Posts Tagged ‘air-sealing’

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The Sweetness of Home Performance

January 24, 2012

 Coming from New England, I find winter on the West Coast is a different beast.  The lack of snow is not really it.  I think it’s the fact that there are citrus trees in many back yards.  My recent visit to one of our fine GreenHomes America partners, Residential Energy Pros  in San Jose, California, reminded me that no matter where you go, remodeling changes our homes in ways we are never sure of, often not for the best and often in a way that sacrifices our comfort or costs us money we shouldn’t be throwing away.

I constantly preach the importance of air sealing (watch some videos here), and on a home assessment during my visit, we were pleasantly surprised that the home was not as leaky as many we see.  This home originally had a flat roof and at some point a new one was built over it.  This old roof created a fairly good air barrier but there were still leaks as well as a lack of good insulation, creating rooms that can get very hot and uncomfortable in the summer, and too cold and uncomfortable in the winter. And blindly tightening a home without paying attention to important details and considerations like moisture and combustion safety isn’t smart either.  Despite its relative tightness there were still some issues with this home.

Like many homes out West, this house had a crawlspace.  And with crawlspaces, we often see a lot of indoor air quality issues (homes with basements or slabs are NOT immune!).  For this home, air from the crawlspace was constantly being drawn into the home and filtered through the carpet at the hatch! This doesn’t just dirty the carpet—it means the homeowners were breathing in crawlspace air all day, but since the hatch was right in the bedroom, more concentrated air where they spend 8 hours a day.   

Something else we noted was that the home also had a lot of condensation on the windows.  Too much moisture was sticking around in the home in the form of high humidity.  This is a problem because, the condensation pools at the sill, starts to rot the trim, and even the underlying framing.  High humidity can also promote mold and mildew growth elsewhere.

Some of that moisture could be dealt with by installing good spot ventilation, especially in the kitchen and bathrooms.  Even when you are opening the windows during large parts of the year it is good to control indoor air and moisture.

All of these things are problems we look to address with home performance, no matter where the home is located.   Maybe some suffer through some discomfort and high energy bills in the short term in California since they have the luxury of plucking lemons from the back yard.   But why settle for lemons when with a little bit of work you can have lemonade?

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Connecticut “House of the Year”–More Energy Efficient

November 28, 2011

One of the reasons GreenHomes has been staying so busy is that so many homes weren’t built well to begin with.  A splash of granite here, a whirlpool tub (that never gets used) there.  But no attention to the pesky details that really make a home comfortable and efficient in the long-term.  You know, those boring things we keep talking about like insulation & air-sealing, efficient heating & cooling, high performance windows, LED lighting, and so on.

From the NY Times, the Connecticut "House of the Year" is Greener

Eventually, a lot of people get frustrated with drafts, rooms that are too hot or too cold, mildew smells, ice-dams in the Northeast, stinky crawlspaces in the South, $800 air-conditioning bills in California, and so on.  So they call us to fix the problems.  And we can.  That’s good business for us, but it’s unfortunate for homeowners, especially in newer homes.  Forget the bamboo floors or the fiber cement siding.  If the house doesn’t work, it’s not green.  And you aren’t as likely to be as comfortable as you should be.

It’s much easier to make a home perform well by building it right the first time.  And less expensive, too!  It’s encouraging to see builders moving to more efficient practices, as mentioned in this story from Connecticut about the “House of the Year”.  Meanwhile, though, we’ve got a lot of houses to fix.  Most homes could use performance improvements.  And 70% of the homes that will be standing in 2050 are already built today.  Let’s change and start building all new homes the right way—and let’s fix the homes that we’re living in already.

Thanks,
Mike

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Keep your eye on the ball…at home!

October 17, 2011

Baseball fans, great technology comes to the World Series.  In fact it’s the same technology we bring to your home.  The AP recently reported That a number of Infrared cameras will be trained on batters in the upcoming World Series games.  The cameras will be used to pick up the heat generated from friction, say when a fast ball skims off a bat or a glove.  The Fox network is trying them out this year so they won’t be used in making calls, but they could be.  Hey at least maybe we will get a glimpse of this great technology just watching the games.

