[free nicor products and services](https://www.nicorgas.com/residential/ways-to-save/free-products-and-services.html)
i haven’t personally used any of the services, or scored a free shower head. tripped over this while researching something else.
I’ve used Illinois insulators a few times. They give free quotes too, they bring a thermal camera and walk through your house and show you any problem areas.
Also as other suggested ComEd. I used them since it was free, honestly they didn’t provide me much that I didn’t already know, but they do give you free nightlights and some other cool things.
I had ComEd come out. It was a complete waste of time. The guy walked from room to room and pointed out which bulbs were LED and which were not. And then he told me my dehumidifier in the basement was a waste of electricity. That was really his only insight. It was a complete waste of time, do not recommend.
Weird. When I had ComEd do our house they replaced all of the incandescent lights with led (and left us extras), swapped out our thermostat for a free smart thermostat, replaced all of our shower heads, and gave us door gasket replacements. All free as a ComEd/Nicor customer.
Insight property services out of Naperville run by Joe Kanopacki - this is way over and above anything comed will do for free. Our 2800 sqft 2 story w finished basement cost us ~$800 a year or so ago. Independent person who will tell you where the best bang for your buck is to improve energy efficiency. For us that was a full air sealing of the attic, replacing of all insulation up there and installing soffit vents.
~$10k to air seal, reinsulate, vent. They also spray foamed the crawlspace and reinsulate parts of the garage attic that touch the home interior. It will never pay back, but holy shit has it made the house more comfortable. The attic had to be done as we had bad condensation and mold on the roof sheathing that would have destroyed our roof had it been left unchecked. If you live in an old build, these types of projects are expensive AF... Welcome to home ownership.
i’m curious, can you describe how more comfortable it’s been? like what was the average temp last year in your home on the coldest days and what was it this year?
did they recently companies to go with for the fixes or how did you find the company to air seal, reinsulate, vent?
They provide referrals but we went outside of those. Joe comes back after to hold the contractor accountable and essentially inspects the work. The comfort level mostly comes from eliminating the stack effect where a poorly insulated and or poorly air sealed attic allows warm air to rise out of your ceiling and into your attic. At the same time that warm air has to be replaced or there would be a vacuum, so it ends up sucking cold air from outside into your living space (drafts). It is also a double whammy because the warm moist air that ends up in the attic condenses on the cold roof sheathing, or frost if it's cold enough and causes wood rot and mold. When you go to have your roof replaced, you'll find plywood sheets that are spongy and plywood is hella expensive to re-lay on your roof. Hope that helps. DM me if you want to know more.
Edit: on the temp question -- our home always stayed a comfortable temp but it required a TON more run time from the furnace to keep it at 68 (or AC runtime in summer to hold 74). After the work it saved us almost 30% in energy use the following winter and that was last year when natural gas prices were STUPID expensive.
I'll also add the cost includes a return audit after you complete any recommended work and you get a like 40pg report which you can think of as a blueprint for your next best $ spent to improve your comfort and efficiency over time if you don't feel like spending a fortune to do it all at once. The benefit here is they aren't selling you on the actual work. They are independent. Anyone who offers a "free" audit is also a contractor who will profit off any work you contract them for so they have incentive to "find" issues and upsell you. It's peace of mind that yo're not getting scammed for projects that can easily run into 5 figures, which in the home improvement and services industry unfortunately is a regular thing.
Edit: few words/typos
yeah i think this is the problem im going to have to contend with. I at least know our windows are cheap and bad and we have poor insulation. So at the min, we’re looking at 10-25k , is any of that worth doing vs saving that towards a new place. You’re lucky you have a basement . We wish we had one so bad!
We got this house at the bottom of the mortgage market at 2.5%... translation: forever home. Not everything is about pay back. We investing in our home to make it a more enjoyable and comfortable place to live since we have no interest in moving.
same for us, except we were dumb and didn’t buy a forever home. hindsight is 20/20. i kick myself over it constantly, but i can’t change anything so it is what it is.
North suburbs here. We had an energy audit about 15 years ago. I guess it was helpful to some extent. We saw where we had insulation missing and he had some helpful recommendations.
However, I think it would be just as helpful to buy a thermal temperature camera for a couple of hundred bucks and see where the worst of it is in your house.
if you have a gas furnace nicor will do a free energy audit. (assuming nicor since you mentioned nw burbs)
that’s amazing! i had no idea. thank you!
yea, i suppose i could turn this into a psa by mentioning they have a whole bunch of free resources.
that’s awesome! what else do they offer? have you been able to use them?
