The photo is of the 'not so pretty' side of our home. It is so tempting to go and powerwash the siding but patience... one day there will be a new exterior material - I wonder what it will be!
This past weekend at our current home, we "plastic wrapped" our windows again for the winter season. $40 for the shrinkable plastic and double-sided tape plus about 2 hours of our time equates to energy savings on our utility bill. It is not worth it for us to replace the windows in our current home so we put up with plastic seal which doesn't look too bad if it is done well. The motivation is counteracting the puddle of water on the window sill from the condensation and the feeling that we are making a condo built in the late 1980s a tad bit more energy efficient.
Over the years, we have been watching the energy consumption stat on our utility bill decrease. I would attribute this to such actions as: a power bar for the TV and computer to reduce "vamp" energy use when the electronics are not on; new energy efficient appliances; and, air leak seals on outlets situated on exterior walls to name a few. I won't try and decipher how the energy usage has changed with different housemates but it would interesting to see how other behaviour changes factor in.
For the new house, funds are going to be directed to energy efficiency measures in the form of insulation and quality windows (yeah - no more hair drying your windows to create a good seal). One idea is an all-off switch that you have near the door that turns off all non-essential energy draws when you leave the house (like the power bar idea but more thorough). This one is on the research list as we don't know how economically feasible it is yet, or if behaviour changes would achieve the same result.
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