At your home base, we don’t need to see the heat patterns of a knuckle ball off a bat to cry foul, but the cameras our advisors bring along in assessing your home do help you avoid the curve balls of missing insulation, moisture problems, dangerous wiring, and un-controlled airflow.  Rest assured with the right technology and skills, troubleshooting your comfort problems with GreenHomes America will help you knock it out of the park!   

Thanks,

Jason

Photo by Tyrone Turner, in this National Geographic 2009 article

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Report from the frontlines: Know Air Flow (or Seal for the Real Deal)

October 10, 2011

Riding along on a few comprehensive home assessments with some of the team in our Syracuse office, I was once again reminded of the importance of air sealing and how it can still be a mystery even for folks who are savvy to the inner-workings of a home.

The fist home was older and although solidly built, suffered over the years a lack of insulation as well as a great deal of air-leakage.  The homeowner, a retired fireman who was remodeling the place, called us because he wanted insulation and a new heating system.  

Attic airleaks filtered through insulation

Firemen know about homes, and they know about the importance of airflow.  It’s a key component in combustion after all.  So it was easy to explain why it was necessary to tackle air leaks before adding insulation.  But really the evidence was laid out before us.

The turned over fiberglass lying on top of loose blown in insulation was blackened from airflow all over the attic.  Essentially, lot’s of air was moving through the ceiling and into the attic.  From the chimney, from open walls from wires and pipes, everywhere this attic could leak it did.   And the fiberglass didn’t stop the air—that’s not what it was designed to do.  It did clean the air a bit as the air raced through.  So, this home really didn’t have effective insulation, but rather a big air filter up in the attic.  How nice to clean the air that you’re throwing away to the outside right along with the heat that it carries!

Being a fairly old leaky home with no insulation in the walls it had more heating than necessary. Baseboard and radiators were laid out everywhere! The homeowner joked he was going to turn the boiler downstairs into a camper it was so big!  After we properly air seal and insulate, and then size a new boiler appropriately, he won’t be burning through heating fuel so quickly this coming year.

The second home was a modern one built more recently.  This tri level home was well taken care of and the homeowner, being quite handy had recently spent a great deal of time adding some nice finishing touches here and there. 

Their son was off at college but came home for his final year and they offered to turn the heat up since they were keeping it low to save money.   For him the rental home on campus was leaky and un-insulated, anything was better!  Certainly this new home should be a comfortable home for the most part but they were sacrificing comfort to save money, they knew there was room to improve.   

Again the request was for more insulation and here’s another savvy homeowner asking.    Their concern was comfort and high energy bills, and since he’d crawled around in the attic a few times, he knew more insulation wouldn’t hurt.   And he’s right, kind of.  More insulation would be good, especially covering the bare spots like the one below.  But, again, only AFTER air-sealing.   

Big opening in an attic that leaks inside air

He had put gaskets over the light switch plates and had new windows installed.  What he was missing were sealing the big holes in the attic, and these are the ones that cause a great deal of heat loss, not just in this home, but in most.  With the various levels of the home all connected in the attic, we find the worst offenders, the stuff that needs sealing shut before more insulation is added.   Even for such a modern home our testing revealed that that home was twice as leaky as it should have been even though it looked like it was in good shape.

In these homes, and in the majority that we see, comfort is a big sacrifice on top of too-high heating bills. The good news is they’re we’re able to find the problems.  And we’ll be sending out crew to make the fixes in the next couple of weeks.     And new or old, most homes  need some buttoning up.  Does yours?  For both of these savvy homeowners, this winter should feel a whole lot better with no air flow…now they know.

Visit our video library to learn more about the importance of attic air sealing and other topics that will help you save money and be more comfortable.

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Power outages: preparing you and your home

September 12, 2011

The massive power outages last week provide us with a good example of the importance of being prepared.  Living in the Northeast it is always in the back of my mind to be ready for a storm as winter sets in (all to soon), I didn’t really think about the opposite corner of our nation in the same way until now.  

