GIVE YOUR HOUSE AN EFFICIENCY CHECKUP: To get the full scoop on your home's energy shortcomings - from insulation to lighting to windows - make an appointment for an energy audit

摘要

When my husband and I recently bought our first home—a century-old brick row house in Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill neighborhood—it had what real estate agents politely call "potential." Its style was frozen in the 1960s, the decade of its last renovation. This meant the house had pink floral wallpaper, ancient brown wall-to-wall carpeting (over even more ancient linoleum) and a big porcelain sink in the kitchen. And, as we discovered during our first winter in the house, it also had leaky windows, an attic with no insulation and a back door so drafty that on cold mornings the floor next to it felt like ice.