When I moved into my house last December winter was already well under way. About all I could do to prepare for the cold weather was blow-dry some plastic wrap onto a couple of my windows and think warm thoughts. As a result, I spent my first several months as a homeowner signing over somewhere in the neighborhood of 3/4 of my paycheck to the natural gas company in the interest of keeping my extremities from turning blue and falling off.
I'm hoping things will be different this time around. That's why I spent time over the weekend listening to people tell me about how making small improvements to my home can save me money, single-handedly reverse the effects of global warming and make me more desirable to women everywhere.
That's what I heard, anyway. I might not have been paying the closest attention.
Act-ually, if I'm being honest, learning about saving the planet wasn't really why I was there at all. I was there, sitting on an uncomfortable chair on the second floor of a church on what might have been one of the last truly great days of the year, because I'd been promised free stuff. It was part of some grant my neighborhood organization got. All I had to do was sit through an hour of people explaining how taking shorter showers would save the polar ice caps and I'd walk out with a free programmable thermostat, a power strip that turned out to be not nearly as high tech as it was described and faucet aerators.
What guy can resist a free faucet aerator?
I learned that turning my thermostat by just two degrees can save me 6 percent on my energy bill. By that math I just need to drop the temperature 33 degrees this winter to get my heat for free. I also learned about something called phantom load. It's power my freeloading appliances suck back even when they're not turned on. It would also make a great name for a Scooby Doo villain.
When it was all over and I'd collected my free stuff I had a chance to sign up for an appointment to have someone come look at my house and tell me what I can do to shrink my carbon footprint from a clown shoe to a baby bootie and to strike a balance between suffering hypothermia and needing one of those federal bailouts I've heard so much about just to keep the gas company off my back every month.
I can only assume one of the first things my inspector will point out is the gap between my front door and door frame that is large enough to allow free passage to small woodland creatures, provided they haven't put on too much winter weight. I suspect that might be contributing to the draft in my living room.
If things go the way I hope they will I'll come out of the whole thing with both an idea how to save money on my utility bills and a feeling of smug satisfaction for the role I'm playing in saving the world.
Hear that, ladies?
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