4 Benefits of Regular Duct Cleaning and Repair

The drive home from work: traffic congestion, hard on the lungs- all the smoke from semi trucks and other big vehicles. After a full day inside a cubicle, you may look at the city you live in and see nothing but air pollution. How do you survive breathing the fumes of what you and your fellow neighbors have created?

You can't wait to get inside under a cool air conditioner and breath in some clean air for a change. Maybe that is what you expect to happen. But if it is, sorry to deliver some bad news, you are not breathing in the clean air you think you are..

Are you aware that the Environmental Protection Agency estimates household air is up to 70 times more polluted than what you breath in everyday during your work commute?

70 TIMES!

Most of this indoor pollution exists because people fail to get their ducts and furnace cleaned as often as they should.The cost of ignoring basic maintenance on your HVAC system can produce  pollution worse than anything you will  encounter outside, and could lead to expensive air duct service - or more serious, duct replacement.

You can't afford to take air duct cleaning for granted any longer.  Here are 4 benefits of quality air duct cleaning and care:

1. Your health. Inside your current ductwork, there are actually all sorts of unwanted critters waiting for yourself to uncover. Harmful bacteria, fungus, mold and mildew spores, animal dander, as well as pollen, consistently collect to contaminate the quality of your own clean air. Through air-duct cleaning and heater cleaning, you can remove these factors before they take control of you by way of allergies, asthma, or or other illnesses.

2. Energy savings. The EPA estimates that it doesn't even take one-tenth of an inch of dust buildup on a heating coil to negatively affect your energy efficiency. 

3. Less work around the house.  By engaging in routine maintenance and air duct cleaning you can greatly reduce the time you spend on menial chores like dusting.

4. Longer life expectancy of your heating and air conditioning equipment. By regularly engaging in good quality air-duct cleaning, or hiring an HVAC specialist to ensure your ducts are getting the treatment they need for maximum overall performance, you help reduce the possibility of air duct repair or air duct replacement, that will certainly be awaiting you down the road otherwise. 

It is best to stay on top of the problem before it is too late. But if it is time for an air duct replacement, act quickly. The money you can quickly make up for in a more efficient energy system and future awareness that will prevent serious problems before they occur.

6 Ways to Reduce Your Winter Heating Bills

It has been another difficult year economically but now it's time to gear up for the holidays and plan for next year. We spend a lot to heat our home, now it's time to come up with a plan to reduce those heating bills. I know you don't like throwing your money away. A family spends approximately $2000 a year for winter heating, this amount can be even more if you do not take care of little things that can increase efficiency of your heating system.

Insulating

The first step you should take is making sure your home is properly insulated.  Proper insulation will keep your indoors warm in the winter and cool in the summer. There are various forms of insulation like spray foam, fiberglass, rigid foam and cellulose and many others. Once your home is properly insulated your winters will be more comfortable and you will be saving money on the cost on heating for those cold days.

Plugging Air Leaks

Whether your home is new or old, before winter hits you should check every window and door for air leaks. A leaky home will allow cool air to get inside and warm air to go outside and that will increase your heating bills. Your HVAC system will have to overwork to keep your home warm which will mean more fuel and maintenance expenses for you.

Here are a few tips to check and fix the air leaks in your home.

1) Check out the weather stripping around the windows and doors

2) If your insulation has leaks then use the insulation tape to seal them.

3) If there are rooms in your home that you do not use frequently, make sure to apply sheeting to the doors leading to them.

4) Install vent blocks in the rooms your don't use.

5) Seal all the cracks in the walls.

6) Try to prevent constant running in and out of the house (remember your parents constantly reminding you to stop running in and out of the house when you were a kid?). Everytime you open the door you are letting in cold air and letting out warm air. 

These are some simple tips that can greatly reduce winter heating costs. You should also call your HVAC company to come in and do a routine winter servicing of your heating system and make sure that there are no leaks in your duct work. Don't forget that lowering your thermostat by even 1 degree will save you money over the long term. 

How to Test Your Heating & AC Ducts for Leakages

Developing a home that's energy-efficient has numerous benefits. It'll lower your carbon footprint, therefore making your house more eco-friendly. It'll make your house more energy-efficient, therefore costing you less every single month in your energy bill. There are many areas within your home that you should pay attention to in order to find air leaks that wreak havoc on efficiency and your wallet. Certainly one of the individual areas is the air conditioning (heating, ventilating, and ac) unit's ductwork. Even when your house is new, but particularly if it's old, air leaks can exist through the system.

