Bob E Lee, I love your
Bob E Lee, I love your comment…”Holes that homeowners cannot see do not exist”….so true!!!

I am a Residential Designer and see this all the time. My design work is mainly on historic houses. I have been in many attics and the crawl space or dirt basement.

I have seen homeowners replace beautiful historic windows when they have NO insulation in their attic, knee wall or crawl space. Of course, floor has so many holes from the dirt crawl space or basement.

The replacement windows that will always be replacement windows. Historic windows has to be maintained like the rest of the house. You don’t get rid of your car when it’s time to change the oil, replace the timing belt, get new tires, etc.

Lots og goos advice Mike, all
Lots og goos advice Mike, all that needs to me said and mentioned is: “Holes that homeowners cannot see do not exist”, and are difficult to speak about, becase when you do you get class as a guy seeking extra work, determined to push up the price using any pretext and the frost in the air – has just been created by you the Jack Frost on his shoulders sales person. I can show homeowners holes in there roof and they shrug, it does not register with them, mention that just one of those holes could seek a battleship and they begin to understand. But will they act on you’re advice, rarely. They want the basic package, and the holes can wait forever. I think we have all seen loft spaces in winter without an hatch cover, we have all stood in loft spaces and could look out into the street below, clients will not accept if you can see out of the loft, then heat can follow the same path to the great outdoors. I know a neighbour who had no door at the rear of the house for 10 years, it led into an old store room and no one he said ever went in there. He was ubable to see that cold came in, and heat went out thru the missing door gap.

(My response to John Proctor
(My response to John Proctor’s comment on my comment to him…)
John — My bad for giving too much credit to Joe Lstiburek who brought building science to the “masses” (well, the masses of our select group of energy nerds anyway) and not giving enough credit to those doing the research a decade earlier. Yes, Dutt and Harrje and Sinden and Socolow and all the others at my alma mater were instrumental in changing the way we look at buildings.

Thank you Bill. I learned of
Thank you Bill. I learned of the errors of my ways — found building science from the folks from Princeton (Dutt and others) see:
http://www.proctoreng.com/dnld/TwinRiversReport_sf.pdf

Brash? Engineer? Canada? Well
Brash? Engineer? Canada? Well, that can only be Joseph Lstiburek, PhD, PE, the man with too many consonants in his last name, not all of them pronounced (although his cousin from the old country said they would be if he pronounced it correctly).

I agree that the primary
I agree that the primary benefit of sealing cracks around windows and doors is increased thermal comfort. However I’m not convinced this new found comfort will affect “Grandma’s” thermostat behavior, thus resulting in measured savings. In fact, two studies which I authored or co-authored back in the late 80s found pretty close to zero measured savings from caulking & weatherstripping or replacement windows (whose widely touted benefits usually include savings from reduced infiltration). The results of these studies are summarized in a letter to the editor I wrote to Home Energy magazine, “Reader Questions Cost-Effectiveness of Weather Stripping” which appears in the January/February 2013 issue.

Great post, Allison, on one
Great post, Allison, on one of my favorite topics. Each October without fail the media and utility companies trot out the same old tired and incorrect advice on how to save energy. I’ve been raging against this and writing letters for probably 25 years now, to no avail.

Back in the early 80s I was providing pretty much the same advice as John Proctor, with similar calculations re the benefits of caulking and weatherstripping. And Gary Nelson of Minneapolis Blower Door fame was still selling kits to fix leaky double hung windows! All that changed when that brash young engineer came down from the cold of Canada preaching the gospel of building science. Oh, of course, we were failing to understand the importance of driving forces! So very obvious once Joe pointed it out.

The sad part of this is, 30 years later, most of the “advice” on saving energy is still stuck in the 70s. If anyone has a suggestion for fixing this sorry state of affairs, please weigh in.

Hi John. Thanks for the
Hi John. Thanks for the great “blast from the past” video. Now I know where the utilities are getting all their incorrect information. Just kidding, of course. I’m fortunate that I don’t have any video records of my early 80s advice!