Drywall or drop ceiling?

The downturn ed housing market has many folks staying right where they are for at least another two years. Many are turning to the basement as a source of new living space, adding game rooms, home offices, even bedrooms. The big dilemma is always whether or not to drywall the ceiling. Murphy's Law says once you drywall the dishwasher will soring a leak above or you will need to repair something now hidden above the drywall.

Proper planning can give you the best of both worlds. For example, locating a "dummy" register or access panel below any plumbing will give water a place to escape and save your ceilings- just be careful what you put right underneath it! A good Set of mechanical drawings and many photographs with reference points will also come in extremely handy when trying to pull a new wire or fix a pipe.

As far as HVAC goes, we like to locate, adjust and secure the handles for all balancing dampers so they cannot blow shut later. We also install ports for cleaning the trunk ducts later on and provide access holes. Inspecting and sealing all of the ducts is the most important thing we can do, stopping 30% of your energy from leaking out above the ceiling.

And all the fooey about whether the supplys should be high or low... skip it! The giant holes in the duct itself have to go away to keep the system pressurized. Put the supplys at the perimeter in the ceiling where you will get the most airflow, but add a low return to get the cold air off of the floor. The heat near the ceiling will then come down to replace the cold air and you will be able to watch a movie without your feet being cold.

I can't give up all of my secrets here, but you know where to find us!

That New Furnace Smell

Every Fall we turn our furnace on for the first time and are rewarded with that smell. It actually isn't that new furnace smell as much as it is that old furnace smell. Most of us wait until it is actually necessary to test fire the unit, and then a percentage of those folks end up calling for emergency service because it doesn't start at all.

I encourage people try their furnaces early in the fall, say today for example, to avoid being caught off guard. I also do not see the harm it turning it on for five minutes once a month to excercise the components... but I don't even do that. Do as you choose or find the time for on that one.

What is that smell though? Does every furnace make that odor the first time it runs each year? This whole thing came up in my mind after starting a clients furnace this weekend... then starting my own. The clients unit smelled foul, so when I got home I opened the windows and started my own, but no smell. Now, to be honest, it is not the result of meticulous routine maintenance. An old expression about the shoe-makers kids going barefoot comes to mind.

But the one difference I think contributed dramatically is the air filter. After all, the same air is flowing through the system when the A/C is on, so the only variable is the new hotter temperature. My client had a 1" cheesey air filter and my home has an air cleaner from Aprilaire that we installed once allergies and asthma became part of our lives. So then, I deduced that a significant portion of the odor was accumulated dust.

What else could contribute though? Well, I also installed a UV system to kill mold and mildew that grows in the dark recesses of my system, on the A/C coil and humidifier pad. My client did not have a UV light either. Did you know that an improperly pitched air conditioner coil can hold 1" of nasty stagnant water?

Go ahead, turn that furnace on now. Pay attention with all of your senses. Knowing what it smells, sounds, and even feels like when it is running right will help you avoid costly breakdowns by catching small changes in operation early. Let us know if you need any advice, we are here to help!

Furnace Tune- Up Time

They say the early bird gets the worm... it does not apply directly to furnace tune- ups. However, once the furnace burners are cleaned and the machine is tuned to specs the energy consumption of the furnace goes down. So the earlier in the season the tune-up occurs the more "worms" you will be able to afford at the bait and tackle store. It is very likely that a professional technician can avoid break downs as well just by comparing the readings on major switches, safety controls, and relays to those from previous years. If the readings change there is going to be a reason.

We are also careful to inspect the dryer vent piping and test the CO detector to see if it actually still works for more than a pretty green nightlight (LED). The early bird price on a tune up is only $69 too, which is nearly half off!

Call 630-761-9007 folks and let's get ready for chili cook -off season!

Does duct leakage cause high Radon levels?

Warning- DO try this at home! One of the tests I perform when designing a new system is to use a piece of paper off of the printer, with the furnace fan in the on position, to measure how tight the return air side of the system is. Of course, all of the inlet/ return vents should hold the paper when fully covered, but slide the paper horizontally in small incriments until the paper falls off. A tight system should hold the paper until the register grilles are about half exposed. Many factors govern this, such as the ratio of returns to burners in the furnace and distance from the fan, just to name a few. Other considerations are whether there are some returns down low for the heating season (if applicable) and others high (especially in rooms exposed to attics/ roofs) for the cooling season.
It never fails, the houses that do not cool well on the second floor or in certain rooms have no return air suction in those areas. It just makes sense that true efficiency comes from removing the air you don't want while you are introducing the air you are paying for. Try riding a bike with one pedal!

So what about the radon? When I investigate a house with poor returns the large leaks are usually in the basement. I prove this by opening the basement door a few inches (fan still on, windows/ doors closed) and letting it close itself. The further away it closes itself the more leakage. No, it isn't the hinges my skeptical readers, just try again with the fan off!

