High School Teacher Busts Two Major Heating Myths

Like any good teacher, Paul Zabriskie appreciates the truth and enjoys "busting myths." And he sought to do just that as he taught a workshop on how houses lose heat and how to weatherize them for winter. Zabriskie's workshop was part of a program called Button Up Vermont, which is funded through a state grant and is billed as "A Vermont Home Energy Savings Campaign."

It covered energy conservatgion strategies that featured workshops and displays on solar energy, geothermal heat, conservation, efficiency and other ways to to save energy resources. The Energy Fair comes on the brink of the heating season as many Vermonters brace for another winter with expensive heating oil.

The programs are designed for people to find ways to cut heating bills and find new ways of conserving energy. The focus of the workshop are conservation and efficiency, where conservation means using less energy, while efficiency means getting more out of the energy you do use. The first priority and the best return on investment is conservation and efficiency.

Busted Myth #1 - Keep the heat up when you leave the house. One of the classic home-heating myths or is that it's best to leave the thermostat dialed up while you are out of the house. Some people believe that it takes more energy to reheat a cold room than to maintain a room's temperature. Is that argument true? No. Turn your thermostat down when you leave. A simple science lesson on how heat leaves your home and how best to address heat loss. Heat travels from warm to cold faster when there's a greater temperature difference. When you allow the temperature to drop, you slow the travel of heat out of the building. And most of that precious heat is "sucked" out through the attic. Heat loss through the attic leads to common myth number two:

Busted Myth #2 - Insulating your attic is the best possible way to stop heat loss through the attic. Again, is in not true. The best opportunity for reducing heat loss is through plugging air leaks. Stopping air leakage is the best investment, because it makes the insulation you have work better. Therefore, plugging air holes in your attic is step one before adding insulation. These air leaks can take many forms: space around non-insulated attic doors, open space between chimneys and ceilings, bathroom fan vents, and holes surrounding plumbing and electrical components. Sealing these gaps is the simplest and cheapest way to tighten up your home. These cracks must be filled with foam or rigid insulation, because air will get sucked through fiberglass insulation that is used in an attempt to block air flow. Aside from the attic, the basement is the second most important place to fill air leaks. That's because as hot air is sucked out of the attic, cold air is sucked in through the foundation and any air leaks in the basement. The best place to start is with the bulkhead door. There are some really big holes in the form of these doors.

Conserving Energy Summary Turn the heat down when you leave the house because it is cheaper than keeping the house at a constant temperature. Attic insulation is important, but only if you plug any and all air leaks first, because that is the real source of heat loss. These are effective home energy saving ideas that will lower heating bills once you know the truth.

You can reduce your monthly heating bills by up to 20%. For more great information on Easy Ways to Save Energy and tips on how to Cut Heating Bills, get on over to www.CutHeatingBills.com. You'll lower heating bills and start conserving energy.