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Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tips for home owners to stay comfortable and energy efficient this winter
Tips for home owners to stay comfortable and energy efficient this winter
- Be sure to change or clean HVAC equipment filters every 2-4 months during winter. This will help your heating system run optimally during its most taxing time of the year by allowing maximum air flow. Dirty filters cause unnecessary air restrictions that result in higher energy costs and premature equipment failure.
- Schedule annual maintenance/safety inspections for your HVAC equipment to insure that your furnace is in clean, professionally tested, safe working order. Many furnaces are susceptible to heat exchanger cracks causing carbon monoxide to enter your home through the heating ducts. This is very common and is the most important reason to have an annual maintenance/safety inspection as carbon monoxide leaks can be deadly.
- Install a programmable thermostat and set it to a lower temperature at night and whenever the house is unoccupied. Lowering your thermostat by 10 degrees at night can reduce your heating bill by 10 to 20 percent. Washington energy code will soon require every home to have programmable thermostats.
- Make sure heating ducts are sealed and insulated. This service pays for itself in energy costs. When ducts are not insulated the conditioned air loses a percentage of its heat by the time it gets to your living space causing the furnace to work harder leading to higher energy costs and shorter equipment life.
- Address simple air infiltration issues. In most homes outside air finds a way in, mostly through leaky windows and doors. An inexpensive easy to do method of minimizing air infiltration in window frames, attic and crawl space accesses is weather stripping. Many weather stripping products can be found at your local Home Depot. The most economical type of weather stripping is high density rubber foam tape (Thermwell product # R516H ). This product can be cut to size and easily installed. Use silicone based caulking to seal cracks in window frames. Slide on door bottoms may be used to minimize infiltration in doors (Thermwell product # B79/36H). Insulating spray foam sealant (Great Stuff product # 4568) may be used to minimize infiltration by sealing spaces where plumbing pipes, electrical wires ect. that come through walls and floors.
- Always keep fireplace dampers closed when not in use, large amounts of cold air can come in through the chimney.
- Open curtains on your south-facing windows during the day to allow sunlight to naturally heat your home, and close them at night.
- Make sure your water heater is set no higher than 125 degrees.
- Install a water heater insulating blanket (Thermwell product # SP90A) this is a low cost, easy way to efficiently keep the water in your tank hot and prolong its life.
- Insulate the pipes around the water heater with inexpensive, easy-to-install pipe insulation (Armacell product # OES11838). This is particularly helpful if the water heater is in an unheated space.
When these tips are implemented together, you will be pleasantly surprised when you see your energy bills decrease as well as have piece of mind knowing that your home and family are comfortable and safe.
Another very important topic for home owners is selecting a skilled tradesmen to do construction work. This goes for all construction fields, not just HVAC. With the advent of craiglists consumers often are taken advantage of by unskilled workers who bid low and install improper equipment, often dangerously putting homeowners lives and property at risk. As a business owner and a family man it is distressing to see heating/cooling system installations that are so negligent. It is important for me to make sure homeowners are informed consumers before entering the market for HVAC work so they can protect themselves and their investment in their homes.
The plethora of inexperienced under qualified companies and technicians is astounding. As a result of this there are an overwhelming number of homes with improperly sized, poorly installed HVAC systems. As the country leans toward a greener more energy efficient future it is important for our home heating systems to be functioning the way that they were designed to. Most HVAC companies have no concrete method for sizing HVAC equipment, so what the customer usually gets is over sized equipment resulting in short cycling, wasted energy and discomfort (short-cycling is when over sized equipment satisfies the demand from the thermostat too quickly causing the equipment to come on and shut off too frequently unnecessarily wasting energy).
If home owners can make an educated, informed decision they can save a lot of money on utility costs and be more green compliant and comfortable in the process.
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