Homeowner Interview: A Cape Cod Transformation - Revelations About Home Comfort

Tired of shivering in your Cape Cod house? Looking to get to the bottom of the problem once and for all?

Discover how one homeowner transformed his drafty Cape Cod into a cozy haven. From shocking energy audit revelations to DIY detective work and a successful renovation, this episode is packed with actionable tips for improving your home's comfort and efficiency.

The key to a comfortable home in the winter and the summer is a revelation this homeowner had recently, and he hopes you have it too!


00:00 Meet Michael and learn why he's sharing his home improvement story.
01:17 Discover the comfort problems Michael faced in his decades-old home.
05:10 How the energy audit changed everything.
06:28 See how Michael used thermal camera to investigate.
07:44 New hope and a new pathway for Michael's struggles.
08:56 Michael's shocking discoveries related to his poor comfort.
11:25 Hear Michael's advice for other homeowners facing similar challenges.

If you would like to learn more about my home performance company or get in touch, please visit https://www.hometrustremodeling.com or https://ericgans.com.

Unlock Your Home's Full Potential - Hometrust Remodeling, Your Trusted Partner in Maryland Home Performance

If you are looking to join a growing community of energy auditors, please visit our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/384354076839150

Here is a group for homeowners looking for more information about the Inflation Reduction Act Rebates https://www.facebook.com/groups/homesrebatesprograminfo

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Transcript

Hey, how's it going? My name's Eric Gans. I'm the host of Home Comfort Tactics, a podcast for homeowners looking to make their house more comfortable and energy efficient. Today I got a really cool interview with a homeowner in Maryland and has been living in the house since 92. It's a Cape Cod style. So you get to see some of the things that he thought in terms of the way to make the house more comfortable.

Some of the revelations he had when he came across different videos and information online about how to properly seal and insulate your house. So take a look. I hope you find it useful. Thanks for watching. So this interview was done back in April 2024. I started to do the editing around the end of May 2024 and it started to heat up here in Maryland in terms of the temperature outside.

I knew that Michael's big reason for getting the energy audit done and Subsequently getting the work done was due to how uncomfortable he was because of the heat. So I decided to wait until the end of the summer and then touch base with Michael to get his feedback And this is what he had to say It's definitely been really hot, but the humidity has been under control.

I was told that the upstairs only warmed up after about 2 p. m. on hot days, versus feeling warm earlier in the morning. Overall, I'm really happy with everything, and I know we'll be in good shape for the winter. Tell me just a little bit about the history of the house. Like, how long have you lived here?

What have been, what's been going on in terms of comfort? Yeah. Energy bills, things like that. Yes, I've lived here pretty much my mom bought this before I was born. I want to say For sure 92. I'm not sure if it was like the beginning of the year or like a little bit later I was born in October that kind of dates me back.

Yeah, I'm you were born in 92. Yeah, I was born in 92. Okay Yeah, I was born in 74. Okay But yeah, let's see as a kid I don't think I've ever really noticed any huge temperature changes things of that sort But I always was living here on the main level. I think it was like back in Like high school ish and I'm probably more so going into college.

My little sister needed her own room So they moved me upstairs Literally like right above us. I was in that room up there and yeah, apparently one side of the wall where the window is, wasn't initially not done correctly or something like that. But even then, as we were just talking about the duct, there is like a duct there, but because I didn't know back then that it was all open.

So the summers would be really hot. You have a window AC upstairs. I would run that like literally the whole night. Winter, complete opposite. Super cold, like I would come back from work or even back from school, and I would be running the space heater almost like the whole night. Turn it off before I go to sleep, but wake up freezing cold.

Wow. Yeah, and we had the duct there. I would try to play around with it, hope that it would work and stuff like that. But yeah, nothing really worked. Down here was pretty, was nice. I think they had the house at 71, 72 or something like that. Upstairs you didn't feel any of that. I would walk downstairs and I'd be like, wow, huge difference.

So in other words, it was freezing cold in the winter upstairs. Yeah. It was okay here in the middle section. What about the basement, do you remember? The basement, I believe, was usually, I think almost always cold. In the summer, probably just more, you feel more humidity. It does feel a little muggy down there sometimes.

Yeah. When you're younger, you're like, almost never home. So luckily, it wasn't too bad. I don't use it as much as, crank it up to 72 or something like that. I crank it to uh, The guideline is like 68 or something like that. Yeah, especially in the winter. My mom's kind of like, oh, you're being cheap, blah, blah, blah.

