This cannot be a good sign for the energy monitor business, especially the middle tier, notably Blueline PowerCost Monitor and The Energy Detective, but also CurrentCost Envi and others, even WattVision. All are priced at a point that is sufficiently high to make you think twice, and have a difficult task of demonstrating that the savings you’ll get will be enough to warrant the cost.

Higher-end models such as the eMonitor make a lot of sense, because what I saw was that the people buying them either had massive houses, or lived in places where electricity prices were high (e.g. Hawaii). I would not be surprised if these folks were getting bills around $500 to $1,000 per month. Not only did these customers have more money, they had a harder problem to identify, but easier to solve — one pool pump turned off for a few hours, or one AC unit turned down a little could easily justify the much higher cost. This same math doesn’t work for normal folks whose electricity bill is just one more $130/month bill.

Back in those heady days of 2008 when people gave a damn about things past the end of their nose (like energy conservation, climate change, etc.), businesses arose to support the novel idea that you should be able to keep track of how much energy you used. And Google and MS both offered services that supported these businesses by storing power data and providing a web interface.

But the start was rocky.

I blame The Energy Detective, or TED. I had the distinct displeasure of working with this company for some time, and have really pretty much nothing good to say about them. At first, it seemed great. But it turned out to be terrible. They created a product that was ridiculously and needlessly complicated, turned out to be very difficult to install, required an electrician and a network engineer, had poor quality control, and which is fickle at best, and for many people (including me) broke or failed repeatedly. Add to that several people in the support department, and the company’s CEO who were arrogant, dismissive and repeatedly pissed off customers with horrible service. Oh, and lets not forget the time in Fall of 2009 where they reported a short delay in shipment, which was only resolved about 5 months later. How to make people angry, 101.

TED 5000 was the first product that connected to Google PowerMeter, and in the Google support forums, people became angry at Google (whose service was free) when the TED 5000 failed in any of the numerous ways it could fail. Reports from Google, and even from TED competitors were that the outpouring of disgust against Google due to TED failures made Google reluctant to support any other products. Eventually they opened their API, but the TED had left a sour taste in everybody’s mouths.

So I blame Energy Inc, and TED 5000 for killing Google PowerMeter.

If the TED 5000 experience were not bad enough, Google PowerMeter also provided an interface to utilities who could upload customer data. Few joined, and reports were that many of those that did had spotty support. Utility companies get runner up for this dubious honor.

As Google found out, no good deed goes unpunished. It was noble of them. If only simpler and more elegant products like Wattvision had been the first to go, the world may have been a different place — their product sells in the same price range, does not require an electrician, and has a far better (i.e. simpler) design than TED, or even the venerable PowerCost Monitor. Of all that I tried (and I tried them all), only Wattvision “just worked”, and still does. I would think that there’s a way to make it much less expensive (remove the WiFi chip!!) and more useful (add a simple display). But chances are, the game is up.

I still find it odd to think that electricity (and other household energy) monitoring is not just something every house has. I still save tons of money every month, about $100/month at current rates (paying for all of my monitors many times over). We did this simply by finding small loads that I was able to eliminate. Until we make energy something that people can feel, nothing will happen. This is evident every time gas prices go up because paying for gas is something you do enough to know it costs something. Not so for electricity, and mostly not so for heating energy — they are hidden.

It will happen eventually, but not now. Our infrastructure is in terrible shape. Our will to take action appears to be in even worse shape.

Oil & Democracy: A Costly Mix

We need the oil, and we need to support democratizing movements in the world. And these days, for the right reasons, these two goals are once again at odds.

The precarious balance between the two is getting more so. It won’t get better.

In the last Presidential election the alarmingly high price of oil was framed as energy security, but it’s not about energy. We have plenty of energy in gas and coal. And nuclear and solar and wind. Plenty or energy.