A place like San Diego doesn’t need to be concerned with two feet of snow, but they can lose power and during the hottest parts of the year keeping cool can be an issue.  Losing power anywhere can be a problem.  The summertime can be troublesome especially for those who are more susceptible to health problems.   It really brings home how much we rely on being able to cool our homes not only for comfort but also for our health.  

The latest power outage affected 6 million people on both side of the U.S. Mexican border.   Thankfully no one was hurt, but it did cause some to rethink their plans or lack of them.  This wasn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened.    

The country’s largest blackout of August 22, 2003, affected some 50 million people in Canada, and the U.S.  New York City Comptroller William Thompson estimated the economic impact of the blackout at $800 million to $1 billion in the city.

Some things worth keeping on hand no matter what time of year or where you are:

The American Red Cross recommends putting together a disaster preparedness kit some of it is below:

  • Water—one gallon per person, per day (3­day supply for evacuation, 2­week supply for home)
  • Food—non­perishable, easy ­to ­prepare items (3­day supply for evacuation, 2­week supply for home)
  • Flashlight
  • Battery ­powered or hand­ crank radio (NOAA Weather Radio, if possible)
  • Extra batteries
  • First aid kit
  • Medications (7­day supply) and medical items
  • Multi­purpose tool
  • Sanitation and personal hygiene items
  • Copies of personal documents (medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies)
  • Cell phone with chargers
  • Family and emergency contact information
  • Extra cash
  • Emergency blanket

There is more to this that can be added depending on where you live.   Even with all the great technology we have, now and then it fails us.  Having your home it in tip top shape can help with more than just comfort.  When it is properly air sealed and insulated it stays warm or cool, depending on the season, on its own for longer when the power fails.  Be prepared with a kit, and with your home. 

 FEMA image from Wikimedia commons

 

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The joys of nesting

September 6, 2011

Remodeling your home can give you insight into what has gone on all those years behind the walls.   Its also happens to be a great time to improve the energy efficency and comfort of your home. 

My ambitious sister in addition to being pregnant has decided to remodel their kitchen recently.  And why not, since future dad is a fabulous cabinet maker they plan to install some better ones that what the place came with. You know what they say about the cobbler and his children. 

I would consider this nesting in the extreme, but a recent visit gave me the opportunity not only to sleep on the floor, but better than x-ray or infrared vision I could see air leaks.  Well not really but this is a wall with holes to the attic for the wires.

 They were removing a wall and the new support is the bottom of the picture here.  But It shows what some will do to get a pipe into a wall.  The pipe was cut out since it was no longer needed but I don’t think it was necessary to cut the entire beam that to get a little pipe through  I think air can get through here as well….

 The space has a wonderful curved section of ceiling in every room.   Those are wires laying loose in the attic at the top of the picture. That means every wall leaks from any hole below like an outlet or switch or a connection to the floor below.  

Old windows? This is what is inside that’s a sash weight that counters the weight of the window as you open it.  Even though, replacing old windows won’t give you the biggest bang for the buck.  Tackle most of the air-leakage and increase the insulation in the walls and attics first. 

From an energy efficiency perspective it would be nice if things were this easy to see all the time.   But with the right people and tools it almost is.  GreenHomes America’s certified energy advisors have the experience and the skill to figure out what is going on without having to take the wall down.  My sister’s concern was a lack of insulation in the attic.  They thought they might top it up while they were fixing up the place.  It’s an excellent idea but not until some critical air sealing is tackled.  An energy advisor will investigate an attic when they can get to it, but they also “see” some of these flaws using nifty equipment such as an infrared camera or fans that help identfy a home’s leakage. 

I lent them a hand in putting in some of the cabinets while I was there to help them along and imagine they are close to done by now.  Maybe instead of baby blankets and a stroller I’ll give them a Comprehensive Energy Assessment.  I think I know a company that can help them out.

