Vent about paint chips

Ok...this is strictly a venting session.

Why in the world does there need to be so many different shades of beige in the world? I just want a simple beige....but there's 150 stupid names!!!!

So go into any paint store and this is what you see:

So what is a person to do? I tell you what you do.... you pick up a dozen of these little paint chip cards, tape them up to your wall and after 3 days decide that you can't really tell the difference and you wish one of them simply was named "beige".

*pulls my hair out*

Blow Test

So as you all know we've been making improvements to our small but loveable first home. Most of these updates have been energy efficiency improvements. We were able to fund this through the energy loan program from our local utilities company. But before the loan closed, and all the people who installed the insulation, windows and furnace gets paid we must first have what is called a "blow test".
Well we had the before "blow test" and an after "blow test"....and our results are and improvement of 20%!

We're excited about those results, but we definitely know there is more we need to do. Like what you may ask??? Well we have a basement garage door that has a lot of air flow issues. We need to replace the garage door. We also have a lot of little cracks in the foundation of the master bedrooms' crawl space. Phillip is thinking about adding dirt up around the exposed foundation wall has both an insulator and a way to prevent heat loss.
Does anyone else have common household leaks we may need to explore?

As we continue with improving our energy efficiency we had a new furnace installed to replace our 80% furnace.

   

 Since this along with all the other work we have been able to lower the thermostate by 3.5 degrees!!! According to http://www.eia.gov/emeu/consumptionbriefs/recs/thermostat_settings/thermostat.html that means we save $15 to $40 a YEAR for each degree we lower. So in our case


15 * 3.5 = $52.5 a year


to


40 * 3.5 = $140 a year


It is important to realize that the payback for some of these improvements take a while.


This is Gloria.  I couldn't wait to put in my two cents about the furnace.  It's so nice to not have to worry about CO poisoning from a 15 + year old furnace with no cover.  Or worse the potential fire hazard was astronomical.  It's definitely one worry this stay-at-home mother doesn't have to constantly worry about.  I personally don't even care about the financial payback...because the stress-free-ness of the situation is worth much more.