Oil is special because we don’t have easy substitutes at the moment. Liquid fuel is what we run on today. It is technically possible to convert most transportation to alternates, notably natural gas, then electric. But that is happening glacially.

By 2007 it was pretty clear that oil prices were on the rise again, and this was an issue in the election. What if we had started “doing something” in earnest then? The single thing we have done? CAFE standards coming into effect over five years. Woo hoo.

But as we’re seeing again, oil economics is non-linear. Either prices are “normal” or they are out of control. When prices rise, non-rational behavior occurs. People buy hybrids. Laws get passed. Investors invest. And after the correction, these responses seem like over-reaction.

They are. We behave non-rationally (in oh, so many ways).

These days the world is nervous about oil so prices are rising — $104/bbl last time I checked.

So if all the oil dictatorships became democracies (at least with regards to oil as a free market commodity) what would happen? I predict first a race to the bottom, with now carefully controlled reserves being exploited for cash and leverage. Then, increasing instability. Today’s prices are steady at $100/bbl because OPEC and USA set aside reserves. But new, free countries sitting on oil will liberate the oil, too.

Again: we don’t have an energy crisis. We have an oil crisis. We have a leadership crisis. We need to make more energy we can use, and that means making an actual energy policy that considers not just what is expedient now, but what is strategic. But in this absurd effort to drastically reduce government spending everywhere that helps without having the balls to address the real problem, we’re squeezing out any opportunity to make even minor incremental progress on our energy policy.

What is scary is that for these next two years at best we’ll backslide on progress made so far. To be sure, some of the forward progress will be “sticky” — CAFE standards, EPA with teeth, some progress in R&D, but at the end of 2010 many important subsidies expired. And meanwhile, voices are calling for “drill baby drill” (a pointless pissing in the ocean, hopefully not pissing oil, as with BP last summer).

What is really scary is that this current oil shock (combined with “deficit reduction”) will set back legitimate economic gains and make people think Obama is to blame. If we elect Republicans in 2012, and this seems probable, the US will take no action and watch as we slip further into reactive chaos.

Arguably, as the US becomes an increasingly secondary economy, China, which seems ironically more pragmatic about oil and climate change may lead the world out of this mess.

That’s not the route I would choose. But inaction and dithering by the US is a defacto abrogation of power and leadership.

Or, we could lead. Democracy and oil don’t mix.

Photo credit: expertinfantry via

Beat The Cold

The Prius will normally turn off the engine when the car is stopped, which, for my commute is frequently — many lights, and heavy traffic in some parts. But in the winter, until the car has warmed up, the Prius decides to keep the engine on. Idling in traffic isn’t good.

But, if I turn off the heater, off goes the engine. Ha!

My mileage this week has been back up to normal (a little lower than the normal 50+ MPG in winter — in cold climates they change the fuel mix in winter so cars will run properly, even if less efficiently).

So when the car is moving and the engine is on, I turn on the heater, while slowed or stopped, I turn it off. By 10 or 15 minutes the engine is hot enough that the engine will stop on its own. It takes a little longer to warm up the car, and sometimes you need to turn on the AC to prevent the windshield from fogging up, but otherwise, it’s a pretty good trick.

Photo Credit: kalevkevad via Flickr.

When the climate bill was killed in the Senate, they world changed. Important incentives that affected consumers, home owners as well as businesses expired at the end of 2010. Cancun was hobbled from the start. Don’t invest in clean energy for now (unless you’re shorting).

So now in the US we wait to see how the rest of the world will Raymond lunch. All we can do is take a different tack.

The EPA has teeth and has bared them several times, this week vetoing a previously approved mountaintop removal coal mining permit, for example. I am glad they have these teeth, but it’s not a solution, just a firewall.

In an odd paradox, the tool left to the EPA after the climate change bill was scuttled by Republicans not wanting regulation was an EPA whose only weapon was regulation. At the same time the business friendly, conservative created Cap and Trade approach, which would have provided predictable, incremental change was killed. So the more fickle act of regulation is now what businesses got.

