Here's My Great Green Idea!

I had an energy audit and learned that the biggest energy waste in my home was the 58 older recessed lights on the main floor of my home leaking conditioned air into my attic. My husband didn't want to go to the expense or hassle working in the unfinished attic to change the fixtures to more modern "air-tight" cans or to box them in to stop the air flow, solutions commonly recommended. I had to come up with another approach. I did some research online and emailed a couple of energy experts and worked out a new solution. We used butyl backed foil tape to seal all the holes in the interior of the cans and caulked with a high temperature caulk between the ceiling sheetrock and the cans to reduce air flow. While we were at it, we replaced the incandescent flood lamps in the cans to compact flurescent (CFL) flood style lamps. In addition to using less electricity, the CFLs are much cooler burning than a regular incandescent lamp. As a result, they keep heat build-up in the cans to a minimum. After sealing, regular bulbs would have overheated and triped the thermal coupling safety swithces in the cans, blinking the light off. We've had great results! But we didn't stop there. I was so excited with the energy savings potential of CFLs that I replaced all 200 bulbs in my home. My natural gas bill was reduced by 6% and my electric bill was reduced 32%! My electric utility even featured a story about me in their monthly newsletter. We are thrilled to have reduced our carbon footprint as well as having made an investment in energy efficiency that will pay for itself in about a year.