I'm just like, no, I'm like, it's not that. I'm like, but there's no insulation or there's all these other issues. I'm like, it doesn't really work out. Now that I've lowered it in the winter, it doesn't feel as comfortable. My fiancé obviously doesn't enjoy the cold as much as I do. I'm fine being like in a hoodie or like in a blanket or something like that.

I'll just be cozy laying on the couch watching TV. Down here at least. Upstairs, different story. I know for sure they have, uh, Space heaters and things like that because yeah, you obviously need it upstairs. It's really bad and you don't even think like the, you, you hear the ducks and you touch them and you feel them, but you feel like they're not, Doing enough or you need, uh, initially we thought we'd need a bit, a bigger AC and like furnace system to like maintain the house and things like that.

But yeah, now, you know, that I've found your channel and looked at a bunch of other YouTube videos of like how houses and installation and things like that kind of work out, I'm like, okay, let's not jump ahead. Let's actually work with what the root problem is. Address it like that. Um, yeah. So I remember it must've been like last year.

I initially thought it was like the windows. I even changed the cold weather seals on some of the doors here. Cause I thought, okay, like I feel cold air coming through. I'm like, maybe it's that. Change it all up less air coming in but the temperature was still not where it should be or how it should feel Then I started looking at the windows.

I'm like, obviously they're single pane because they're really old I'm, like maybe that might be the issue little by little I started I'm, not sure how I like went into some spray film videos or something like that They do in like houses and i'm like, okay i'm like this is what they do and you know looking at my house I later on found out it's a cape cod style.

So i'm like, okay i'm like Unfortunately, they say that these houses are not built the best for you know You Having that like attic with the extra space you can like, you know seal it up and insulate it And then yeah, I like ran across your video some other videos. I'm like, man How am I gonna find someone that does that around here?

I'm like, how's how does that even work? and i'm just calculating in my head and then In one of your videos, I believe you said that work in maryland or you're from maryland and I was just like, oh I'm, like that's awesome. Let's check out the website Let's start like doing more research like delve into it And that's how I found out about the pepco the rebate program that they had and etc You I even double checked, I always double triple check a lot of things that I do, so I triple checked.

I think it was like the Department of Energy or something like that was also stating the same things that you had stated, that oh, you need at least like an R60. Or something like that. At least like more insulation than what they used to have. And obviously it makes sense because in the seventies or like even fifties when this house was built, the standards were a lot lower now that gas and electric are getting more expensive and getting used more and et cetera, it just makes sense that you need more of it, especially once it gets old.

That definitely for me was like a huge, I don't know, opportunity that I wanted to take. So I talked to my mom. Kate, I know you want to change the windows. I know you want to do this, but let's check this out first. And even with myself, after I saw those videos, I'm like, okay, let me look at this on my own with my own thermal camera.

I went to the library and I took part in here. Borrowed a thermal camera for a week, and I was just like, like this around the whole house, different, different days, different hours, just checking. Didn't you say you saw some missing? I did see missing insulation up here in this room, uh, in the dining room.

Obviously, where the overhang is, there was a lot of, it was winter at the time, so a lot of cold air coming through. I did also see some difference in the windows, but I'm like, okay, I'm like, there's the overhang, I'm like, let me look upstairs in the The bathrooms and things like that it seemed okay, but obviously i'm not an expert I don't know like what is behind the wall how a house actually works I didn't actually really know The what a rim joist and all these other things were up until like maybe a few months ago Just because things in your videos that explain okay like this And this is what we need to seal up and how we're going to attack it.

Do this and do that. Obviously, initially I try to like home improve a lot of things. I bought spray foam cans thinking that my windows needed to be like seal up on the outside, as you can see outside helped for a second. But then as it got colder, it drops down to like the twenties. The heat is like constantly cranking.

You're just like, this is. I'm not going to be paying like almost 800 and 100 for heating and for cooling in the summer. I could bear with it. I told my fiance, Hey, put on hoodies and stuff, some sweatpants. Um, it's not going to be the best we'll manage for now. But you know, once I find your program, I'm like, that's gonna definitely.