Massey Energy and I are both sad about that outcome. Strange bedfellows.

Meanwhile, our old friend, oil prices, are sticking over $90/bbl and gasoline prices continue to creep up. Weather events continue to be extreme and unusual, consistent with predictions of climate change science. GM and Nissan have electric cars for sale. We continue to subsidize mortgage interest, but have revoked incentives to make homes more efficient. Odd.

Business is back to usual. Let’s hope the true believers in market forces are right. All indications are that they are wrong, but don’t let the facts get in the way of political expedience and dogma. If they are wrong, the dogmatists, we will have caused the US to lose an edge that will be hard to regain. To China!

Irony? More like stupidity

When the climate bill was killed in the Senate, they world changed. Important incentives that affected consumers, home owners as well as businesses expired at the end of 2010. Cancun was hobbled from the start. Don’t invest in clean energy for now (unless you’re shorting).

So now in the US we wait to see how the rest of the world will Raymond lunch. All we can do is take a different tack.

The EPA has teeth and has bared them several times, this week vetoing a previously approved mountaintop removal coal mining permit, for example. I am glad they have these teeth, but it’s not a solution, just a firewall.

In an odd paradox, the tool left to the EPA after the climate change bill was scuttled by Republicans not wanting regulation was an EPA whose only weapon was regulation. At the same time the business friendly, conservative created Cap and Trade approach, which would have provided predictable, incremental change was killed. So the more fickle act of regulation is now what businesses got.

Massey Energy and I are both sad about that outcome. Strange bedfellows.

Meanwhile, our old friend, oil prices, are sticking over $90/bbl and gasoline prices continue to creep up. Weather events continue to be extreme and unusual, consistent with predictions of climate change science. GM and Nissan have electric cars for sale. We continue to subsidize mortgage interest, but have revoked incentives to make homes more efficient. Odd.

Business is back to usual. Let’s hope the true believers in market forces are right. All indications are that they are wrong, but don’t let the facts get in the way of political expedience and dogma. If they are wrong, the dogmatists, we will have caused the US to lose an edge that will be hard to regain. To China!

Irony? More like stupidity

Where She Stops Nobody Knows

There are two groups of people who say things like “Oh, yeah!” when passing a gas station selling unleaded for $3.09/gallon, or fist-pump when they hear that light sweet crude is selling for $91.41/bbl.

Rex Tillerson and his cronies in the oil business (e.g. Republican Party)…

and

Me (and my family and some others).

Our reasons are different.

Rex wants money. And he’ll get it.

I want climate change and related legislation. And I’ll get it … eventually.

Am I A Bad Person For Wanting Oil Prices To Rise?

No, I am not a bad person.

The bad person is all those in our Senate who failed to recognize the importance of climate change, and deniers, and all the others who are foolishly preventing a rational response to climate change.

Most of these people know they mainly want to retain power, or remove people from power. They know what they are doing, and that it is wrong. These are bad people.

To be sure, rising oil prices tend to hurt many people, mostly the ones with less money (a recurring theme these days). Here in the northeast, many people heat their houses with oil. People use gasoline to drive to work. It’s real.

It’s so real that one could argue in the last big oil price spike, it set the national agenda and was a factor in electing our President. Some would even argue that high oil prices were the straw that broke the camel’s back, sending us into the Great Recession. High oil prices hurt.

How High Oil Prices Help

However, high oil prices also do a few other things:

1. High prices help remind us that we’re dependent on oil (and other energy)
2. High prices help demonstrate that relatively small price increase signals can result in significant reductions in consumption
3. High prices also demonstrate that change is temporary; when prices fall again, so will our memory
4. High prices let us know that putting a price on carbon would help us finally get off this roller-coaster

Because the US Senate failed to act on climate change in 2010 (blame whoever you want, it doesn’t matter: we failed) the world will take even longer to start dealing with the issues of climate change in a real way.

