Who knew?

For those of you who have followed the East of the Equator blog the past year, you know that we have made some improvements in our home. Specifically, we have remodeled the following spaces:

1) Main Bathroom
2) Secondary Bathroom
3) Kitchen

As part of the Main Bathroom project, we replaced the two windows in the space. Almost immediately, the bathroom was warmer and we thought that it would be a good idea to replace a few more windows. Our friends at HWC Homeworks took care of everything and in a few weeks six new windows were installed. We realized after these six windows were replaced that we needed to replace all the windows, as well as the two sliding glass doors in our Back Room. A little history about our home. The original owner of the house was the proprietor of the Pella Window franchise. Thus, all of the windows and the sliding glass doors were all Pella. In their time, the windows were state of the art. However, after 30 years of time and use, the windows (and the sliders!) were not longer keeping warm air inside or cold air outside.

We noticed that the house was more comfortable this summer as it seemed cooler when the air conditioner was running. We were not certain how the windows would do in the winter. Well, we found out this weekend. The first snow of the season fell on the Enchanted Mitten and the outside air temperature was barely 35F most of the weekend. I am happy to report that our house was a toasty 68-70F all weekend.

Last winter, we could not keep our Back Room warm. The temperature was rarely above 60F. We operated an oil filled space heater almost constantly to keep the Back Room livable. With our new windows and sliders, our home is constantly comfortable. Clearly, the replacement of all of our windows has improved the energy efficiency of our home. What I am really looking forward to seeing is our next Consumer's Energy bill. Our home is heated with natural gas, and I am fairly confident that we will see a smaller bill than last year.

Who knew that replacing a few windows could so drastically improve the comfort in our home? If you are even thinking about replacing an old or damaged window here is my advice: DO IT. Our home is so much more comfortable. We should have replaced our Pella windows YEARS ago.