This Business About Trying To Be Green Can Be Complicated

Cathedral Ceilings Add to Our Home Heating Bill.

We have been working on our house for some time to lower our carbon footprint. We have put in better plumbing, and are gradually buying more energy efficient appliances. We also unplug most things that have electric timers that run even when they are off.

We have also been tweaking the lighting, but are still unsatisfied with it. While compact fluorescents use less power than incandescent lighting, they have mercury in them and may pose a health risk both in homes and in landfills.

This business about trying to be green can be complicated.

But we are sure the cathedral ceiling in out living room is not a good thing.

We have a huge living room that we use as an office/ greenhouse. It's just a smidgen bigger than 23' X 14'. It's a big room and it has a cathedral ceiling that goes up about 17' high at the center beam. It's a lot of volume to have to heat. We're too cheap to pay for it.

Yesterday we had a lovely, but icy spring day here and the temperature in that room was a balmy 54 degrees. We had to start a fire in our wood stove to make it more comfortable.

We have electric baseboard heat that is just not up to the task of heating that room in our climate. Even a summer day may not get warmer than 60 degrees here. We set the baseboard heat to keep the temperature above 50 degrees so the pipes don't freeze in winter.

We don't want to pay for anything else because it gets too expensive. Not only do we have to pay for the electric heat, we also buy firewood for the wood stove. It's ridiculous, even though the house is relatively energy efficient. Our last frost date for gardening is May 15th. We can have snow most any time except July and August.

The room gets good passive solar heat gain on sunny days but cloudy winter days can be frigid.

The cathedral ceiling is just not working for us. We can't make the room really comfortable on cool days without burning through a lot of cash.

It's just too wasteful, not only for us, but also for the planet.

We are seriously considering lowering the ceiling to maybe 10 feet and insulating the attic above so it is more cozy and comfortable. It would be pretty easy to create a barrel vault following the lines of existing beams.

We also use the room as a plant room for growing herbs and other edible stuff, even a few avocado trees which are tropical plants requiring temperatures above 40 degrees.

We can add bookcases with doors inside the exterior walls to help insulate the room from cool temperatures and make it more comfortable.

Having the extra storage would be good for us and it will help insulate the room and lower our heating bills.

If we can make our existing home more energy efficient we don't have to move or consider building another home. It's like any other recycling. It's good for the planet.


Paula works with her husband Ron in his real estate note buying business. Learn more about mortgage note buying and selling at their websites at Mortgage Buyer and Sell My Note