Insulating with the Super Attic System
In this job, Dr. Energy Saver opted for installing the SuperAttic™ System, because it will prevent enormous energy losses from the ducts and HVAC unit housed in the attic. As a result, this home is now healthier, quieter and more energy efficient.
A properly insulated and air sealed attic is one of the main components of a green, energy efficient home. Because the heated air in a house tends to rise and escape through openings in the upper levels of the building, attics need to be sealed to prevent air leakage. Air leaks in attics are the source of many problems, including ice damming on the roof, and mold. In addition, inadequate insulation causes drastic variations in attic temperatures throughout the year. Scorching attic temperatures during the summer or freezing temperatures during winter make your heating and cooling system work harder to keep your home comfortable. If you have HVAC and ducts running through the attic, the energy loss is even more significant.
There are two options to create an energy efficient attic. You can seal the living space from the attic and blow a thick layer of insulation on the attic floor, excluding the vented, unconditioned attic from the internal building envelope. Or you can use the SuperAttic™ System, to seal, insulate and condition the attic, including it in the building envelope, while keeping the roof effectively vented.
Is your improperly insulated attic costing you money? Would you like to enjoy a more comfortable home and lower your heating and cooling bills? Dr. Energy Saver can help!
Dense Packing a Cathedral Ceiling
This 80-year old cape-style house is a Sears, Roebuck and Co. home, from when they used to sell houses through a catalogue. The home’s attic and wall cavities were previously insulated by Dr. Energy Saver and Larry Janesky’s team is now back on the job to perform additional energy efficient retrofits. This time, they will be insulating an existing cathedral ceiling and shed roof with dense packing cellulose.
This is a technique that dense packs 3.7 lb of cellulose per cubic feet into existing wall and roof cavities. If properly applied the densely packed cellulose provides excellent R-value between 3.5 and 4.0 per inch, and also helps stop air flow.
The cathedral ceiling in this home hangs above a charming farm room, carefully restored with a stained wooden ceiling. To avoid disrupting this cozy little room, Dr. Energy Saver opted for accessing the ceiling from the outside. Cellulose application is a messy process and in an existing home it should only be done from the inside of the living space if there is absolutely no other choice.
The roof above that room is an unvented roof. There was a ridge vent, but no soffit vents so Larry and his team opted for an unvented assembling. When they took a portion of the roof off, they noticed that it was remodeled at least a couple of times over the course of many years, and received two layers of rigid foam insulation, amounting to an R-Value of about 20. The problem is that the rigid foam was not air sealed so air was still leaking out of the house. To make matters worse, bees had found a home in the roof eating parts of the foam board and causing dust to fall from the roof into the room below. By dense packing cellulose to insulate that cathedral ceiling the air flow will be interrupted. Cellulose is also treated with Borate, a harmless, naturally-occurring mineral that has the ability to deter bugs, so bees, ants and termites won’t find that ceiling so inviting anymore.
The shed roof was also insulated from the outside. The team took down the gutters and the fascia board to access the little attic space below the shed, blowing the cellulose through each open bay.
Dr. Energy Saver takes pride in making old and new homes more comfortable, energy efficient and environmentally friendly every day. If you have uneven temperatures around the home, rooms that are too hot or simply cold or drafty, or if you just want to save money in heating and cooling, we can help. Call Dr. Energy Saver today for a complete home energy evaluation.
To learn about more ways to save money and lower your energy bills, visit our website and watch other episodes of Dr. Energy Saver’s ‘On the Job’ video series.
Installing an Air Tight Chimney Cap to Stop Air Leakage
In this specific job, Dr. Energy Saver was called in to help this home owner cut energy loss while enjoying the heat of a very peculiar fireplace configuration. His fireplace was fitted with a wood stove, and a stainless steel chimney pipe ran through the masonry flue. In homes with a fireplace, the chimney is one of the biggest air leakage sources in the entire structure, regardless of whether the fireplace is lit or not. Heated air in the living space tends to rise towards areas with colder temperature, and the flue from the fireplace to the top of the chimney is basically a hole in your house providing the ideal escape route for heated air. Closing traditional chimney dampers will not stop air leakages because the typical cast iron damper doesn’t seal too well and allows air to get by.
