You will have heard on TV and in the media all about this thing called weatherization and how the government wants all property to be properly weatherized. But what exactly does that mean for the regular home?

I asked Bill Mentgen from Energy Conservation Solutions (ECS) to tell me all about it as he did a weatherization audit on my home.

It was a cold October morning when Bill and his team knocked on my door. 10 minutes later they had filled my hallway with an array of expensive testing equipment. Bill started in the kitchen to test for air quality, which essentially tests for carbon monoxide levels coming from appliances in the home. Its funny because I thought weatherization was all about sealing the house for drafts, but first a home needs to be audited to test to see if its first safe to do so. Health and Safety come first and that’s what a lot of residents don’t realize. You make a house draft proof and you can save money but not at the expense of increased carbon monoxide levels in the home.

The test is measured in parts per million (ppm). First the equipment is base lined outside. Depending on if you live in the center of town in a high pollution area or in the country, this baseline will defer. The recommended maximum on an appliance is 35ppm. My gas hob? (range)did ok but one burner had an elevated reading of 28ppm and I was advised to get the burner serviced.

Weatherization really does need to be done by a trained professional with the proper equipment. If you attempt to do it yourself you run the risk of an increase in sickness due to carbon monoxide poisoning, moisture and mold which grow in damp environments. Once these issues have been identified, the root cause needs to be addresses before the property is weatherized and these problems are made worse.

After the oven, the hot water was run to see how hot it got. It should be around 120 degrees F but mine ran out at 141 degrees, 21 degrees hotter than it needed to be. A slight adjustment to the Hot water heater setting should keep the water from getting too hot and saving me money on heating and in water usage cooling it down again.

Next was the blower door test. This was an interesting piece of equipment. What looked like a red curtain was hung over the opening to my front door. On the ground was attached a big fan which when turned on, draws the air out of the house. This then helps to check for air leaks by measuring the pressure at various points. Bill assured me that new 4 year old house was pretty tight, but then we went around all the risk areas to test where the air was being drawn in from. My fireplace is a closed unit so that was ok, if you have an open fireplace or old single glazed windows, you’ll lose a lot of heat from there. The patio doors had a slight draft (air leak) at the top and the bottom.

It turns out that my upstairs is more leaky than my downstairs. Even where the light fittings have been fitted in the closets was letting in a draft from the attic. A massive 30% leakage. Just by sealing the fitting in to the ceiling I would prevent these drafts from forming and letting expensive hot air escape from my home.

Then my attic insulation was tested for thickness. I had the minimum requirement and could save money by getting it twice as deep.

Then it came to checking out my furnace. I don’t know much about furnaces, that’s more my husband’s department, but I really learned something.

Evidently my ‘fan off’ temperature on the furnace was 15 degrees F higher than it should be. That’s 15 degrees of heat not going in to the house.

Power companies will come out and check gas and water heater and even offer the blower door test, but not the detailed testing a specialized weatherization company can offer. Have a qualified service technician come to evaluate the system, one that is independent of sales.

Furnace efficiencies start to drop after 10 years, so if you are looking to replace a furnace, look to replace it with a 90+% efficient option to help you save even more energy and money. An annual service of your HVAC systems is recommended (air conditioning and heating). I don’t think mine has been done since the house was built.

A qualified weatherization company will do all your testing first and ensure that the recommended work not only help you to save money but also ensures you save money.

Bills final recommendation was to consider putting a solar fan in to the attic to keep my cooling costs down in the summer. When you think of that ductwork going across the inside of your roof, it gets mighty hot in the summer as the heat rises through the shingle roof. The unit is less than $1,000 and with an 80% tax rebate (50% state rebate, 30% federal tax rebate) it has to be worth $200 of actual cost, especially when I’ll save approximately 30% on my bills over the summer. It could pay for itself in a single year.

You can contact Energy Conservation Solutions at 317-641-5555(Indy area)765-676-5779(outlying areas) or visit www.EnergyConservationSolutions.net

Tags: air leak, attic insulation, Energy Conservation Solutions, HVAC systems, Power companies, solar attic fan, weatherization, weatherization audit

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.