New job, sort of

As all three readers of this blog know, we're putting an addition on the house, or attempting to. One thing we are curious about is how energy-efficient the house is, mainly how leaky it has become over the years. Six months ago we hunted, without success, for a company that performs blower door tests. A blower door is a frame that fits in a doorway and has an air-tight membrane across it, and a large fan in an opening in the membrane. Here's a picture of one. The red part is the membrane, the big circular thing at the bottom is the fan, (with the cover on, so you can't see the fan blades). The little circle near the top is a window. When the fan blows air out of the house, air comes in the leaks, and you can find them by running your hand or a little smoke puffer over likely places. The results are eye-openers for most people. A tight house can leak five housefuls of air per hour in a moderate breeze.

Back to my story. Three weeks ago, we saw an ad for blower-door-based energy audits in the local coupon magazine, so I called. They were offering the audits for free. I knew we didn't have an attic to insulate, so I figured we were safe. Being broke helped with that safe feeling, too, I guess.

When I called, the guy told me that they had just finished operating a booth at the Philly home show, and he was about 200 audits behind, could we wait. It came out in our conversation that I used to conduct energy audits for Dakota Electric years ago up in Minnesota. Long story short, That guy is now my boss. It's part time, straight commission, but it beats the meager unemployment benefit that DE offers. I'm giving those presentations! For those of you in direct sales, it's a low-key, single-close deal, and the homeowners get a lot of good information and advice whether they hire us or not. Lots of driving, though, and frequent evening hours. I'm still looking for some good tech writing. Here's the url of the company in case you're curious: Energy Advisors of DE. Another benefit: my boss is buying me a GPS. Too bad the blower door won't fit on my motorcycle.