I’ve been doing an energy retrofit on my home for the past five years, and at my current rate of progress, it will be another five years before I’m done. This leads to some questions: How do you prioritize the work? Should the easiest things be done first? Or is the stuff that provides the biggest return on investment a better place to start? In this post, I’ll share my suggestions for prioritizing energy and performance upgrades.

Structural integrity comes first

This one’s pretty obvious. If the house is close to collapse, that’s the place to start. Many times though, this type of damage is hidden. The photo below demonstrates such a case. A builder friend was hired to repair the painted cedar siding on this seasonal lake cabin. His crew removed the deteriorating cedar and house wrap to see the condition of the plywood sheathing. There was some discoloration of the plywood and light rot in the lower window corners, but it looked intact.

They removed a small section of sheathing to be sure, and that led to the revealing of what’s seen in the photo, which is substantial damage to the wall framing including a load path that supports the roof. There were no signs of water damage on the interior; it was a few 30-year-old rotted cedar boards around the window on the exterior that indicated investigation was in order.

Look for water leaks

There’s no use making energy upgrades if the house is going to look like the one in the photo above in a few years. The photos below illustrate a bulk water leak; I took them as part of an energy audit the homeowners were having done. While I was in the attic, I found an active roof…