Your house is leaking heat
Every home loses heat in the same ways: through the ceiling, walls, floors, windows, and doors — and through air leaking in and out of gaps you can't see. These losses aren't equal. In a typical BC home, the ceiling and air leakage together account for more than half of your total heat loss.
Air sealing bypasses in your attic and ceiling plane — around pot lights, plumbing chases, and partition walls — are invisible and often untouched for decades. They're also among the cheapest fixes with the biggest payoff.
Fix the biggest leaks first. Adding attic insulation or sealing air bypasses delivers far more savings per dollar than upgrading a window. Tackling the wrong upgrade first just means your new heating system works harder than it should.
Your heating system may be costing you more than it should
Even with a well-sealed house, an inefficient heating system wastes energy every hour it runs. Not all systems are equal:
A heat pump doesn't generate heat — it moves it from outside air into your home, delivering two to four times more heat energy than the electricity it consumes. Electric baseboards, by contrast, are 100% efficient but use expensive electricity directly, making them costly to run. Oil furnaces sit between the two in efficiency, with significant carbon emissions per dollar of heat delivered.
The right answer depends on your home's envelope first. Upgrading your heating system before fixing major heat loss is like buying a fuel-efficient car with flat tires — you won't see the savings you're expecting.
Not sure where your home stands? A Home Performance Report identifies your biggest heat losses and puts upgrades in the right order — so you spend money where it counts.
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