Checking and repairing any air conditioning leaks within the ductwork is crucial to keeping the system, as well as your home, efficient. A lot of the ductwork inside a house send either heated or cooled air in to the different spaces of the house. Usually, there's one large duct that functions as the return to the heating/cooling unit itself. Each one of these ductwork should be correctly sealed from air leaks to be able to function correctly and effectively. Many houses, however, frequently have significant problems like shredded insulation, damaged duct junctions, even holes chewed with the insulation and ductwork by rats and/or rodents.

Air conditioning ductwork are pressurized, so leaks which exist could be far worse and much more pricey than other air leaks around your home. The quantity of air that escapes via a leak inside a duct is magnified due to that pressurization.

Being able to access all your ductwork could possibly be the trickiest part, although fixing the leaks could be relatively easy. Leaks many times can be seen with just a flashlight. You may also make use of the "wet hands" technique - turn the air conditioning unit on therefore the ductwork become pressurized and ready: a wet hand may lead you directly to the leak. If you have trouble finding the leaks yourself then I suggest calling a qualified HVAC specialist to come out check the ducts for you. If you were able to find the leaks yourself then continue on with how to repair the leaks.

Hardware stores carry various kinds of sealing kits for ductwork. Prior to going towards the store, though, you will need to have the ability to tell the sales representative assisting you what material your ductwork are, and just how they're suspended to be able to find the appropriate repair package.

Duct tape can be used for  a lot of things, however this is somewhere the title states everything! Easily repair rips or tears in ductwork with duct tape. Take this into account when you use duct tape - it doesn't adhere well to dusty surfaces. When the surface where your leak is provides extensive dust (also it most likely will), then you've two options:

1. Clean off the dust (much more difficult than you think)

2. Wrap the duct tape around and round the section in which the leak is and just hide the dust - much simpler than the first option!

If while you are checking the ductwork you see the insulation appears thin, it is simple to add more to the surface of the existing insulation.

Caulk works effectively to seal the air leaks that are commonly found at the junctions between ducts and the registers where the air is pushed out into your home.

Insulation, Sealing Air Leaks - A Green Remodel to help Cut Power Bills

How would you like to dramatically slash your electricity bill as much as 85%? Superinsulating a house can significantly enhance the energy performance of an old house. These so-called  deep energy retrofits achieve household energy as much as 85% by addressing all (or almost all) energy loads - space conditioning, warm water, lighting, home appliances, and plug loads - or even transportation. Energy cutbacks of this magnitude require a rigorous and extensive systems approach: The natural associations among energy, indoor quality of air, sturdiness, and thermal comfort should be honored throughout construction and designs. Passive photo voltaic design and renewable energy systems are typical during these projects.

The objectives of any house energy retrofit can be like those of a brand new green residence, however like all remodels, a big difference is basically you have to deal with a pre-existing building. Below are a few house systems with particular areas you should focus on.

1. Upgrade Your Home's Windows

With the top and bottom of the home sealed tightly and insulated, the very next prospect will be the walls. Did you know that old and outdated windows is like having a significant hole in your wall? While functioning poorly, they often leak both water and air into the house. Correctly mounted, Energy Star (or even better) windows seal off the gaps in the walls to hold out water and climate extremes.

2. Modernize The Mechanical Equipment

A classic heater or central heating boiler is frequently the worst energy user within an old house. Many houses built just before 1920 have old coal-fired central heating boilers which were transformed into gas or oil. These models are workhorses, but use lots of energy. A brand new furnace or boiler can help to save energy dollars immediately. Changing window air conditioning units, which we did in most these houses, having a central system may also save energy immediately, as lengthy because the tubes continues to be put into the conditioned space. Photo voltaic water heating is a great choice to add here if you're able to afford it, but at the

minimum, upgrade the efficiency of warm water production by coupling the tank towards the boiler.

3. Bring The Basement And Crawlspace Inside Your Home

Warm, dry cellars and crawlspaces can extend living and space for storage. Wet cellars are the source of high humidity levels and discomfort in the summertime in old houses. They can also cause mold growth that will get distributed throughout the house. Spray foam is really a fast, efficient way to create these areas in to the conditioned space while sealing the leaks between foundation and floor framework.

4. Super-insulate And Air-seal The Roofing

If air leaks in at the bottom of the home, it leaks out at the very top, making a home cold and drafty in the winter months. A poorly insulated roof also can produce a hot house in summer time. Air-sealing is really a by-product of excellent insulation, so it’s a real one-step process. Using spray foam within roof may also eliminate the requirement for roof ventilation, that is tricky in complicated roofs.

5. Insulate Your Walls

Filling empty wall cavities with cellulose is really a cheap, easy, efficient way to warm-up a classic house. Blowing cellulose into existing wall tooth decay is definitely an art, to be certain, but you will find many companies who've been doing the work for a long time. Actually, you will find now affordable methods to seek advice from infrared cameras to make certain that voids happen to be filled without disturbing the present plaster or sheathing on outdoors walls. Because siding or shingles on old houses may also normally wear out, we go ahead and take chance to set up foam sheathing around the outdoors of the home before re-siding.

