What do you do to winterize your home? (Hamilton, Denver: real estate, house)

[indy_317]

When it comes to wall insulation, there isn't much one can do. Hopefully good insulation was used in the walls. I have a five year old, higher end custom home. The insulation was pretty good. Older homes can be drafty, but even higher end homes built in the 80s and 90s might have issues if the subcontractor used just did a poor quality job. With an existing home, the only thing a person can really do is check for air gaps in the living area, around windows, doors, and in the attic. The attic can have more insulation added, but make sure you doing making a moisture trapping situation with insulation. For example, blown-in insulation is pretty popular now and easy enough to do it yourself (with proper PPE). However, if one has fiberglass bates, I'm not sure if those two types can mix. Also, at my old home, my home inspector for that home said he'd rip out all the insulation in the crawl space and he never recommends a vapor barrier because it might cause moisture trapping issues. I also remove all hoses from outdoor lines. If you have any water lines in the garage, especially a garage with no or poor insulation, I'd put insulation around those pipes.

[MortonR]

While this is more of an energy savings/efficiency thing rather than winterizing, I highly recommend it as it's inexpensive and yields significant results:

1.) Get 3-4 tubes of latex caulk, a good caulking gun and a stepladder.

2.) Go into any room in the house whose ceiling is against the attic and/or wall(s) against the exterior of the house.

3.) Take the cover off of any penetration in the wall or ceiling (typically an electrical box for lights, switches or receptacles) that is exposed to an exterior wall or the attic. Seal any and all gaps around the penetration. You don't have to be neat about it, just make sure to fill any and all gaps.

You can also turn the power off to the room and pull the device out of the box and fill in the hole where the wire comes through as well, but that's time consuming and may be beyond the ability of some. And of course, don't ever open or work on an electrical box that is energized. Safety is your responsibility.

I just went through and 2500 SF single story house last week and did this. I used up four (4!!) tubes of caulk. I've done it in my own house and after doing so saw a noticeable difference in my utility bill as a result.

RM

[hapaleeretired]

If you're drive way is on a slant and you're going to have to shovel snow......buy a snow blower! When I finally did I kicked myself for not buying one years earlier. Buy it and hope you don't need it (like we do this morning).

[MSchemist80]

Make sure your furnace is ready. Check the filter, program the thermostat if you have one, every couple years clean the flame sensor (one of the most frequent causes of furnaces going out) or have it serviced. Get the snowthrower ready in my case 50:1 gas oil and I replaced the rubber plows when they wear down (it doesn't throw snow as strongly when it does).

[ImmerLernen]

Originally Posted by hapaleeretired

If you're drive way is on a slant and you're going to have to shovel snow......buy a snow blower! When I finally did I kicked myself for not buying one years earlier. Buy it and hope you don't need it (like we do this morning).

What's a good one to buy (and hope-to-not-need ) for the Indy climate?

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

I can't stress it enough. Wrap insulation around your water pipes. The year I didn't wrap my water pipes is the year we went to Daytona Beach for a week vacation. While we were gone, the temperature got below freezing and stayed below freezing for 3 or 4 days. The pilot light went out in the furnace and even the water in the toilet bowl froze and everything in the coolerator froze up. When the temperature finally did rise above freezing, the water thawed and the pipes busted. Water was everywhere under the floor of the trailer. You could look in the heat register vents and see the water. It looked like it was maybe a half inch deep. The day we got back to Muncie and to the trailer, the temperature climbed above freezing but it was still cold enough inside the trailer that we could see our breath, just as if we were outdoors. That was the winter that convinced me to move to the South.

It cost about $350 to repair everything, which doesn't sound like a whole lot of money, but that was in 1975 and $350 back then was many times more than it is today. At the time, $350 was the largest amount of money I ever had to fork over all at once. It was also the largest anount of cash money I ever held in my hand. I just barely made minimum wage and we had to borrow the money from both sets of parents in order to pay the bill. We didn't have a credit card, but not too many people had credit cards back then. That was back when most people still put things in the lay-away instead of paying with a credit card.

[indy_317]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

That was the winter that convinced me to move to the South.

It cost about $350 to repair everything, which doesn't sound like a whole lot of money, but that was in 1975 and $350 back then was many times more than it is today.

I just used an inflation calculator and that $350 back then is around $1,651 today. I had a similar story last year and it is another example of how climate could really affect one's daily life. We are on a grinder pit, pressurized sewer system. I had to pay for the pit and pump. The pumps are $1,500ish, but they should last for many, many years. Well, after about three years of living in a brand new home, the discharge pipe, for whatever reason, detached from the main line that goes out under the yard to the sewer line. I had to pay $350ish for a septic company to come out and suck out the stuff and give the pit/tank a high pressured wash. It was another $1,100 for the plumbing company to repair the pipes. The guys said that it just felt like all the connects were just hand tightened and never really clamped down. Thankfully the pump electric motor still showed good, but given that it ran non-stop for at least 24 hours, I wonder if the life expectancy dropped a few years.

Thing was, it was in the middle of fall, but it was almost near freezing. A freak cold front had moved through bringing very cold temps and even arctic level temps were still to come. Thankfully those guys were able to get it all repaired, but it took two full days. Here I had a fairly new home, and I was having to run to the gas station down the road for bathroom breaks and my folks to take a shower. My wife went to live with her mom for a day. If it had taken any longer, the sub-freezing temps would've been horrible to not only work in, but any water in the unit would've froze solid.

After that incident, I really started to question the logic of having such a sewer system in this type of climate. At first I was ready to sell the home and get back into a less rural area with basic gravity sewer, or at least get something with a septic tank in good order. Hopefully things will be OK for many more years, but that whole situation was horrible and I ended up with the same thoughts you had.

[flamadiddle]

Originally Posted by ImmerLernen

What's a good one to buy (and hope-to-not-need ) for the Indy climate?

unless you have a long driveway, a good shovel will work just fine. You're not going to see much snow in Indy. If you get a snow blower, just get whatever's on sale, it's not going to get a lot of use. I'm in Chicago and the one I bought three years ago has maybe been used 10 times so far.

[MSchemist80]

Yea I have a 14 year old Toro single stage and with regular maintenance it works fine (though is rusting). I just replace the gas/oil yearly, spark plug every 5 years or so, and the belt, paddles, and scraper bar as needed (also about every 5 years or so). I typically only use it a dozen times a year or so but when I do I am happy I have it.

[ImmerLernen]

Originally Posted by indy_317

We are on a grinder pit, pressurized sewer system.

Oh, boy...more to learn about...

I've never heard of such a system, I don't think. Is this for your whole house or just a basement bathroom? I ask because when we were touring homes in Hamilton County last Spring, the realtor was explaining some of the systems we saw in basements. She mentioned something about a pump and grinder, but I thought it was just something to do with basement bathrooms. The homes we were looking at were built in the late 1980's to mid-2000's if that makes a difference.