Insulating the Attic and Cool Roof Technology
The sun tends to heat conventional roof shingles up to temperatures as high as 140 or 150 degrees F during the summer. That heat is then radiated to the attic, which reaches scorching temperatures, usually 40 to 50 degrees hotter than the outside air.
The heat in the attic then radiates through the ceiling into the living areas making your whole house uncomfortable. To make matters worse, some homes have air conditioner ducts running through the attic. Picture this: you pay for the electricity to run your air conditioner to cool the air down to 50 degrees, and then run the cold air through metallic ducts in the attic, that are baking at 150 degrees. Your air conditioner will have to work much harder to keep up, and your cooling bills will be extremely high, especially if you live in warmer areas of the U.S.
There are many things you can do to cool down your roof and your attic while relieving the burden on your air conditioner. Proper attic insulation and air sealing, will keep the heat from radiating into the living areas. A radiant heat barrier will reflect the sun’s heat away from the home, and help cool down the attic.
To significantly improve conditions in the roof and attic, there is also the cool roof technology. Cool roof shingles are built with materials that reflect the sun’s heat, rather than absorbing it like conventional shingles. They also come in various colors so you can have the roof color you want, without the heat absorption.
If you are building a home, or planning to replace your roof, consider cool roof technology. Contact your local Dr. Energy Saver for more information about cool roof technology, attic insulation, radiant barriers and many other options to make your home more comfortable and energy efficient.
The Difference Between Low and High Efficiency Air Conditioners
If your air conditioning system is 10 years old or more, you can bet it is wasting a lot of energy and costing you a lot of money. Ten or fifteen years ago, the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rate (SEER) of the best available air conditioner was around 6 to 8, which is less than half of today’s high efficiency models with a SEER of 19 to 20. SEER is the measurement of how much energy and money spent to run the air conditioner is actually being converted into cold air.
Older models also lose some of the SEER as they age. A model that was originally operated at 6 to 8 SEER, after many years, may be operating at SEERs as low as 6 or 4.
In addition to lower SEERs, older units are often improperly maintained. Dirt and moisture accumulate around the coils and ducts, while the A/C unit also becomes the breeding ground and dissemination device for mold and other common allergens, viruses, bacteria and many other pollutants. All of these pollutants will compromise indoor air quality and the health of your family
A modern, high efficiency device contains an array of features that will not only cool the air more efficiently with much higher SEERs; but also filter and rid the air from dirt, viruses and moisture as it passes through the unit. High efficiency units are usually much larger than older models to allow for better heat dispersion. Two-compressor, two-stage units allow the air conditioner to run at only 70% of its capacity in cooler days.
They also operate at variable speed, which draws moisture out of the air and saves energy.
Larry Janesky, president and owner of Dr. Energy Saver explains that the upfront cost of an air conditioning unit is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of costs. The bulk of the cost of having an air conditioner is paid in energy bills over the lifespan of the unit. It is not a smart move to get the least expensive unit to avoid higher upfront costs and end up spending 2 to 3 times more money to run the air conditioner over the years.
If you are shopping for an Air Conditioner or Heating System upgrade, give Dr. Energy Saver a call. We will evaluate your home’s energy consumption, and recommend only models that will give you the best savings per dollar invested, within your specifications and budget.
Keeping Your Home Cooler with a Radiant Barrier
On the Job in Florida, Larry Janesky, President and Owner of Dr. Energy Saver, installed a radiant barrier in an attic to make this homeowner’s home more comfortable and to help reduce the cooling bills.
Florida’s warm sun causes most roofs, which absorb the sun’s heat, to get really hot. That heat is then transferred to the attic where it can reach scorching temperatures as high as 140 degrees! When the attic, like this one, stores the air ducts, the 55-degree air in the ducts is surrounded by the 140-degree heat before it reaches the living space– making the air conditioner work much harder than needed to keep the house cool and comfortable.
To help relieve the burden on this homeowner’s air conditioner unit, Dr. Energy Saver opted for installing a radiant barrier in the attic. A radiant barrier reflects the sun heat from the roof and helps the attic remain at least 20 degrees cooler. This will make the whole house feel cooler and the air conditioner will work more efficiently.
Regardless of regional climate and how drastic the seasonal changes are in your area, your local Dr. Energy Saver home energy conservation expert will always have the perfect solution to make your home comfortable and energy efficient year round! Give us a call!