(I recognize that oil is a relatively small contributor to GHG emissions compared to coal and natural gas. Price isn’t the point. As we have seen lots of things change when oil prices increase. It’s not just increased fuel efficiency — everything about energy is affected. It hits people in their wallets, and, whether for the right reasons or not, they react.)

So all we can do now is hope for oil prices to rise. Because of the reasons cited, high oil prices seems to be the only thing that will awaken us as a nation sufficiently to result in longer-term legislative response to climate issues.

Surprisingly Close To Incandescent

There’s some progress, but we’re still not quite there. Home Depot is selling a Philips LED light bulb: same brightness as a 60W incandescent bulb (in other words, dim), same shape as standard A19 bulb, same color temperature and color rendering index, and dimmable, uses 12W, and lasts for 25,000 hours — Cost: $40.

A comparable CFL, (although not dimmable) costs about $1.50 and uses 13W and lasts 8,000 hours.

A comparable incandescent costs around $1 and uses 60W and lasts about 1,000 hours.

Some math. Compared to incandescent:

• CFL and LED both use about 1/5th as much electricity
• LED lasts 25x longer, CFL lasts 8x longer

So let’s think about lifetime cost. There are two parts to this: store price and electricity price. Assuming the current average price of electricity in the US stays about $0.10/kWh we can calculate cost per 1000 hours (kh). 60W is .06kW.

• Inc: ($1.00/1kh) + (0.060kW * 1000h * $0.10/kWh) == $1.00/kh + $6.00/kh == $7.00/kh
• LED: ($40./25kh) + (0.012kW * 1000h * $0.10/kWh) == $1.60/kh + $1.20/kh == $2.80/kh
• CFL: ($1.25/8kh) + (0.013kW * 1000h * $0.10/kWh) == $0.16/kh + $1.30/kh == $1.46/kh

So, this Philips LED would cost less (a lot) than the incandescent it replaces. And the CFL is still big winner on price.

CFL is by far the least expensive and uses a fraction of the electricity.

But let’s get real. CFL ain’t happening. And there are reasons LED won’t, either, even though both are far less expensive than incandescent.

Getting Real

But of course, there’s way more to this. Here’s the way things work in real life.

Real People Don’t Do Math

Unit pricing ($/ounce, or something) works when you’re deciding to buy the small or large tube of toothpaste. But there’s no “dollars per thousand hours” unit pricing for light bulbs. Perhaps there should be.

Real People Don’t Pay $40 for a Light Bulb

People will shell out $1000 for a big-ass TV that will probably last less long than the LED bulb.

But $40 for a light bulb — come on, that’s ridiculous! Let’s say that next year the LED price was $20, it would be close to the CFL.

But $20 for a light bulb — come on, that’s ridiculous!

1000 Hours Is Abstract, 25,000 Hours is Abstracter

Of course my cost calculation assumes that you use all 25,000 hours of your bulb. If you left it on all the time, that’s about 3 years of hours. But lets say you use it four hours a day instead. That’s 18 years.

An MBA/Financial Advisor would also hasten to point out that that $40, invested in a reasonably performing stock should be expected to yield about 8% per year. I think future value is the proper calculation (FV = P * (1 + i)ⁿ) — my $40 bulb would have to save me $159 ($40 * (1 + .08)¹⁸). So at a savings of $4.80/1000 hours … gold star to the first person who does this math and comments!

Because you know, when people shop, they’re all calculating the time value of money in their heads. Yeah, get real. The $40 they spend on the fancy bulb puts them $39 further away from the big-ass flat screen TV they want.

Real People Don’t Believe Manufacturer Claims

It has become painfully obvious from one of the most popular posts on the blog, my CFL review, that people don’t like CFLs.

