflected heat.
When
you are satisfied that your losses have been minimized, it is time to
consider some form of alternative energy. I view solar as the only
realistic long-term alternative, but we cannot allow preferences to
woo us back into the "shut-up-and-pay" mentality.
In
my own case, our well-insulated 2000 square foot Victorian home was
heated only by fire wood and solar for three years, and we enjoyed
not paying $300 per month during the winter to heat it. The fact that
I was not a slave to that portion of the utility bill was almost as
important to me as the money saved.
Another
way of looking at is that I had effectively increased my monthly
income by $300, without it costing me a dime in taxes.