Air Sealing and Insulating a Conventional Attic
The energy conservation experts at Dr. Energy Saver first look into the attic when helping improve a home’s energy efficiency, because a properly insulated and air sealed attic is the main component of a green home!
Larry Janesky, owner and president of Dr. Energy Saver, explains how the ‘stack effect’ can make an uninsulated attic a huge source of energy loss. Heated air from the conditioned space rises and escapes through the vents in the attic. As a result, air from the outside is sucked in from the lower parts of the building, forcing the heating and cooling system to work harder to keep the temperatures comfortable.
Dr. Energy Saver air seals the space to prevent air from the conditioned areas from leaking into the attic. Insulation is then added to raise the R-Value up to the U.S. Department on Energy’s recommended values for each particular region. In the cold northeast, for example, attics should have at least an R-60 for insulation.
The insulation material and method of application varies according to each case. In most homes, blown cellulose is the preferred method although lose-fill fiberglass insulation can also be used. It is a good idea to insulate HVAC ducts that run through unconditioned attics to prevent heat loss. Spray foam can be used to insulate and seal gaps in ductwork. Attics that are used for storage or housing utilities can also be conditioned and insulated with Dr. Energy Saver’s SuperAttic™ System.
Are your heating and cooling bills high? Is your home wasting energy? Do you experience uneven and uncomfortable temperatures throughout the house? Call Dr. Energy Saver for a comprehensive home energy evaluation and let us show you how we can make your home healthier, more comfortable and affordable to own!
Air Sealing and Insulating a Crawl Space
Before Dr. Energy Saver was called in for this job, this homeowner was wasting a lot of energy and money through his unsealed, uninsulated concrete crawl space. For 20 years since the home was built, an 8′ x 16′ crawl space door was allowing unconditioned outdoor air to enter the home and cause cold drafts, cold floors in the master suite right above the crawl space, overall discomfort, and higher heating bills. Freezing air from the crawl space was consistently infiltrating the living areas, causing uneven temperatures throughout the house. A lot of heat was also being lost through the uninsulated heating ducts that ran through the cold crawl space. All of these problems made the HVAC system work much harder to keep the home comfortable.
To solve these problems, Dr. Energy Saver opted for air sealing and insulating the cold crawl space walls with the revolutionary SilverGlo™ foam board insulation. SilverGlo foam provides a higher R-Value per inch and is lined with silver radiant foil, to help reflect heat back into the crawl space area. The rim joists were insulated with spray foam insulation, which also sealed around all gaps including the air conditioner lines and air ducts. The crawl space vent was also closed and air sealed. This homeowner now has a healthier, greener, more comfortable and energy efficient home.
If your house sits on a vented crawl space, you may be losing a lot of money in heating and cooling expenses, and exposing your home and family to moisture related problems; such as mold, dry rot and moisture loving pests like termites and carpenter ants. All of these problems can seriously compromise your family’s health, your home’s value and structural integrity overtime. Your home is one of your most important assets, and we don’t want your vented crawl space to deplete your home’s value or comfort or hurt your family’s health.
Call Dr. Energy Saver for a full crawl space evaluation today!
Insulating the Pipes and Walls of a Boiler Room
In this home, recently retrofitted by Dr. Energy Saver to become more energy efficient, a huge amount of heat and energy was being lost through the uninsulated foundation walls and the pipes in the boiler room.
According to laws of physics temperatures move from more to less. In this home, the heat produced by the boiler unit was being dispersed into the boiler room through uninsulated pipes. That heat in the boiler room was then conductively transferred to the outside, through the concrete walls. That means that the boiler unit was consistently working harder to keep the home comfortable, since a significant portion of the heat being produced never made it into the conditioned living space. In other words, a portion of the air that this homeowner was paying to heat was being wasted in the boiler room. Dr. Energy Saver solved that problem by insulating the pipes in the boiler room and the foundation walls, to keep that heat from being lost to the outside. Foundation wall insulation is always a great idea in any home, but it is a must in basements and crawl spaces that house HVAC ducts and combustion appliances.
If you want to learn about more ways to get the best performance and savings out of your existing heating and cooling system, or for information about HVAC system upgrades, visit our website or contact Dr. Energy Saver to schedule a home energy evaluation.
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!
