Save 20% on your utilities!

Yeah, I was skeptical too.  Save 20%?  Huh?  Really?  How could it possibly be a whopping 20%?

I'm not sure where it began but I was looking something up online when I came across that sweet dangling enticement in several places.

They won, they hooked me, I clicked:

"Save 20% on your utility bills just by insulating your outlets!"

I had a hard time with the 20% come-on business, but I thought about it and since yeah, outlets are holes in the wall, huh, maybe the click-bait isn't too absurd.

The more I thought about it the more I realized we do have quite a few outlets and switches on outside walls, walls that I either know are uninsulated or are potentially uninsulated.  Heh, oh me, I don't know why I bother to assume that the flipper did put insulation in anywhere, heh, sorry.  Duuuuh!!  Eyeroll....

So I thought about it some more yet:  well gee, holes in uninsulated walls....right, let's try the foam outlet insulation thing and see.  And as you now know, I'm always on a quest to cut our energy use, our utility bills.  I did install that new thermostat which, by the way, is working exactly as it should with the fewer cycles.

Plus too, there's that cold drafty air that's seeping unpleasantly down the main stair.  Maybe, just maybe, and this sounds Crazy, the outlet insulation would help?  That seemed rather nuttily far-fetched, but, ok, hey, these things are cheap so why not?

The ones I picked up at Menards are above, but they no longer show them online hence no link to them.  There are these which are the ones I was hoping to find but the ones above were all I could track down.  And here* are some through Amazon.

Talk about easy install.  Jeez, wow.

All you do is unscrew the outlet or switch plate cover, pop out the appropriate rectangle in the foam piece, put it in place over the outlet or switch then reattach the cover.

The package does advise turning off the electricity to the locations you are working on, shutting off the breaker, and I will advise you to do the same as electricity is not a force to be reckoned with.  It will kill you.  I, well me, I lived on the wild side and didn't turn off the power.  Don't do as I do if you're sticking metal screwdrivers near a live outlet or switch.

When it came to dual switches I did have to do some trimming of the foam, otherwise the pieces overlapped each other and the cover wouldn't go back on.

Yep, there's the stripey wall.  Still like it.

Or there were instances where there was an outlet and a switch.  If the outlet took up its whole half, I put one single foam piece in.

Ugh, oy, dear me, pulling these covers off kept revealing the horrible original paint colors that I've been working so hard to banish.  Ugh, my eyes.

I mean, seriously though, this was a super easy project.  I still need to do the basement outlets but uh, there are a few spiders down there and I have to move around a ton of stuff that needs weeding and sorting and organizing through anyway so....I'll uh, get to it.  Soon.  Nooo, I better, sooner rather than later.

In the mean time, 20%?!

I have no idea if that will come true.  I quite doubt it.  20% is a heck of a lot, right?

I will say though, the cold drafty air seeping down the stair has lessened.  And I will say too, I was honestly quite shocked at how much less cold is cruising down.  There's a lingering bit of draft but it's better.  Much better.  Way surprisingly better.

And dang, for something so cheap, why not give it a try?  It hardly took any time at all.

In the mean time, I didn't realize how much I moved about the house when I'm working on something.  Poor Finn -- he follows me every-single-where every single time I move; as soon as he lays down to take a little doze, he has to get up again.  He shot me a look at one point today like, "Mommy, please.  Enough."  I'm wearing him out.  ;)

Progress has begun on the concrete countertop for the vanity.  I'm sooo hoping I can make this a one-and-done pour.  Ah, I'm putting extra pressure on myself over a project I've never tried before.  Yeesch, great.

But, it's not going to pour itself so I must forge ahead all confident and stuff and junk and just do it.

:)

*The foam outlet sealers link is an Amazon affiliates link.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.