Insulate these holes in your house

Attic Stairs

When attic stairs are installed, a large hole (approximately 10 square feet) is created in your ceiling. The ceiling and insulation are removed, leaving only a thin, unsealed, sheet of plywood. Your attic space is ventilated directly to the outdoors. In the winter, the attic space can be very cold and what is separating your conditioned house from your unconditioned attic? That thin sheet of plywood.

Often gaps can be observed around the perimeter of the door. Try this yourself:  at night, turn on the attic light and shut the attic stairway door—do you see any light coming through? These are gaps add up to a large opening where your heated/cooled air leaks out 24 hours a day. This is like leaving a window open all year round.

An easy, low-cost solution is to add an attic stair cover. An attic stair cover provides an air seal, reducing the air leaks. Add the desired amount of insulation over the cover to restore the insulation removed from the ceiling.

Whole House Fans

Much like attic stairs above, when whole house fans are installed, a large hole (up to 16 square feet or larger) is created in your ceiling. The ceiling and insulation that were there have to be removed, leaving only leaky ceiling shutter between the house and the outdoors.

An easy, low-cost solution is to add a whole house fan cover. Installed from the attic side, the whole house fan cover is invisible. Cover the fan to reduce heating and air- conditioning loss, remove it when use of the fan is desired. If attic access is inconvenient, a ceiling shutter cover is another option for reducing heat loss through the ceiling shutter. Made from R-8, textured, thin, white flexible insulation, and installed from the house side over the ceiling shutter with Velcro, a whole house fan shutter cover is easily installed and removed. 

Clothes Dryer Exhaust Ducts

In many homes, the room with the clothes dryer is the coldest room in the house. Your clothes dryer is connected to an exhaust duct that is open to the outdoors.  In the winter, cold air leaks through the duct, into your dryer and your house. To reduce air leakage, dryer vents use sheet-metal flappers but these do not provide a positive seal to stop air leakage. Compounding the problem is that over time, lint clogs the flapper valve causing it to stay open, or a cold breeze can blow the flapper open, allowing frigid air right to come right into the house.

An easy, low-cost solution is to add a dryer vent seal that is mounted on the outside of your house and reduces unwanted air infiltration. The vent remains closed when the dryer idle. When the dryer is in use, a floating shuttle rises to allow warm air, lint and moisture to escape.

Change your light bulbs: Compact fluorescent light bulbs use 75% less electricity than conventional incandescent light bulbs and can save over $30 in electricity costs over the life of the bulb. More.

Use a powerstrip: Electronic equipment connected to a power source continues to consume energy even when turned off and can account for up to 10% of your electricity use. To reduce these phanton loads, plug your electronic equipment into a powerstrip that can be turned off when the equipment is not in use.

Put your computer to sleep: Computers consume significant amounts of electricity, so it's important to limit their activity when not in use. Both Apple and Windows-based computers have energy saving functions that put the computer into sleep mode when idle.