Injecting Foam Insulation into Exterior Walls with Clapboard
Dr. Energy Saver was called to add insulation to the exterior walls of an old Sears, Roebuck & Co. home. This particular home had hardly any insulation and the owner was spending a lot of money in heating bills. Dr. EnergySaver opted for using injection foam in this job. Injection foam doesn’t expand like spray foam and can be applied to any existing wall cavity, either by itself or to increase the R-value of walls formerly insulated with fiberglass. Holes were drilled in the clapboard to access the wall cavities. After the foam was injected, the holes were plugged and repainted. Injection foam also closes structural gaps, sealing any air leaks in the walls. As a water-based product, injection foam doesn’t emit toxic fumes or harsh smells.
For Free Insulation Quotes contact your local Dr. Energy Saver today.
Problems With Ducts in The Attic
Larry Janesky, founder of Dr. Energy Saver, was recently in Florida helping a homeowner solve a problem many other homeowners in the southeast have and don’t even know about: ducts in the attic. While these ducts are sometimes used for heating during the winter, most of the year they are used for cooling in the warmer areas of the country. They distribute cool air throughout the house.
The problem with having ducts in the attic in these areas is that, as the sun shines relentlessly over the roof during the hot days of summer, regular roof shingles absorb a lot of heat from the sun and that heat is transferred to the attic. On hot days, the temperatures in the attic can be as high as 140 or 150 degrees.
When typical ducts, used to distribute cool air throughout the house are located in the attic, and are improperly insulated and air sealed, the air that you paid to cool down to 50 degrees, is running through metal ducts that are baking at 140 degrees in the attic! The air will be heated again, before it reaches the rooms in the house.
As a result, your air conditioner system will work harder, more often, and your home will still be uncomfortable. Ducts that run through the attic need to be thoroughly air sealed and insulated.
For this particular job, Larry opted for using spray foam to insulate and air seal the ducts, and the connections between ducts and drywall ceiling. While newer homes, built with energy efficiency in mind, will have ducts running through conditioned areas to prevent heat gain and loss, older homes can be made energy efficient with proper duct air sealing and insulation.
For more information about how to save energy through sealing and insulating air ducts, or for more energy saving tips, visit our website or call Dr. Energy Saver for a comprehensive home energy audit!
Insulating Exterior Walls and Dormers of a Cape with Injection Foam
Dr. Energy Saver performs an energy upgrade in an old cape, which was remodeled many times over the years. Due to that fact some exterior walls have fiberglass insulation, and some have no insulation at all.
For this job, our energy conservation experts chose to use injection foam. Injection foam insulation can be applied to empty wall cavities and walls already insulated with fiberglass, to increase R-Value, close gaps in the structure and completely air seal the walls.
The next step was to insulate and air seal a bay window and the dormers, which are typically a huge source of leaks and heat loss .
Injection foam is applied from the outside, with no disruption or mess inside the home. Wall, window and roof cavities are accessed by removing siding or shingles. Holes are drilled and after the foam is injected, the holes are plugged, and the shingles and siding are replaced.
The Importance of Air Sealing and Insulating Attics
Homeowners across the U.S. tend to mistakenly believe that proper attic insulation is only adequate in the cold regions of the country, to maintains the home’s heat.
Larry Janesky, founder of Dr. Energy Saver explains that insulation is also needed in warmer areas. Insulation prevents heat transfer. It prevents hot air from being transferred to the outside in the wintertime, and prevents the attic’s scorching heat from being transferred into the living areas of your home during the summer. In doing so, you are considerably relieving the burden on your air conditioner systems.
Furthermore, Larry explains why insulation without proper air sealing won’t help you save much energy. When a home is built, there are a lot of holes left on the building envelope around pipes, wiring, recessed lights, duct chases, etc. All these holes will allow conditioned air — that you paid to heat or cool — to leak out of the house, and unconditioned air from the outside to enter the home. As a result, your HVAC system will work much harder to keep up with the air exchange, significantly increasing your heating or cooling bills. Because the energy loss through the typical attic can be enormous, a properly air sealed and insulated attic becomes the main component of a truly green and energy efficient home, and it is our main priority at Dr. Energy Saver.
If you would like to learn more about saving energy through energy efficient attics and many other ways to save money and energy, visit our website or call us for a comprehensive home energy audit!
Super Attic – Attic Insulation System
The new Supper Attic, attic insulation system helps you save money and energy by elimination energy loss through the attic. Supper Attic makes your home more comfortable year round.
Installing Jumper Ducts to Make Bedrooms More Comfortable
Climate control and comfort in a home depends on much more than the size, power and efficiency of the heating and cooling system. It depends on proper insulation, air sealing and, above all, it depends on the air duct’s distribution and adequate balance between return and supply ducts.
Larry Janesky, founder of Dr. Energy Saver, was recently in Central Florida helping a homeowner with a high cooling bills, and uneven temperatures around the house.
The bedrooms in his house had only supply ducts. The only return ducts were located in the common areas. Using state-of-the-art equipment, Larry demonstrates how the lack of return ducts in this home’s bedrooms was increasing the positive pressure in the rooms above acceptable levels, consistently pushing air out of the house, and causing unconditioned, hot and humid air from the outside to be sucked into the common areas of the house. The differences in pressure made the air conditioner work harder, without ever making the whole house comfortable.
When homeowners experience similar problems, they tend to mistakenly believe that they need a bigger, and more powerful heating and cooling system. This is why it is a good idea to call in an energy conservation specialist, before you commit to buying an HVAC upgrade.
In this case, for example, just by adding a return duct to each bedroom, Dr. Energy Saver experts brought the pressure levels in the rooms down to normal. The temperatures are now even around the house, comfort has improved and the old air conditioner now works more efficiently.
If you want to save money, energy and make your home more comfortable, call a Dr. Energy Saver dealer in your area!
Sealing and Insulation in New Construction
Larry Janesky from Dr. Energy Saver walks us through the process of air sealing and insulating two newly constructed condominium units.
In new construction, you have many choices of insulation material to chose from: spray foam, rigid foam board, fiberglass, cellulose or a combination of these.
Here a combination of fiberglass bats with blown and spray cellulose to insulate different areas in these units.
Because fiberglass insulation doesn’t stop air flow, the structure needs to be completely air sealed before the bats are installed. Special attention should be paid to windows, doors, and gaps around plumbing, wiring, lighting fixtures, and ducts. The ducts also need to be sealed before the insulation and the drywall are installed.
The walls between the conditioned area and any unheated, un-insulated area of the house like the garage and the attic space upstairs also receive air sealing and insulation.
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!
