Dominion helps weatherize Norfolk house

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - Mike McCoy has a hard time keeping his house warm.

"I've got three electric heaters in the house running all day long just to try and keep it warm enough to sleep in," he told WAVY.com.

McCoy is a Navy veteran who's fallen on tough times, but he does what he can to keep heat in his house.

"I was unable to afford to keep the natural gas on and...I was stuck using electric heaters," he said.

McCoy's house is poorly insulated, so Dominion Virginia Power came over to help. They're using his house as an example of how to winterize your home.

"Consider your house as an envelope and what you want to do is seal that envelope," says Bob Fulton from Dominion. "Keeping the cold air out and the warm air in."

The first problem is cold air coming from under the house.

"In the crawl space of this particular house, where the floor is, it's not insulated," Fulton said.

So, they went under the house to solve that problem.

"Create the barrier where you have insulation where the cold air comes and hits that insulation, it doesn't go any farther," Fulton continued.

Making sure your doors and windows are sealed properly is also important, Bob Fulton says there is an easy way to test those seals.

"Put that piece of paper in the door frame and close the door," he says. "If you could pull this paper without a lot of difficulty then the seal around the door needs to be changed because you're leaking air."

While saving money is great, McCoy is most happy about one thing: "It's going to keep my house warmer so that's the biggest thing -- keeping the house warm."