With a one-time $1,500 tax incentive at stake, it's more important than ever to make sure you make the right choices when upgrading your home to a more energy efficient standard. But the question remains whether replacing your windows and doors is your first and best option?
Ask 10 people what their best non-renewable energy upgrade should be, and 9 of them will tell you "replace my windows." Unfortunately, 9 out of 10 people would also be wrong. As much as it pains me to say this, windows and doors are typically the last thing to upgrade in a home. Unless you have an inordinate amount of large single-pane windows in the house, windows are not something you should consider replacing. This is due to the fact that windows typically take up a small portion of the wall space, and the holes around them are usually very small, much smaller than, let's say, the holes in your attic or crawl space. Not to mention that the leaks through your window area brings in fresh clean outside air, so sealing them up would leave only dirty air from the building cavity (air that's being filtered through insulation and other building materials).
But what about the draft you feel when sitting near a window? Isn't that an energy loss? The draft you feel is not a draft at all, it's your body heat radiating toward the cold surface of the window, kind of like standing next to a water fall. Essentially the window's cold surface changes the mean radiant temperature of the room, which is something akin to a wind chill factor we might feel on a blustery winter day. Thus changing the windows out will only help the room feel more comfortable, they won't change the actual temperature of the room. You can fix the mean radiant temperature by simply covering your windows with a window film or closing the curtains. This will add a warm surface between you and the window, thereby eliminating your body heat radiating toward it, and eliminating the "draft." If you still think your windows are your best investment, have an energy audit done and get the windows tested, an infrared camera will be able to see the heat loss from your windows. Find out more at www.climatebydesign.com/videos and click on "Whole House Test."
So what's the best option? It's basically going to be a toss-up between your insulation and air seal, your furnace or boiler, or your hot water heater. An energy audit should be able to prioritize these for you. But in very simple terms, it's going to basically depend on how old your furnace, boiler, or hot water heater is. In other words, if your furnace is five years old and your hot water heater is two years old, then add an air seal and some insulation. However, if your furnace is thirty years old, you're going to want to update that first. The reason I suggest replacing the furnace is because your furnace loses efficiency faster than insulation. So even if the furnace started out at 80% efficient, it's probably closer to a 40% efficient now. Also, should you replace your insulation, or windows for that matter, before replacing your furnace when it's that old, you risk paying for your insulation and a new furnace (should your old one fail), and with a one-time tax incentive you won't be able to qualify twice.
Although windows can be a good investment when you consider all the factors that make windows great, comfort, aesthetics, and resell of the house. Windows are just not a good energy investment, and definitely not a great way to use your tax credit. Especially if you'd also like to see your utility bill go down.
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