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The MONEY PIT

I ain't sending an email update for this blog entry...for those of you that happen to visit my blog from time to time, I'd like to send a big CONGRATS for coming here without prompting. Besides, if you aren't a HOMOwner, then this likely doesn't make any sense to you anyways.

In 1986, Tom Hanks and Shelley Long starred in a mildly well reviewed movie about the pit falls of renovating a "first home". That movie was called MONEY PIT.

Well, today we had ATCO perform an "energy audit" of our house -- to highlight areas of improvement to reduce our gas and electrical bills and improve the overall quality of life, re-sale value, and comfortability of our first home.

Needless to say, our house appears to be it's own money pit...and suddenly, that Tom Hanks movie is a LOT more relevant and funny than it was when I first saw it.

Here is what we found out.

1. We have around a 55% - 60% efficient furnace that should be replaced. Luckily, we already knew about this and have already decided to purchase a $4,500 (installed cost) 94%, two speed, variable furnace in February.

2. We have only wood chip insulation in our attic, giving us an R-value of R-10. For Edmonton climate, it is recommended that you have an R-51 valued attic...meaning that we need to blow in fiberglass insulation PDQ. That is, of course, once we get the bathroom fan and stove fan installed and running!

Estimated cost of around $1,000...although we should be able to do most of this ourselves.

3. We have NO FREAKING INSULATION IN OUR BASEMENT WALLS!!! For the love of Christ, who puts up a basement without insulating? Thus, as Mike Holmes would proclaim on his hit HGTV Show Holmes on Homes, "It's ALL gotta come down".

Okay...so we were planning on redoing the basement anyways...but I never expected this!

Cost: an arm

4. We could look at insulating behind the vinyl siding. Granted, this was yet another home improvement we planned for later...but to have all of this stuff thrown at you in less than 2 hours hurts.

Cost: the leg.

Sigh...while I'm glad to own a home, and we actually got a good home for a 1st timer (believe it or not!), you can bet that I'll be calling on a lot of you to put your backs into it to help us do some of these renos!

posted by Team Shawn Michaels @ 10:19 a.m.