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One ton of Ice

August 4, 2011

It was 1911 when The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles had installed air conditioning truly bringing the concept of keeping comfortably cool to the masses.  Ten years earlier Willis Carrier had started work in Buffalo, New York, a city not too far from our Greenhomes America office in Syracuse.   His trial and error over the years focused on dehumidification and it was in 1907 that the Carrier Air conditioning company was established.

What did folks do before that?  Looking back at a late 1800’s trade journal “Ice and Refrigeration” reveals a lot.    The journal is packed with beautiful advertising for coils and pumps and innovative patents for cooling systems ads for insulation like cork and mineral wool and insulating paper whatever that may be.  It also holds reports of what industry in need of cooling relied on every year:  Ice Harvests.

The Hudson River crop in 1890 was around “4,000,000 tons of which New York, Brooklyn and Jersey City will use 1,200000 tons or more if the summer proves a hot one”.  Ice harvest happened in many places, a number of rivers in Maine were used and the ice was then stored near shipyards to be distributed later.

There’s a connection to today we might not think of:  The size of our air conditioners.  From the beginning these cooling machines capacities were described by an equivalent amount of ice that would melt in a day.   A window unit might be less than a 1 ton system where central air can range from 2 to 5 tons. 

How much do you need?   Think of keeping food in a cooler for a long trip to the beach or a weekend camping.  As that block of ice melts it keeps things cool in there.    The more we open it up the more we lose that cooling.  The less insulated or efficient the cooler is the faster it melts.  Same goes for our houses.  We don’t think of running out of ice anymore because we’ve found a way for air conditioner to provide endless cooling, as long as we pay the bill.

The GreenHomes Partners I visited recently really know cooling.  Just as important they understand how to keep the cool in your home as well with air-sealing and insulation so you can get by starting out with a smaller block of ice!      

 Image from wikimedia commons

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Keeping Cool

June 8, 2011

 There’s been a Heat wave across parts of the country, wild fires blazing and the season has just begun! So I thought it would be good to build on the tips Mike mentioned last week.  Here are a few things you can look at to keep your cool as we head into summer: 

  1. Keep the heat out!  During the day, if it’s cooler inside than outside, keep windows shut.  And keep window shades down to block out direct sunlight.  Open the windows at night if it’s cooler outside than in.  Solar shades can help. 
  2. Ceiling fans (and other fans) help you stay comfortable—but only while you’re in the room.  The fan motors actually generate heat, so turn them off when you’re not there.
  3. Use a bath fan vented to the outside to remove the heat and moisture created by showering.  If you don’t have a bath fan, have one installed its useful for many reasons.
  4. Mike recently talked about keeping cool in the kitchen; use an exhaust fan to remove heat and moisture created by cooking.  This has the added benefit of removing pollutants, especially if you cook with gas.
  5. Use efficient lighting and appliances.  Incandescent and halogen lights actually use most of their energy creating heat instead of light.  Not only does this means you’re overpaying for lighting, but in the summer you’re creating a lot of unwanted heat in the rooms you’re trying to keep cool.  Compact florescent light bulbs are good LED’s are even better.  
  6. Do you have a forced air heating or cooling system? If so, make sure to seal and insulate the ductwork in attics and crawl spaces.  As much as 30% of the air you cool can escape outside through leaky ducts.
  7. Insulate and air-seal your attic.  In the summer, temperatures in the attic often climb to more than 140o.    Proper insulation can keep this heat from conducting down into your home, but first…  Remember that your insulation only works if air isn’t moving through it.  Seal around chimneys, flues, plumbing penetrations, and recessed lighting, for example.   See our earlier post Insulate to Stay Cool .
  8. As we mentioned recently with a central air-conditioner it’s important to keep it tuned up—EPA and DOE recommending maintenance every year.   If it’s more than 10 years old, consider replacing with a high-efficiency unit, one that at least qualifies for ENERGY STAR.  If you buying a window air-conditioner or dehumidifier, look for the ENERGY STAR, too. 
  9. Planting deciduous trees on the south and west sides of a house can help keep your home cool in the summer.  In many parts of the country, maples, oaks, and birches are good trees to consider.  Because they drop their leaves in the fall, they let sunlight through to help warm your house in the winter.  Landscaping is about more than looks! 
  10. New low-e windows with a low “solar heat gain coefficient” (SHGC) can block the heat from the sun but may be a costly measure if that’s the only reason you’re replacing them.