People don’t believe that CFLs last. This is because people who tried CFLs bought the cheap ones. It is true: cheap CFLs break; good CFLs do last. I have been using them for more than 5 years, and even some of the cheap ones are still in action. And stores still sell cheap CFLs, next to the good ones.

People perceive that CFLs are dimmer than regular bulbs. This is because the industry started out with 60W equivalent bulbs, and most people use 100W or 75W bulbs. Also CFLs (especially cheap ones) take a 15 seconds or so to come up to full brightness — they are seen as being dim.

People perceive the light quality from CFLs is not as good. This is because the first years of CFLs were mostly “cool white”, and even when they sorted out color temperature retailers described the light helpfully as 2700 Kelvins. Somebody finally figured out “warm white” is a better term. They still haven’t figured out to stop selling the ugly ones.

People believe that CFL lights don’t dim well. On that point, they’re right. (Challenge to any retailer — please send a pair of PAR 30 or PAR 38 dimmable CFL bulbs that my wife will not replace in disgust. I have tried ten or 20 different dimmable CFLs, and they have all been terrible.)

I have talked to scores of people who discount all manufacturer claims. Many people turned off, especially when CFLs were new. The manufacturers and resellers did a terrible job of marketing CFLs — people tried them and they were worse in many ways. People formed impressions, and first impressions are hard to reset. And many of the problems are still around if you buy cheap CFLs today.

Today’s CFL light bulbs are far less expensive, high quality, warm white, and start much faster. But real people don’t believe that.

On many of these measures, LED light bulbs are better: instant on, dimmable, high quality, good light.

But $40 for a light bulb — come on, that’s ridiculous! :-)

Real People Don’t Want To Change

Real people don’t want to change unless they are getting something that is bigger, better, cheaper, cooler or more fun. It is probably a mistake for CFL or LED makers to try to create “comparable” lighting products, or suggest this is what people want. GM has got it right on the messaging for the new Volt: “It’s more car than electric.” — nice.

Real People Don’t Use 60W Bulbs

A 60W bulb is pretty dim. But 60W is as bright as retail LED bulbs get today — you can buy brighter, but they are usually specialty bulbs. I do think LED makers seem to be avoiding some of the traps the CFL makers fell into.

But the brightness thing is an issue. It probably won’t be resolved for another year or two.

We’re Not Really There Yet

Philips seems to be on the right track. But until we get a few more choices, and lower price, this specific LED bulb doesn’t make sense. But then again, most people said that our Prius wouldn’t make sense, either.

Baby Its Warm Outside

Our homes and their appliances are dumb as stumps. Or, is it us?

To be sure, the bathroom exhaust fan is not a simple problem — there are indeed times when that which is being exhausted is, um, best left outside.

But the clothes dryer — if you put in a dryer sheet, you’re sending nice smelling, warm, humid air outside (and, by blowing air outside through one hole, it is replaced by sucking in cold, dry, outside air through some other leak or hole). The fridge is even more perverse: 20°F outside, and the motor is running? Huh?

Afraid To Be Too Smart

Of course the reason for these inefficiencies is simply that adding smarts to appliances increases complexity, and that increases cost.

Making my dryer do the right thing would require a humidity and temperature sensor, a relay, and a servo motor plus some additional ducting, and most likely some other smarts that make sure mold isn’t building up. A heat-exchanger on the vent pipe might be a start.

The fancy fridge that uses cold air only makes sense north of New Jersey, probably. And yes, you have to duct the cold air in from somewhere. But hey, that same duct could probably be used to push hot air (from the motor running) outside when it’s warm.

Why cannot these appliances be smart?

It probably costs too much.

Heat Exchange

Efficient houses that are tight and insulated need to draw in air from outside in order to maintain air quality. These houses use heat exchangers, which are fundamentally simple devices. If it’s cold outside, they pull heat from the warmed indoor air being exhausted and use it to warm up the fresh air being pulled in.

