Our guest blogger this week is Wes Harding, President of Harding Construction & Sustainable Solutions. He is a college instructor, general contractor, certified green home rater, and energy auditor. He can be reached at www.hardingconstruction.biz
A home has to have good indoor air quality and be energy efficient to be green. As previously discussed, air movement plays a large role in any home. There are many signs of air movement. Some are obvious, for example we can feel a draft and we can smell unusual odors. Some are not so easy to detect unless you know what to look for, such as dust at electrical outlets, dust where the wall meets the baseboard, dust on the carpet under a closed door, dirty insulation in the attic or crawlspace, and dirty heating and cooling registers. Air carries dust, allergens, and contaminants from outside (hopefully you don’t live on a busy street), your crawlspace and your attic. All of these holes in your home can effect how comfortable you may feel, how much you spend on heating and cooling, and your health.
Don’t worry, if you’re not sure where the holes are in your home, there are trained professionals that can help.
An Energy Star Home Performance Contractor can perform an energy audit on your home and provide you with a report and solutions to your problems. One of the primary tools a Home Performance contractor uses in testing for air movement is a blower door, smoke device, and infrared camera.
The blower door works by sucking or blowing air into your home. The blower door measures how much air is passing through the fan and through the holes in your home. If you remember our balloon example, this would be the same as measuring the amount of air that is leaking through the pin holes. As the blower door is operating a HP Contractor will walk around with a device that creates non-toxic smoke and visually detect for air leakage.
Once the Home Performance Energy Audit is complete the contractor will crunch numbers to measure how leaky or tight your home is. He or she will also calculate the correct amount of air changes for your home and provide a solution to tighten the building.
Typically, an existing home built prior to 1978 is about 2 to 3 times as leaky as it should be. Most often, a HP contractor will correct the problem by air sealing all the holes in the attic, the ductwork, wall cavities, and crawlspace.
So what happens if your house is too tight, meaning there are not enough holes? Should you be worried? You betcha. Stay tuned for tomorrows post.
