So our Eco Audit came back already!!! I can hardly believe that the government did something that quickly! Anyhow I am happy to say that we took our house from an initial energy rating of 59% to an overall rating of 72%. If we had done all the improvements that they had told us to we could have moved it to 79%. We did everything except replace windows, doors, insulate the outside of the house and change the hot water tank. Those things will be done in the next year. Anyhow our house ranks in the top 10% of homes for efficiency for a house of it’s age! I can’t believe that!
We have gotten back our furnace rebate cheque from the province and one rebate cheque from the federal government. So far we’ve gotten back around $2500. There is still a provincial rebate cheque to be issued and it should be around $1500. So most of our money we spent doing the improvements is being returned, can’t go wrong with that!!!
Our gas bill has dropped significantly with all the improvements and the house was warm all winter long, no cold spots anywhere! It became very apparent however that we need to do our windows. They all were completely frozen over with condensate because they lose so much air. So the plan is to do the insulation, siding and windows this fall. We’re saving all the money from the rebates to do it. I just need to make some decisions about colors for the siding, trim and doors. I’m leaning towards painting my garage doors, entrance doors and trim black and using a creamy brown colour siding. But there is a house on our way to daycare that is cream colour with a burned red color for the doors and trim and I just LOVE it. So I’ll have to do some mock ups and see what I like for our house style. Of course no matter what I do we have to re-paint our fence and deck as well! They are painted a greyish blue right now to match the house. It’s going to be a lot of work but what a difference it will make!
We also decided that we would bite the bullet and do our own mudding and taping in the basement rather then hiring someone. It is an awful lot of work but saves us around $1500. So it is worth it. We aren’t great at this but not horrible either and practice makes perfect! So Randy is onto his second coat today in the hall, bathroom, laundry room and bedroom. We’re breaking it into sections so that we can just move the furniture from room to room without having to haul it upstairs…thank goodness! Once he is done this section I’ll paint it and then we’ll switch and do the main living area. Once this is all done we’ll just have the flooring, trim and doors to finish the basement. We are in no rush to do them because I can’t decide what I want for flooring. Well we will finish the bathroom down here at the same time so I’ll be picking out the tile for the floor and shower stall and Randy will install that while I paint. I just can’t decide if we will lay carpet or laminate in the basement. Carpet is so expensive!!! We’ll see, it is a next year plan!
We’re hoping that before all our company comes at the end of April that the painting etc. will all be done. Pictures will come along as we go! I can’t wait to show off all the hard work!
No comments:
Post a Comment