If it’s warm outside, they pull the coolness (lack of heat, technically) out of the air being sent outside to cool off (un-heat) the air being drawn in. I ain’t rocket science — fins like the ones on radiators are used to transfer heat. Fans blow one way or the other, although that’s even optional.

Am I being overly simplistic?

Costs More Than I Have

Part of the answer lies in total efficiency. Forgetting (for a moment) the materials cost of creating the additionally complex systems needed to manage this heat exchange, or the effort and energy needed to install the equipment, the question may simply be: how much energy that we’re using from electricity (or gas) to do one thing is being done for free by mother nature … and that we can get at without too much trouble. But: the costs of adding one sort or other of heat exchanger to any heating or cooling device is likely to be more than a few dollars.

How much more is irrelevant for most consumers: more cost (now) is: worse.

In a competitive world, where cash now is valued above all else (irrationally so, say the behavioral economists) … and in a world where we cannot put an accurate price on energy (such that the energy from coal has lower cost than energy from sun or wind or nuclear) … no consumer is going to pay the extra $100 to $300 it might cost for such a contraption. Even if it saves them the extra cost in a year or two.

Internal Rate of Return

This equation, known as internal rate of return, or IRR by business people, is the basis for most business investments. If there’s no risk (as in this case), an IRR that exceeds the expected cost of money over time, or interest rate, is a good investment. It wouldn’t matter whether it took 1 year or 10 years to break even, it’s still a good investment.

Yet, IRR appears to be almost completely irrelevant for regular people. Like me. In this case the calculus is usually a trade-off between a given expenditure and what I can afford now. So if I have $800 to spend, and need a new fridge and can get one that is big enough for $700, I have $100 to spend on something else. Even if the extra $100 spent would result in savings of $100/year. Normal people don’t calculate IRR. They calculate how much is left.

(It was my great epiphany, 20 or so years after graduating from college with an Economics degree, that most people don’t even begin to follow the basic assumptions that underly traditional economic theory. Back then, I spent my paycheck, and (hopefully) not a penny more. Or less. And after another 5 years, I realized the same was true with most companies. And after 25 years, I don’t think most people are that different, even if they may have the luxury of spending a little more.)

Common Sense Isn’t Common

It’s obvious to anyone with common sense that blowing hot air out of a house in winter is dumb. Are we really willing to accept “dumb” just because the economics don’t quite work out?

Answer: yes, we are willing to accept dumb until the economics work out. So: let’s make the economics work out. The sooner we do, the easier it will be.

Photo credit: striatic via Flickr

My First Attempt: Failure (Blue = Bad)

The audit pointed out where the drafts were. We sealed. We caulked. We foamed. We had all of the identified problems addressed, mostly. And then (as a favor) our energy auditor returned and did a re-test, and found places we had missed. By “we” I mean “I’.

Holey Hole, Batman!

B&D Thermal Leak Detector: 62 Degrees

Nearby Part of Ceiling, Insultated Attic 65 Degrees

It’s actually pretty hard to completely seal a big hole. It’s worth making sure. Actually, I used my new Black & Decker Thermal Leak Detector to verify my solution, and so far, it seems like a significant improvement.

“Were you born in a barn? Shut the door!”

I had done a second significant improvement last year — I blocked off the area between the metal bulkhead door to my basement with 2″ polystyrene panels, then sealed the joints with duct tape. This was nice because we could remove and replace the panels as needed. But it had become clear after it got cold that the duct tape wasn’t doing the job, so I sealed the edges with foam, and that worked very well.

Of Biblical Proportions

Until this spring: the two biggest floods that had happened in New England in 100 years (2 weeks apart) and which were “consistent with the predictions of climate change” filled our basement with water, twice. We had to rather unceremoniously rip out the styrofoam and pump water out of our basement onto the driveway (where it promptly poured back in). Twice. Those floods sucked in many ways — we had to rip out the section of flooring we had installed in a partly finished area because the subfloor never dried out and mold had set in.

