Enbridge TAPS Program Mishap

My natural gas supplier, Enbridge, has a program in place called TAPS where they give away some hot-water pipe insulation and efficient showerheads and kitchen and bathroom faucet aerators. My savings each year are supposed to be $45 on natural gas and $113 on water. But, plumbing often doesn’t work out very well for me.

I started with the kitchen faucet. Swapping an aerator is easy, right? Unfortunately, our house is 19 years old and the parts were nicely fused. I got them apart, but a piece of the faucet broke. A consult with a plumbing expert confirmed the bad news: we needed a new faucet. Am I saving any money yet?

Two more trips to the store for another consult and more parts plus a couple of hours on my back under the sink solved the problem. I think it will take a while to recover the total cost of $115.72 with my savings on natural gas and water. I’m afraid to try to install the other parts.

This experience reminds me of the time my father-in-law got serious about saving on heating his house. He had an array of pamphlets with energy-saving ideas and he tried almost all of them. After adding up all of the savings he was supposed to get, the total exceeded his heating costs! He liked to joke that he expected to make money heating his house.

Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 3, 2008 at 10:50 AM

    Hey! Freaked out plumbing in an old house is my theme for the week, get your own story lines!!!

    C8j

    ReplyDelete
  2. geneDecember 3, 2008 at 10:58 AM

    Love the story about your father-in-law. Save more than you spent before? Sounds wonderful! What is that, compounded savings?

    I went to an energy seminar put on by our provider, and it seems the most possible energy savings are to older homes that wouldn't meet modern standards for insulation. Some homes in my city have uninsulated basements, even though our winter temperatures are often in the -37 Celsius range with plenty of wind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MG (moneygardener)December 3, 2008 at 6:48 PM

    speaking of mishaps....have another look at the post title..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael JamesDecember 3, 2008 at 6:50 PM

    MG: Oops. Thanks. Fixed now.

    ReplyDelete

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