Insulated the outlets - now what?

We had an energy assessment done ten days ago, in preparation for bigger energy efficiency projects that are partly financed by the governments. The assessor reminded me that insulating electrical outlets is a good idea. I splurged $12 on a 30 pack of these:


and installed about 25 30 of them in our exterior wall outlets and switches. (Ooops, just realized I missed some switches!) 

The information superhighway says these will cut our energy consumption by 10% or more. Sounds optimistic to me. I should be able to calculate energy consumed per degree day though. 

According to my local weather data, there were 3600 heating degree-days (based on 18C) from October 1 2022 to today, September 30 2023. We consumed about 2500 liters of heating oil over that year. Previously I've figured out that we use about a third for domestic hot water. 😮 A little ciphering suggests we used about 1670 liters, or 65 GJ to heat our house. This is agreeable with StatsCan statistics.  For future reference then, heating energy consumption is 17.9 MJ per metric heating degree-day.

If these little foam pads can knock 160 liters off that total, at forecast heating oil costs, we'll save ... $250?

Stay tuned.

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