6. Get Energy Star (or even better)

Fittings, home appliances, and lighting after you have reduced your parking space conditioning and water-heating loads, the lighting, appliance, and plug load will probably be your next large energy item. A brand new Energy Star refrigerator uses 15% less energy than the usual standard model. Changing old light fittings with pin-based compact fluorescent fittings guarantees your utility bill will remain lower (as much as 30%).

7. Put In A Renewable-Energy Supply

When your energy consumption continues to be reduced considerably, it might be reasonable to create your personal energy with systems such as photovoltaics, wind energy, or hydro, if you possess a stream nearby. Before you slash the energy usage, though, it isn't worth the money in renewable energy sources. Conservation remains the least expensive game around.

Comfort and a Drafty House

Insulation is definitely vital in relation to saving power in our households. With far more insulation in our walls, roofs, and foundation, much less heat escapes via conduction towards the outdoors. Insulate properly!

 Ok,  that is pretty clear.

 But insulation isn't  everything. There is also air leakage, which features a enormous impact on both energy consumption and comfort. I don't mind embarrassing myself, so let me use our residence as an example.

 When I purchased our home in 1981, a lot of work was needed. Constructed around 1785, it had been "modernized" some time in the  70s, with drop ceilings, shag rugs, fake barnboard siding around the fireplace, brushed aluminum "tiles" around the kitchen sink and stove, tacky contemporary windows, and extra partitions here and there to create extra guest rooms for the Long Island owners and their buddies coming to Vermont for ski weekends.

 The previous owners had place a good deal of money into the property - though nearly nothing at all to improve its energy efficiency, aside from insulating amongst the floor joists from the basement - and that fiberglass insulation was installed together with the facing around the wrong side so that the majority of it had long since become waterlogged and slumped to the dirt floor within a soggy mess.

 I systematically - if somewhat naively - went by the house gutting it space by space, replacing rotted sills, re-siding the exterior, insulating the wall cavities, adding a continuous layer of interior rigid foam insulation, and putting in new drywall. When I was done, the walls had been reasonably well-insulated (even though I would add much more rigid insulation were I doing the work today).

 However the home remained incredibly uncomfortable. Some years later, now married and having a baby crawling around around the floor, we had to do  something regarding the discomfort. We heated largely with wood, and using a roaring fire inside the wood stove the space might be in the 80s at the ceiling but in the 50s in the floor.

 With thick slippers, my wife and I were reasonably comfy, but when we picked our year-old daughter up off the floor, she was cold! We felt terrible - and worried about her wellness. The insulation - by early 1980s requirements - wasn't that bad, but the property was anything but comfy.

 Enter the Draft Detective

 I did some asking around and hired Dick Cartelli (a.k.a., The Draft Detective) from Putney, Vermont to determine what was going on. He came in with his "blower door" and tested the home's leakiness. A blower door is set up in an exterior door frame and turned on to pressurize the residence. By measuring just how much air is getting pushed by the blower door and measuring the pressure difference among indoors and out (employing two manometers), the operator can calculate the air tightness in the residence - typically in "air alterations per hour" at the elevated pressure of 50 pascals.

 I neglect the actual numbers, but the residence was leaky - genuinely leaky! Cartelli utilized two cases of caulk and I do not know how quite a few canisters of expanding foam sealant, built an insulated attic hatch door with foam gaskets at the edges, and implemented a great deal of other measures over a week or two to substantially tighten the old residence. By operating the blower door to depressurize the home while he worked, he was able to feel where air leakage was occurring--and seal those holes, cracks, and gaps.

 The improvement was dramatic. The delta-T (distinction in temperature) from floor-to-ceiling went from more than 20° to much less then 10°. That delta-T was further decreased when I insulated beneath our floor from the basement and also a crawl space. We no longer had to maintain the wood stove cranked at complete output to retain affordable comfort. Our daughter could crawl about around the floor and keep warm (though her earlier encounter might have contributed towards the fact that she now, as an adult, lives and works within the mild climate of San Francisco!).

 The bottom line

 Yes, we really should insulate our homes well--don't skimp on adding insulation for those who open up your wall system. But we also will need to spend attention to air tightness. Drafts cause discomfort and they drastically boost heating fuel use by carrying heated house air up and out, pulling in cold outdoors air inside the process. Adding some varieties of insulation, including dense-pack cellulose and spray polyurethane foam, can help to tighten a household, but other measures are often expected.

 Should you have a drafty residence, bring inside a weatherization contractor to measure how leaky your house truly is, and then invest in air tightening. It really is worth it!

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