Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Thoughts on carbon emissions

Old home: 2x4 walls and R30 ceilings, good windows, heating bill of $60 last month without pulling much through the water heater.

New home: 2x6 walls and R50 ceiling, good windows, heating bill of $30 last month while using a LOT of hot water.

Conclusion; if you want to reduce the use of fossil fuels and related emissions, maybe the best thing to do is to build a home to today's building codes, or refurbish an older one to similar codes.

3 comments:

K-Rod said...

True, but the savings would have to be more than $30/mo to justify remodeling costs.

Bike Bubba said...

If you're remodeling just for the sake of remodeling and getting a lower heating bill, yes. On the other hand, if the siding is a little long in the tooth and covering the walls with 1/2" foam sheating costs only a few hundred bucks extra.....

....main point, though, is that if we slow down the economy with a carbon tax, we ironically are doing our best to prevent improvements in fuel efficiency.

K-Rod said...

Exactly.

And about taxing carbon, if you are on that bicycle trying to maximize your CO2 output and heart rate, will you be taxed more? ;)

Will beans be taxed even more?

How about those windbag politicians spewing all that CO2?

Oh my, the endless possibilities.