To really find the trouble spots in your home, and to be sure that they’re addressed properly, get a comprehensive home assessment.  GreenHomes America can provide this, and GreenHomes trained and certified crews can even install your improvements.

And remember that after a home is tightened up, combustion equipment like furnaces and water heaters should be tested to make sure they’re running safely and efficiently.  GreenHomes does this testing on every project it completes.

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How will our homes change in the next 5-10 years?

May 5, 2011

If we ask the question what will the price of heating oil or natural gas be in the next 5 or 10 years or electricity if we start using more electric cars, we get a sense of what we need Design and Construction in our homes to be. If we don’t change how we look at what is important in housing we may not be able to afford them for the long term.

As a Home Performance contractor, we find the same problems in new homes you might expect to see only in older ones. Air leakage, lack of or poor insulation, comfort issues, inefficient heating systems with poor distribution are all common in the newest of construction.

There has been change in design and construction towards efficiency, comfort and conscientious building. We are finally coming to a point where outside pressures such as limited building resources, illness indoor air quality issues, as well as the instability of the price of heating our homes may force us to reconsider what is important.

I hope design and construction will take a turn for the better for our health, safety, comfort as well as our wallets when he heat and cool these homes, it needs to happen. Put the fancy counter-tops and other luxuries in later. What we need are homes with good insulation and air barriers, deal with moisture well, have efficient heating and cooling equipment sized to accommodate the reduced demand because of an exceptional building envelope. This is our goal when we fix existing homes and can really only be achieved when we take a house as a system approach to building.

I do not wish for the construction of homes to continue in the ‘just adequate’ fashion that potentially creates un-healthy and inefficient buildings. Building to code is the bare minimum standard. It might be seen as good for business for GreenHomes America to carry on in the usual fashion since each home built this way is one that we could fix in the next 5 to 10 years, but the fact is there is plenty of work already for many years to come. The future holds comfort, health and safety wrapped up in efficiency. Homes as they should be: a safe haven new or old.

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2nd Annual Biggest, Baddest Icicles Contest Winner Announced!

March 11, 2011

The cold and snowy winter in Central New York was a dream for fans of icicles, but a nightmare for many homeowners. However pretty, those giant icicles can form devastating ice dams on the edges of your roof, backing up water under your roofing and into the walls. Leaks and structural damage are the symptoms of a bad ice-damming problem, but are only part of a much worse, underlying problem. Ice dams are largely due to inadequate insulation and air sealing in your attic and roof. The precious heat you pump into your home escapes through the roof, melting the snow that rests on top. When the snow reaches the cold edges and eves of the roof, it refreezes into blocks of ice, sometimes weighing hundreds of pounds!

Our 2nd Annual Biggest, Baddest Icicles Contest brought in an impressive display of ice from across Central New York (Facebook album). From giant ice curtains to compact-car-sized heaps, the entries were as varied as they were scary. But we could only pick one home to receive a free comprehensive home energy assessment and $1,000 worth of attic insulation and air sealing to help prevent future instances of ice damming and keep one family warmer, safer and more comfortable, plus put some money back into their pockets!

The Winner of GreenHomes America's 2011 Biggest, Baddest Icicles Contest

And the winner is… Priscilla Thibault’s Victorian home! Like Priscilla says, “this 1858 Victorian house may have charm, but the icicles can be destructive and potentially deadly.” Not only do the icicles present a major safety hazard, but are also tell-tale signs that Pricillas’ valuable heating dollars aren’t all contributing to her family’s comfort – many of them are feeding the monster on her roof! Our crew from Syracuse will be heading out to Priscilla’s home to begin reclaiming her roof, her home’s comfort and her energy bills. Stay tuned for updates!

Thanks to everyone who entered our 2nd Annual Biggest, Baddest Icicles Contest!

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