Who Did It Best? Mind on Her Money

Warm and welcoming, Sandra Sheahen knows a thing or two about restoring older homes. She and her husband Ed recently purchased their home in Chestertown and learned a thing or two about energy efficiency. We sat down with her to chat about old homes, relatives and home energy assessments.

You bought an older home. When you moved in, you wanted to take control of your energy. Sounds like you were incredibly proactive with that.

Yes. Well, I had a lot of help. I really did. And I had some limited knowledge of what it was going to take, you know, for an older home. Because when we did our Victorian house, Ed and I were much younger. We did everything ourselves. We painted, we wallpapered.

We took walls down. We rebuilt. We put sheetrock—all that we did ourselves. We knew we weren’t going to be able to do that this time.

Well, that’s a young person’s job, right?

That’s right. But this time we knew we could not do that. We just were not going to be physically able. And we discussed [that] numerous times. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, what if somebody had bought this house and just moved in and not done any exploring?”

Right. You maintain your car. You get oil changes for your car. You do tune-ups for your car. You realize that your car is something that you can’t just buy and use. And you had that same approach with your house.

You’re right. Yeah, and not everybody can do that. Not everybody is financially able to do that. You might have to do you know, certain things like save the bathroom floor because of a leak. You’ve got to do that.

You kind of saw it as a “pay now or pay later” mentality. Was that kind of how you approach it?

Oh, yeah. Everything was going to be done before we ever moved in.

I was like, we’re gonna find the trouble spots now. We’re not going to move in and then go, “Oh my gosh, the floor is not right now.” We wanted to make sure everything was done before we ever set foot in it.

This is a fantastic story. What advice would you give to a person considering this home energy assessment?

Oh, I have been promoting this big time. I have a nephew who actually bought my mom’s house. He was over here yesterday, and we were talking and I gave him the information for Energy Wise. I said, “You need to do this. You need to get this house done,” because we knew the insulation was bad.

Of course, we’re like, “Oh, my gosh, this attic. This insulation is just no good,” and I said, “You need to get this company in, I’m telling you.”

You’re a bit of a number cruncher. That’s awesome.

Yeah. I’m a bookkeeper.

You did all the number crunching and you saw the value of the home energy assessment, so you went forward with it because the numbers made sense to you.

Yes. And our mechanic was our HVAC person. And he recommended Energy Wise as well. He said, “You really need to get them in here.” And I was like, “OK. Give me the number.” He had it right in his phone, so I think he must recommend them as well.

If you had a chance to do it all over again, would you definitely do this? I mean, if you’re recommending this to relatives …

Oh yeah. I’m gonna make use of every rebate I can. The money we spent on this house really added up. And so yeah, that was a big plus—having a program.

Is there anything that we missed?

No, I think I’ve probably praised them as much as I can. The people were lovely to work with, which is always a good thing. Somebody who’s personable, who comes in and explains things. You know, he had his iPad. He could show me things that were happening while he was doing testing.

It was all fascinating. And I was like, “Wow, that’s where we’re losing a lot of energy.” The fans, the existing fans in the bathroom and the range were all going in the attic. They weren’t going outside the house. So that was a huge thing.

We really appreciate your story and love that you had such a great experience with this that you’ve become some sort of energy assessment Pied Piper.

Yeah, I’m an advocate for sure.

What sort of advice would you give to a person who’s looking at an older home?

I don’t think that the purchase price is what you’re going to be spending. I mean, if you’re thinking about getting a kitchen remodel? You certainly need to talk to somebody before you purchase the house, and we were lucky enough to have that ability.

So you know that you’ve got to get that into your budget. And I think that is one of the things that most people don’t consider. Even if you do it yourself, paint’s not cheap anymore. In fact, I was shocked.

When the cost for the gallon of paint came in at $60, I was like, “Holy cow.” So, I think that’s the biggest thing for someone coming into a home that they want to make some changes. They need to be really, really educated about what things cost.

Was the energy assessment your first step in finding out what things were actually gonna cost? Did you go with every recommendation that they threw out, or did you kind of choose a couple?

Yes, we went with everything. Another contractor did the encapsulation and when the HVAC people came to put in the new ductwork they pointed out that the crawl space could use some foam spray. So they came in and made it right. So the crawl space needed to be done correctly—so [our contractor, Energy Wise] used foam spray. The plumbing and HVAC ductwork wasn’t foamed around. So they addressed that. We, of course, got a new HVAC. So they were happy with that. And then when they went in the attic, of course they found that the insulation was, you know, no longer doing its job. So they were pulling everything out. And then did the blown-in insulation up there. They fixed around the chimney.

We have a wood fireplace and that needed to be addressed. A dam built around it. They built a dam around the attic. In the garage, they built a dam around that to keep the installation from coming down every time you open the door.

They did ventilation from the soffit. We had new exhaust fans put in the bathroom and the range hood and so we have a whole-house ventilation system now up there, which works automatically to keep the attic space at a certain temperature.

So those were the things recommended. Those were the things that we went with.

You kind of wanted to future-proof your own home. And future-proof your billing and your fixed income.

Yes and yes. You know, making sure the house was buttoned up is what my feeling was. I wanted it to be as energy efficient as possible.

And what were the results? When you got that first energy bill, was it a bill that you were more comfortable with or understood a little bit better because of the process that you went through?

Oh sure, well, we did. So we did see a little drop in our bill after the installation was done, from the month before to the current month, we’ve seen a little drop there and it’s been cold.

Right. So, you saw a return on investment, but you also saw that?

Yes.

And how’d that feel?

Wow, we’re in our 70s. So, we’re thinking if we want to be here in our old age, we need to know what our budget is and what we’re going to be spending. That was our main goal.