But I digress. The problem is that my metal bulkhead door may as well have been a screen door.

Hey Wait, I Just Remembered, I’m A Carpenter!

So a few weeks ago I got motivated and installed a real solution: a door. A solid core door, in a small wall frame. Every gap, the small cavity in the studs, and the space between the door frame and the rough opening: filled with foam. Then, some weatherstripping on all four sides and we have one tight, tight door.

Next time it floods (in another 100 years, perhaps not) we can just … open it. Installing a door isn’t as easy as they make it look on the various Bob Vila videos I found on the web (I had forgotten a little in the 25 years since I did carpentry professionally). It’s a fair amount of work, and some expense (probably $220 total), but I have a permanent and top-notch solution to what I think was the single biggest hole in the house.

And what a difference, in fact, better than the insulating foam boards from last year. It’s not like the basement is cozy or anything (concrete and still some single-glazed windows), but it’s definitely better.

It’s remarkable: the kitchen floor above is warmer, the cabinets are warmer, the basement is more comfortable — without any actual measurement I am pretty sure this problem is well solved.

And Up The Chimney He Rose

The third hole identified by the auditor was our chimney. I had installed a “chimney balloon” but found when I checked that it had sprung another leak so wasn’t doing it’s job very well. It’s not hard to find and fix the leak — pull it out, put it in the bathtub, fill it up, put a thin coat of dish soap over the surface and look for leaks by finding soap bubbles that are getting bigger. Once the leak is found, a little clear packing tape is all you need.

I have to say, I am a little disappointed in the chimney balloon — this is the second leak, and I think they may be another I missed. This is a product designed to be tough enough to withstand the sharp edges of the inside of a chimney, but it seems to be a little on the fragile site. Nevertheless, I can do the leak test and fix again, and even without being fully inflated, it still provides a pretty good air seal.

Snakes On A Plane

So now we have smaller gaps. It’s pretty easy to find them just using your hand on a cold and blustery day. Doors are a problem, even the new one in the basement, especially along the bottom. I just ordered a few of what I think is a good, simple, old-fashioned solution: door snakes.

Door snakes are weighted, flexible, fabric-covered tubes. You throw them on floor at the bottom of the door, and they keep out drafts. Simple.

And Now, Step 2: Insulation

It is very evident where the insulation we installed is working. And the double-glazed low-e windows.

And it is very evident where it’s not working, especially our concrete basement, whose walls radiate a delightful 55° — nice in the summer, not so much in winter. I wonder if there is a reasonably cost-effective solution for insulating our basement. My first thought is to glue some plexiglass over the single-pane windows, then maybe get them replaced next year.

I have to think we could do something with window treatments. In most places, we have mini-blinds (el cheapo, Home Depot type). But as I sit in our sun room/office, I can feel the cold air sliding off the windows. Insofar as this is one of the only South-facing rooms in the house, I would like to take advantage of whatever solar gain I can, and I do want to be able to see outside. In the rest of the house, except kitchen, we have curtains or blinds, mostly for privacy, but I think they do have some insulating effect.

I would love to get advice from anyone who has ideas about how we can reduce heat-loss from our windows (without replacing them).

I think disrupting the flow of cold air (convection, right?) could be helpful. I think even having some blinds in the way, especially at night can help (radiation, right?). Not sure.

All ideas welcome, especially cheap ones :-). I wonder if they have a slightly higher-end version of the shrink-wrap stuff I used to use in my old apartments — perhaps something that didn’t peel off all the paint when removed!

Perhaps no longer profitable? Perhaps a liability? Perhaps a PR fiasco (recall that Massey owned the mine in which 29 miners died in an explosion in April.) Nah, in this case Massey “continues to believe the mine is safe”. Yep. Right.

Perhaps someone’s Canary Collection was being depleted more quickly than desired? I dunno.

Message: pressure works.