Wood burning stoves cause a lot of air leakage. When lit, the stove speeds up the leakage process. The stove uses surrounding air for combustion, causing more outside air to be sucked in to replenish the supply. That means that the area next to it might feel warmer thanks to the radiant heat from the fire, but further away from that room, the rooms feel colder, and homeowners can experience cold drafts coming from windows and doors. In addition, the steel pipe expands and contracts with temperature variations. In this case, there were holes around the damper for the air to escape through the masonry flue. To help this homeowner, Dr. Energy Saver installed an air tight chimney cap to stop the air leakage. If you have a fireplace that is causing cold drafts and uneven temperatures around the house, let the experts at Dr. Energy Saver inspect and suggest the best and most cost effective solution to make your home more comfortable and energy efficient.
Improving Blown Fiberglass with Blown Cellulose Insulation
Larry Janesky, owner and founder of Dr. Energy Saver is On the Job again, this time helping the owner of this ranch-style house make his home more comfortable year round.
As it happens with all one-story buildings the temperatures in this ranch house were being greatly impacted by the temperatures in the attic right above every room.
The homeowner had the attic previously insulated with blown fiberglass but the thermal imaging scans performed by Dr. Energy Saver proved that the loose fiberglass wasn’t helping much.
During the summer, when the roof was heated by the sun, the temperature of the dry wall ceiling reached up to 95 degrees. That heat from the ceiling was radiating to the rooms below, making the home uncomfortable and causing the air conditioner to work much harder to keep the house cool. That happens because loose fill fiberglass does a poor job when it comes to stopping air flow. It is simply too fluffy and not dense enough to keep the air that flows through the soffit and ridge vents from wind washing the insulation.
If the fiberglass couldn’t stop the attic heat from being transferred to the living space during the summer, it could not stop the heat in the living area from escaping to the attic during the winter, making the heating system work harder as well.
Air sealing is an important part of an attic insulation project. Before blowing in the insulation there are several steps that need to be taken such as air sealing and caulking openings and gaps in the construction and installing air sealed boxes around recessed light fixtures. You also need to make sure that there is a dam around chimneys, and that the soffit vents will not be blocked by insulation.
Since this particular home already had several inches of loose fiberglass in the attic, Dr. Energy Saver specialists opted for adding a layer of blown cellulose on top of the fiberglass. Blown cellulose has a higher density and higher R-value than fiberglass. The denser cellulose on top of the fiberglass will help in two ways: it will help stop the air flow through the fiberglass and add R-Value to the attic insulation. This ranch style house will be more comfortable in every season and the heating and cooling bills will be lower.
At Dr. Energy Saver we specialize in finding ways to make homes more comfortable and energy bills more affordable. To learn more about other ways to improve your home’s energy efficiency and save some money on heating and cooling bills, watch other episodes of ‘On the Job’ or simply call Dr. Energy Saver for a complete home energy audit!
Insulating a Floor with Spray Foam
The owners of this home wanted their floors to be warmer. The house was built on a 3-ft-high crawl space that was later dug and transformed into a shallow, unconditioned basement.
The room above this shallow basement was very cold and drafty during the winter time. Dr. Energy Saver concluded that insulating the floor above the basement would be the best approach for this particular home. Thus leaving the basement unconditioned, rather than conditioning the whole space and including it into the internal building envelope. Spray foam was applied between the floor joists. Spray foam insulation expands as it is applied, filling every gap around joints, plumbing, wiring, ducts and fixtures. Spray foam not only insulates but air seals the floor as well.
If your home sits on a vented, unconditioned crawl space or basement, your home is wasting a lot of energy. Cold floors, drafty rooms and high energy bills are some of the symptoms of energy loss through the crawl space and basement. Call Dr. Energy Saver for a free foundation insulation estimate and see just how much you can save!
How to Make a House Energy Efficient
In this episode of the On the Job series, Larry Janesky, owner and founder of Dr. Energy Saver, walks us through the many ways they made a typical cape house more energy efficient.
This cape had poor attic insulation and serious air leakage, which increased the homeowner’s energy bills and caused serious ice damming problems during the winter. As the snow melted on the roof, a ridge of ice forced trapped water to leak into the house. The water damage to the attic and living area raised health and mold concerns. The problem was so significant that during an especially heavy winter storm in the previous year, the homeowner had to climb on the roof and manually break the large ice ridges to keep water from pouring down his kitchen cabinets.
