My attic is very accessible. What are these vapor boxes that you a referring to? The problem right now is I don't want to mess up all of the new insulation but I want to air seal the light fixtures most definitely....Teken wrote:Given you have R60 insulation in the attic space now it would take more than eight hours for heat soaking to take place. But, you certainly should have some method to measure the temperature and come up with some sort of active cooling when its required.Vanhalo wrote:My local utility company told me (during a recent energy audit) to turn off the active exhaust vents in the attic. They told me they are wasting electricity and sucking the cold air out of the living space. I have plenty of passive exhaust vents in the attic so I turned the breaker off. I am going to run a temp probe up there and I might introduce Insteon switches to at least have the option....mainly because one of our kitchen lights remains on the same circuit. You are correct in that they were using 3-4Kwh per day.Teken wrote:I think once you get that house air tight you will see great savings in terms of heat loss. The R60 you added to the attic will pay off in spades for both heating / cooling. I know we chatted about the two attic vents you had going on in there.
But, rest assured controlling them with HA solution will save you lots of money. As I recall they really were huge power hogs, once you get a chance to install the solar powered attic vents you won't have to rely on the powered one's too much.
Probably only when the temperatures are extremely high then you can bring them on line. Since you're doing solar it will help offset the power usage of those vents also.
Insulated garage door will save you huge as it did for me since I built my brand new home. It gets as cold as -50'C before the wind chill and the garage is always 20-30'C different than the outside. Of course insulating the interior of the garage played a huge role.
But, the garage door is also part of the solution for heat / cold penetration.
Looking forward to seeing your electrical trends in the next year or so.
I have been using a combination of ceiling fans and solar powered fans to regulate the space above my garage attic space. It has dropped the temperatures down by 30'C when its 50'C up there.
Not too sure how hard it is for you to get up to the attic and seal off all the light fixtures. They are probably the number one area that heat / cold penetrate through. As I recall your house is older so it may not have used those plastic vapor barrier box's as they are used in newer house like mine.
For $0.10 a piece they are worth their weight in gold!
I will wait until is cools off...December maybe and then I will start addressing the attic again.
When you have six months of energy data for the geothermal please do create a new thread to see how it has changed your energy consumptions.
