Flash-back...sealing my home

Ok...so I know I've promised this for a while and I've finally gotten my ducks in a row.   So...be prepared to go back in time and see some of my initial work sealing my home....scooby-doo style.  Key the wavy lines:

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So when I got my initial energy audit (a birthday present from my wife...she's awesome), there were a handful of key things that I needed to do.  Kudos to ProEnergy and Eric Wall for performing the audit.  And again to my beautiful wife for getting me an awesome present.  OK...below I'll discuss two fixes:

First up...I had no door sweeps.  Seriously...none of my doors.  When I got down onto the floor, I could look outside.  On one door...my backdoor...the opening had to be at least 1/4".  The fix was simple...install door sweeps.  Of course, only one of my doors as a standard sized...so when I bought the door sweeps from Lowe's, I had to do some sawing.  It was no big deal...but it wasn't totally painless.  For the majority of my doors I bought the door sweep that attached to the outside of the door so when the rubber wears out I can get at it easily.  Not surprising...it makes a big difference...and there's no highway for bugs to enter the house either.

The second big thing we needed to fix was found using the thermal gun.  And I kind of knew something was up in my bonus room (i.e. finished room above the garage) when it was significantly warmer (10F) than the rest of the house.  Well...apparently there was insulation missing in the ceiling of the bonus room.  And truthfully...the pictures looked as if a little kid grab random pieces and ripped them out.  On top of that, while there was insulation in the attic storage areas on either side of the room...that didn't stop the air movement.  So to fix this, I had an insulation company come in and replace the insulation.  They included a vent to maintain air movement when is good.  Then the fun stuff began.  Below is a pic of the bonus room attic space before:

The pic below is a picture of the work in progress with my wife.  What we did was install rigid styrofoam insulation on the outer joists and then seal the joints with HVAC tape.  What this did was provide another layer of insulation (this stuff is R5) as well as stop the air movement.   

Once we did this to the walls, I added insulation to the doors (there was none), put on weather stripped to the doors (there was nothing there either), and we installed radiant barrier on the opposite joists.  Oh yeah...I also had to do some caulking on the molding around the door to stop air leaks there as well.  All of this had a profound effect.   Oh...and I found my ventilation fan in the attic above the bonus room was broken too...I had to replace the motor on the fan.  And while I was at it I changed out the thermostat too.  OK...so the temperature in that room now is only about 2 degrees different from the rest of the house.  And when I had the energy audit guys back, they could easily see the difference on the thermal camera.  

This fix was fairly easy and took about a day to do...and I know it's paying dividends.  That's because when I walk the dog I see my neighbors with a window air conditioner sticking out of the window of their bonus room.  And talking with HVAC guys, they typically up-size systems or install dedicated units just for bonus rooms.  Yet...maybe all you need to do is some minor modifications and it'll do just fine.  

So for any folks out there who have a similar issue...try this stuff first.  It worked for me...