To fix this problem, Dr. Energy Saver completely air sealed the attic to keep heated air in the living space from leaking into the attic. The bathroom fans that were venting into the attic were fitted with ducts to vent to the outside, thus preventing all the air and moisture from leaking into the attic space.
Cape style homes like this one usually have a knee wall space. It is a small space created at the angle between the roof and the floor. A knee wall is usually a big source of energy waste. So the next step was to insulate and air seal the knee wall using a special type of rigid foam board insulation called SilverGlo™, which is lined with a radiant barrier to help conserve heat.
The last step was to insulate the attic, which was originally insulated with a thin layer of fiberglass batt insulation, which measures way below the R-60 value recommended by the U.S. Department of Energy for attics in that region. Besides having insufficient R-Value, fiberglass insulation does not stop air flow.
To insulate this attic, Dr. Energy Saver chose TruSoft™ cellulose insulation. Cellulose insulation is basically recycled newspaper that’s treated with borax to prevent pest infestation and mold growth, and fire retardants which give the material an excellent fire safety rating. Cellulose insulation is denser than blown fiberglass and has a higher R-Value of 3.7 per inch. A layer of 17 inches was blown into the attic, with special attention to rafter bays and small cavities created by typical cape style architectural features.
This cape is now ready for winter. The homeowner has a more comfortable house, and his energy bills are much lower. To learn more about ways to save energy in your home, stay tuned for more episodes of Dr. Energy Saver’s On The Job series, or call one of our certified energy conservation technicians for a home energy audit!
Basement Insulation Upgrade with Fiberglass Blanket and Low-E Replacement Basement Windows
Dr. Energy Saver was called to help transform the basement of a 100-year-old house into an energy efficient and comfortable space with insulation and replacement windows. This particular basement had irregular stone walls, so rigid foam insulation — the best option for insulating a basement — could not be used. Fiberglass blankets were substituted, and a 20-mil-thick vapor barrier was used to keep moisture from evaporating into the basement. The old basement windows were also replaced with new, Low-E replacement windows, for additional improved energy savings.
For a Free Basement Insulation or Energy Upgrade contact Dr. Energy Saver.
Making Knee Wall Spaces Energy Efficient
Knee wall spaces are small spaces commonly found in combination with cathedral or sloped ceilings in finished attics, behind a short wall, and come with or without a small door to access the area.
Typically these spaces are treated as if they were outside the thermal boundary of the house. They are not insulated as you would insulate an attic, and the small wall that separates it from the living area isn’t insulated either.
The roof above the knee wall can reach scorching temperatures during the summer, and get freezing cold during the winter. In addition, soffit vents used to vent the roof allow dirty, unconditioned air from the outside to flow inside the home.
The unconditioned air will then leak into the conditioned area, transferring its extreme temperatures to the whole house through the walls and cavities.
All of this air leakage and heat transfer makes your home much harder to cool and heat, increasing your energy bills. That is the reason why in homes with knee wall spaces, Dr. Energy Saver considers knee wall insulation an energy efficient priority along with attic and foundation insulation.
In this particular case, the knee wall was insulated with SilverGlo™, a product that is exclusively available through the Dr. Energy Saver network. SilverGlo™ is a high R-Value, graphite-infused insulation foam board, lined with radiant foil that reflects the sun’s heat away from the home during the summer, and maintains the heat during the winter.
The space was then completely air sealed to stop air leakages, and is now included in the building’s envelope. Without the extreme temperatures and the air leakages, the space is now clean and suitable for storage. The adjacent rooms are more comfortable and energy efficient.
If your home has untreated, uninsulated knee walls or any architectural features that might be causing energy waste, call Dr. Energy Saver for a free estimate and evaluation.
We specialize in making homes more comfortable and more affordable to own!
Condominum Energy Upgrade to Lower Heating Bills
Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver walks us through energy upgrades in the attic and basement of a condominium unit, improving its efficiency and comfort levels. They start by bringing the R-Value of the attic insulation to the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s recommended value for the region, by blowing additional layers of loose fill fiberglass insulation into the attic. Next, to make the basement more comfortable and energy efficient, injection foam insulation is applied to existing wall cavities. Injection foam insulation doesn’t expand or stick like spray foam insulation, and can be used in wall cavities to add R-Value to walls previously insulated with fiberglass. Injection foam also seals gaps, thus preventing air leakage. Injection foam is water-based, so there are no toxic fumes or harsh smells.