Changed a lot of the situation and obviously when you came in you told me hey, there's old installation here There's a really big space here Like this needs to be sealed because there's a big air leak and the rim joists and this is and I was like, okay I'm like that confirms a lot of things Yeah that I was learning and luckily just me I'm stubborn so like when I look into something and I don't really find the answer I'm just like, okay Like I'll come back to this another day when I'm not like so stressed out about it or thinking about it too much So yeah Yes.

It was a process. It, it was, it was a process. Yes, it was. Even after we had scheduled, um, a day for you to come, I was like, oh man, hopefully it's not gonna be too cold. Hopefully it's not gonna be too hot. Um, luckily you came today and the past two days have been like getting warmer than what they used to be.

And yeah, I, I, last night and the night before, I definitely felt the humidity change. So I was like, this is what summer was like. And this is what I hated the most. . Yeah. Yeah, humidity is just, it's just me with heat. I start to get, I overheat too fast. So when you got the, I like to ask people this, when you got the energy audit, was there anything, because you did a lot of research, so this might not, and if it's not the case, that's fine, but is there anything that you learned that maybe you didn't think about ahead of time?

Yeah, definitely. It's really funny, I've seen these vents, It's like my whole life, but I didn't know that they ran through the crawlspace. So when I saw that in the audit, I was like, what the heck? I was like, I thought that was literally like, I don't know, it must've been like sealed off or something like that.

And then, yeah, when I saw that in the report, I was like, no wonder I'm like with a thermal camera, I would check my, obviously the right here on this wall, the heat would blow at maybe I think it was like 100, 104 degrees. But I think technically that's still inside. And the living room was a little bit less, but obviously over here was maybe like almost 10 degrees less.

And I think even after the audit report and the pictures, I think they're sealed or wrapped, but obviously they're outside. So it's, you know, having your Yeti and leaving it in the fridge or something like that. And today finding out that there was like no insulation up on top of us right now. Yeah. I'm like, no wonder, like I would be in the kitchen.

It would be warmish because I'm cooking or whatever. Then I'd walk over here and the heat's running, but it just feels. Very different like in the dining room. I'm like, why is that like obviously we have a bay window So and the wood is like old and rotting something maybe it's because of that maybe behind this blah blah blah blah blah but just Finding all of that in the report and then today i'm just like It all just comes together.

It all connects back and i'm just like that makes a lot more sense obviously with me realizing all of the missing insulation and even parts that up on the Ceilings that I thought were insulated just because they look newer or whatever. I'm just like wow, okay Like this definitely has to get done like no matter what so in other words You were saying that because the room was remodeled and there was new drywall Yeah You assume that because that was the case somebody did the work on the other side that needed to be done to make it better But yeah, that wasn't the case that or even just that the drive the insulation that they had put in was sufficient You Because we, there, there is different standards, but everyone thinks, oh, insulation.

It could be even R16 or even an R8 and they'll be like, it has insulation in the wall. Really good. It's going to maintain the house, but obviously it's not enough. And depending on where it technique is not, yeah, or even the technique. Yeah. So, Let me see, I thought after seeing the report, I thought that there was going to be more things that needed to be done because I just saw a lot of houses averaged like at a 3, 000 something of air coming through and we're at like almost 6, 000 and I was just like, I'm like, we might as well just break down the whole house and just start from the beginning.

But obviously after talking to you and everything like that, you're like, no, we'll do this, we'll do that and it'll help a lot and we'll get down to at least this number or like close to it. And I was like, okay. I'm like, and obviously you're the expert. So if you think that's like a good number to be at or even safe or whatever, then I'm all for it because.

I do something completely different. So I don't know and I haven't worked in any of this. So you obviously have more experience, you have more knowledge and things of that sort. So yeah, like the videos helped a lot and just seeing like all the examples of all the other houses definitely did give me a lot more insight into what you all do, how you all approach it, and things of that sort.

So it was really helpful and I'm pretty sure this mix it on YouTube is going to be just as insightful and as helpful for anyone else and probably people in my neighborhood Maybe even a few neighborhoods over because yeah, a lot of houses around here are cape cods I go for runs around here and i'm just like man I wonder how much they're paying for gas and electricity right now because Me like withstanding not having my temperatures too high and other people can't survive like that or don't like that They must be paying a ton of money.

Yeah Because if there's nothing there and there's going to be something there, it's like going outside right now or in the, in 30 degree weather without a coat versus going to actually go in with a coat now. Yeah. It's going to feel a lot better. Yeah. That's good. Thank you so much. It's really cool.