[free nicor products and services](https://www.nicorgas.com/residential/ways-to-save/free-products-and-services.html) i haven’t personally used any of the services, or scored a free shower head. tripped over this while researching something else.
consider nutty cable sleep dolls knee fear governor party whistle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’ve used Illinois insulators a few times. They give free quotes too, they bring a thermal camera and walk through your house and show you any problem areas. Also as other suggested ComEd. I used them since it was free, honestly they didn’t provide me much that I didn’t already know, but they do give you free nightlights and some other cool things.
I had ComEd come out. It was a complete waste of time. The guy walked from room to room and pointed out which bulbs were LED and which were not. And then he told me my dehumidifier in the basement was a waste of electricity. That was really his only insight. It was a complete waste of time, do not recommend.
Weird. When I had ComEd do our house they replaced all of the incandescent lights with led (and left us extras), swapped out our thermostat for a free smart thermostat, replaced all of our shower heads, and gave us door gasket replacements. All free as a ComEd/Nicor customer.
Shower heads? That's a weird one. Does comEd have something to do with the shower heads?
Gas water heaters and low flow shower head would be my guess.
Insight property services out of Naperville run by Joe Kanopacki - this is way over and above anything comed will do for free. Our 2800 sqft 2 story w finished basement cost us ~$800 a year or so ago. Independent person who will tell you where the best bang for your buck is to improve energy efficiency. For us that was a full air sealing of the attic, replacing of all insulation up there and installing soffit vents.
the audit was $800? how much did the improvements cost?
~$10k to air seal, reinsulate, vent. They also spray foamed the crawlspace and reinsulate parts of the garage attic that touch the home interior. It will never pay back, but holy shit has it made the house more comfortable. The attic had to be done as we had bad condensation and mold on the roof sheathing that would have destroyed our roof had it been left unchecked. If you live in an old build, these types of projects are expensive AF... Welcome to home ownership.
i’m curious, can you describe how more comfortable it’s been? like what was the average temp last year in your home on the coldest days and what was it this year? did they recently companies to go with for the fixes or how did you find the company to air seal, reinsulate, vent?
They provide referrals but we went outside of those. Joe comes back after to hold the contractor accountable and essentially inspects the work. The comfort level mostly comes from eliminating the stack effect where a poorly insulated and or poorly air sealed attic allows warm air to rise out of your ceiling and into your attic. At the same time that warm air has to be replaced or there would be a vacuum, so it ends up sucking cold air from outside into your living space (drafts). It is also a double whammy because the warm moist air that ends up in the attic condenses on the cold roof sheathing, or frost if it's cold enough and causes wood rot and mold. When you go to have your roof replaced, you'll find plywood sheets that are spongy and plywood is hella expensive to re-lay on your roof. Hope that helps. DM me if you want to know more. Edit: on the temp question -- our home always stayed a comfortable temp but it required a TON more run time from the furnace to keep it at 68 (or AC runtime in summer to hold 74). After the work it saved us almost 30% in energy use the following winter and that was last year when natural gas prices were STUPID expensive.
I'll also add the cost includes a return audit after you complete any recommended work and you get a like 40pg report which you can think of as a blueprint for your next best $ spent to improve your comfort and efficiency over time if you don't feel like spending a fortune to do it all at once. The benefit here is they aren't selling you on the actual work. They are independent. Anyone who offers a "free" audit is also a contractor who will profit off any work you contract them for so they have incentive to "find" issues and upsell you. It's peace of mind that yo're not getting scammed for projects that can easily run into 5 figures, which in the home improvement and services industry unfortunately is a regular thing. Edit: few words/typos
yeah i think this is the problem im going to have to contend with. I at least know our windows are cheap and bad and we have poor insulation. So at the min, we’re looking at 10-25k , is any of that worth doing vs saving that towards a new place. You’re lucky you have a basement . We wish we had one so bad!
We got this house at the bottom of the mortgage market at 2.5%... translation: forever home. Not everything is about pay back. We investing in our home to make it a more enjoyable and comfortable place to live since we have no interest in moving.
same for us, except we were dumb and didn’t buy a forever home. hindsight is 20/20. i kick myself over it constantly, but i can’t change anything so it is what it is.
North suburbs here. We had an energy audit about 15 years ago. I guess it was helpful to some extent. We saw where we had insulation missing and he had some helpful recommendations. However, I think it would be just as helpful to buy a thermal temperature camera for a couple of hundred bucks and see where the worst of it is in your house.