For more information about Energy Upgrades or to schedule a Free Estimate, contact Dr. Energy Saver.
Injecting Polyurethane Foam into Existing Cathedral Ceilings
Cathedral ceilings by norm pose a difficult challenge when it comes to energy efficiency.
In this type of ceiling, the dry wall or plaster is attached directly to the bottom of the rafters that support the roof. There is no attic and there is usually only a few inches clearance between the roof and the sloped ceiling. To make matters worse, some of these roofs are vented.
A typical roof can reach scorching temperatures of up to 150 degrees during the summer, and can get freezing cold during the winter. With only about 8 inches clearance between roof and drywall, a cathedral ceiling needs to be insulated with materials that offer the highest possible R-Value per inch. This helps keep roof temperatures transferring to the interior of the home making it uncomfortable during hot and cold seasons.
Unfortunately, most cathedral ceilings are insulated with fiberglass baths, which have low R-Value and, if not properly installed and evenly spread, will leave gaps in the insulation envelope and allow air to flow through.
There are several different approaches used to make a cathedral ceiling more energy efficient, some more disruptive than others. In this particular case, the cathedral ceiling was tied to an unvented roof. Larry Janesky, owner and founder of Dr. Energy Saver, opted for insulating it by injecting Polyurethane Foam into the ceiling cavity.
The Dr. Energy Saver team used the same kind of spray foam as if they were insulating open-wall cavities. In this case, a small cannula was attached to the nozzle so the foam could be injected from the inside of the room, through very small holes drilled on the dry wall. Spray foam insulation expands as it is applied, filling gaps and air sealing the space.
A thermal imaging camera was used to monitor the expansion of the spray foam to make sure the entire cavity was filled, not leaving behind any gaps.
If your home has a cathedral ceiling or any other architectural feature that can potentially impact your home’s energy efficiency and comfort, call Dr. Energy Saver for an evaluation. We can make your home more comfortable, and much more affordable to own!
Injecting Foam Insulation into Existing Walls with Vinyl Siding
How do you insulate or add R-value to existing walls? Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver demonstrates the process of using injection foam insulation in the exterior walls of a home with vinyl siding. Injection foam can be applied to walls even if they are already insulated with fiberglass batts. Besides increasing R-value, injection foam also closes gaps in the structure and seals air leaks. Injection foam insulation can be applied with less disruption than other conventional methods, even in finished and vinyl sided walls. In this particular case, pieces of the siding were removed, holes were drilled to apply the foam, and the vinyl siding was replaced afterwards. Injection foam is a water-based product with no toxic fumes or harsh smells. For a Free Insulation Estimate contact your local Dr. Energy Saver.
How New Homes Waste Energy
If you think energy waste is something you only find in older homes, and that new homes are all built with energy efficiency in mind, you are seriously mistaken. A lot of new homes are built with no regard to energy efficiency whatsoever. Sometimes it is because building codes are not updated to meet new energy efficiency standards. Sometimes it is because the builder is unaware of current best green building practices, and sometimes it is simply because they are trying to cut costs in a tough economy and spend more on visible features like energy efficient windows, and green roofing, while forgetting proper insulation and air sealing.
Larry Janesky, owner of Dr. Energy Saver, walks us through a new construction project showing the various details that are normally overlooked by builders. Such oversights can result in wasteful and very uncomfortable homes, very expensive heating and cooling costs, and high energy bills.
Improper attic insulation, that doesn’t meet the U.S. Department of Energy recommended R-Value for the regions is among the most common issues in new construction. Improperly insulated ducts running through unconditioned attics are other sources of energy waste.
Some architectural features such as cantilevers, bay windows, and custom windows with round frames, pose additional challenges when it comes to insulation. In particular, they create odd spaces that are hard to fill with popular insulation choices. Fiberglass bats, for example, is the material of choice in most new construction projects, because it is the least expensive, yet it only works when evenly distributed and fluffed inside wall cavities. Compressed fiberglass loses R-Value. These odd spaces around architectural features are often neglected or poorly insulated, creating gaps and cold spots in the building envelope. Common sources of air leakage are often overlooked as well. Holes around pipes, fixtures, ducts and duct chases, allow unconditioned air to move through and leak in and out of the house if not properly sealed.
If you have concerns about your new or old house energy consumption, and want to make your home more comfortable and affordable to own, call your energy conservation experts at Dr. Energy Saver!
