Home Comfort at No Cost
Your house is supposed to protect your family from the weather and extreme temperatures. Yet, if your home is too hot during the summer and too cold during the winter, it is not doing its job.
Millions of families in the U.S. suffer through the seasons with uncomfortable homes and high utility bills, simply because they believe it is too expensive to fix, or they don’t know how.
In fact, you can fix your home, make it more comfortable, and lower your energy bills with work that pays for itself – and the answer can be summed up in two words: energy efficiency.
If your house is not an effective barrier against the outside temperatures, the money you spend in heating and cooling is being wasted, leaking out through openings in the building envelope, or being lost through poorly insulated attics, walls, and foundations.
Unfortunately many homeowners are led to believe that their home can be made energy efficient simply by replacing the windows, but that is not the way it works.
Homes are complex systems, and there are many pieces of the puzzle that need to be taken into consideration when it comes to achieving true energy efficiency.
That’s where Dr. Energy Saver comes in. We have helped thousands of homeowners across the U.S. fix their homes with a whole house approach to energy savings. On average, the work we perform usually pays for itself in only four to six years by significantly lowering fuel and electricity costs. Depending on where you live, you can enjoy a 15 to 25% annual rate of return on your investment.
Dr. Energy Saver work starts with a thorough evaluation of your home, to understand how energy is being wasted in the first place. Most energy waste problems have three main causes: an inefficient heating and cooling system that consumes too much fuel and electricity to produce results, inefficient and leaky ductwork, and heat loss and gain through improperly insulated and leaky building envelope.
Heat commonly gets lost through floors, walls, ceilings, attics, chimneys, framing holes, can lights, fireplaces, cantilevers, and rooms over garages, just to name a few sources.
Dr. Energy Saver solves these problems by sealing the major leaks, creating a blanket of insulation around the living areas of your house, and upgrading your heating and cooling systems. Outside air stays out, inside air stays in. That is energy efficiency.
Once the cost of fixing your home is paid for in energy savings, you’ll still enjoy the same savings year after year!
Now think about this: unlike other home improvement projects, you are paying the equivalent cost of fixing the problem because you are overpaying for heating and cooling. So you might as well fix it.
Join the thousands of homeowners who are already enjoying more comfort and energy savings in their homes. Contact a Dr. Energy Saver dealer in your area today!
Spray Foam Insulation vs. Fiberglass
For many decades, the material of choice to insulate homes has been fiberglass. Blown fiberglass is used for the attic whereas fiberglass batts are used for wall cavities, ceilings, and pretty much everything else. Today, it is still a very popular insulation material, and is still used in new construction — it is inexpensive and most builders and insulation contractors are used to it.
Yet, there are several insulation materials available today that far outperform fiberglass insulation in many levels, and in the #61 episode of On the Job Larry Janesky, owner and founder of Dr. Energy Saver, will show us how spray foam insulation outperforms fiberglass batts when it comes to wall cavity insulation in new construction.
Larry begins by reminding us that modern houses aren’t built as rectangles with gabled roofs anymore. Most new homes have architectural features such as cantilevers, multi level areas, enclosures and fixtures that create irregular wall cavities and many challenges in terms of insulation.
The house showcased in this video is one example of this type of modern construction.
Fiberglass has an R-Value of 3 per inch while spray foam has a R- Value of 7 per inch. R-Value is a measure of resistance to heat flow, and a lower R-Value per inch means that you need a thicker layer of fiberglass than you would of spray foam to insulate the same area and achieve the same ideal R-Value.
The problem is that the fiberglass R-Value is rated only when the material is fully fluffed, not when it is compressed and touching all the surfaces in the cavity, without edge gaps. A small 4% edge gap will cause a 30% decrease in the R-Value of fiberglass insulation.
Add to that the fact that fiberglass has no air sealing capabilities, and air flows right through the material and you will begin to understand how it can be easily outperformed by other insulation materials, especially spray foam insulation.
Larry walks us through the many architectural and framing features of the building that would create several opportunities for insulation failure if fiberglass were the chosen material — and he shows us just how easily closed spray foam can be applied to the exact same problem areas. Spray foam insulation expands and effectively fills even the smallest spaces and gaps, leaving no holes in the insulation blanket and air seals the walls as well!
At Dr. Energy Saver, we are always looking for ways to make homes more comfortable and reduce the cost of homeownership by improving energy performance. If you would like to make your home more comfortable, visit our website to locate a dealer in your area.
Watch our other On the Job Videos for more information on energy saving home improvements and subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get the latest updates!
The Stack Effect
If you’ve been watching videos or reading articles about home energy efficiency, you most likely heard or saw the term ‘stack effect’ used several times. Building scientists are always very concerned with the stack effect and how it impacts energy consumption and comfort.
The “stack effect” is a physics phenomenon that occurs in every single building, every house — including yours.
It causes the warm air inside any closed structure to rise and escape through the higher portions of the building. As a result, a negative pressure area is created at the lower levels of the building, causing a lot of unconditioned air from the outside to be sucked in through areas like crawl spaces and basements.
If you are running a heating or air conditioning system in your home, all the air that you are paying for is not staying in the living space. Instead, it is constantly leaking out from the top of your house. Unconditioned air is then being sucked in to make up for the air that is leaking out, and your HVAC system is working harder than ever to keep up with all the loss and intake.
While the concept is not hard to grasp, it is hard to imagine exactly how much it impacts your comfort and energy bills until you can actually see it in action.
And this is exactly what Larry Janesky will demonstrate in this episode of the On the Job video series. Using a diagnostic device called a digital micromanometer, Larry will demonstrate the enormous impact the stack effect has in terms of energy efficiency by measuring the differences in pressure between different areas of the house, and the outside.
After that demonstration, Larry uses a smoke pen to demonstrate how the air leaks in and out of the building.
Building science is continuously evolving, and at Dr. Energy Saver all our technicians are trained to keep up with the latest advances in diagnostic and problem solving technologies, to always provide you with the best and most cost effective energy saving services.
Experience the Dr. Energy Saver difference. Call or visit our website to locate a certified dealer near you.
For more on building science and energy saving solutions, watch our other On the Job videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest updates.
Insulation and Air Sealing Improve Comfort and Value
Using NYSERDA rebates to save on upgrading your home’s insulation and air sealing isn’t just securing stable indoor temperatures year-round – it’s an investment in the value of your home.
By reducing the amount of heat and air that leak in and out of your home, insulation keeps your energy right where you need it and maximizes the comfort you feel, requiring less air conditioning in the summer, and less heating in the winter – an attractive asset for potential homebuyers who are willing to pay more for energy efficient homes.
Winter Home Checklist
Watch this video to learn how to prep your home for winter with our checklist for efficient warmth. From air filters to insulation, Halco keeps you warm.
FOAM HOME!
Hal Smith, CEO of Halco, is delivering ET’s to your neighborhood. That’s ‘E’ for Energy and ‘T’ for Technicians. Halco ET’s recommend two steps to maximize heating comfort and savings: (1) FOAM your HOME, and (2) Electrify your home. Have a Halco E.T. visit your home for a no-cost energy assessment!