What we have demonstrated is a negative pressure in the basement, making the rest of the house positively pressured. So while your furnace fan is power venting your energy dollars out bath fans, can lights,etc. the basement is starving for air. It usually finds this air through the sump pump and through the crack around the perimeter of the floor. The sump pump has a four inch tube entering it that is perforated and runs the entire perimeter of the home...buried in dirt that emits gases such as radon. Another favorite place is the attached garage wall, where our cars make carbon monoxide and we store everything we do not wish our families to breathe!

I cannot ignore the fact that these homes all have radon systems on them because they tested high. The first thing the radon mitigator seals is the sump pump lid and then attaches a vent pipe to remove the gases. If the duct leakage is not corrected the furnace blower will start sucking air from other places, like down the water heater flue pipe.

Post a comment if you have a question, it gets pretty deep! I am off to enjoy the last few days before school starts with the family!

Fix Leaking Air Ducts

Duct Sealing
Ever wonder why in the summer time the second floor is several degrees warmer than the first floor? Or why the basement is so cold when the A/C is on? The US Dept. of Energy, Energy Star, and he EPA will be happy to answer those questions for you. Check their websites and read how the average residential duct system leaks 20 – 40% of it’s air/energy into the ceilings, walls, and basement of your home.
You would expect the Dept of Energy and Energy Star to cover this topic, but why the EPA? Because these same leaks are responsible for construction dust and insulation fibers being pulled into our homes- into the air we breathe. Larger return air duct leaks in the basement can also create a negative pressure.
When the basement is negative air flows backward down flue pipes and radon is pulled in through the sump pump drain system. The bottom line: SEAL YOUR DUCTWORK! Your energy bills go down 20-40% that day- and your air quality goes up. The average payback in a 2400 square foot home is two years, unless the cost of energy goes up!

Cash in Your Attic

When was the last time a professional energy consultant took a look up in your attic. For that matter, when was the last time you did? Have you ever gone in the attic and left the light off- just to see how much daylight is visible at the eaves or gables? I cannot tell you how many times I have found inadequete ventilation AFTER an owners second roof failed prematurely.

Oops, I forgot to mention the 1800 CFM power attic fan that the roofer installed to solve the problem...which didn't work either. When a power attic fan cannot suck enough air from the blocked or insufficient eave vents it begins to draw from somewhere else- your air conditioned house! This is why we only isnatll the Solar powered Attic Fans that self regulate the amount of ventilation cretaed to match what the eaves can support.

Does a humidistat on an attic fan make any sense? If the fan is in the attic, or outside of your home, then how can it lower the humidity by sucking the same air in a circle?

The layer of drywall or plaster between your house and attic is called the "attic plane" and should be air tight. Humidity collects in your attic when it escapes from your home through the attic plane, causing it to be dry in the house because the escaping air is replaced through leaks lower in the home by dry cold air from outside. Solution must be a bigger humidifier, right? It becomes a comedy of errors!

So why does an attic plane leak? because we poke lots of holes in it with the attic hatch, can lights, bath fans, poorly built soffets, and the lsit goes on. Even while you sleep this air leaks out and your bills go up, not to mention the insulation dust that finds it's way in.

Now, when was the last time a professional stuck his or head into you attic?

Air Conditioner and Furnace installation tips

Many homeowners are faced with the need to replace their home's comfort system rather unexpectedly. The amount of information to decipher and the confusion associated with differentiating the appliance form the installation methods/ materials can give a homeowner a headache. If there are two people I would pay good money to travel back in time and slap silly they are as follows:
1) The person that coined the phrase "free estimates"
2) The person that decided you needed at least three of them.

(If these were the same person it would save me some travel expenses! If I had to pick a third it would be myself every ten minutes between 17 and 24 years of age....what was I thinking?)

There is nothing "free" to either party in a "free estimate". Both parties have to invest their valuable time and sometimes resources like cookies (my favorite) and bottles of water. If you are the contractor your gas, paper, pens, admin time, etc. Then you have all of the information.

How can three contractors really come up with three different sizes of units for the same home? How can the homeowner verify anything that they say is true? Does a homeowner have any way of knowing that every manufacturer makes three or four different quality platforms of the same product boasting the same features and warranty? This is truly the dumbest concept ever created by man. Smart consumers have a contractor they trust when the time comes to replace because the same intelligent humans have usually been using that contractor EVERY YEAR to perform preventive maintenance and a good tune-up.

That being said, let's talk about a concept I call "leveraging your labor dollar". When you purchase any item that requires installation you pay for several things that are fixed costs. For example: Labor to install includes the workers hourly wage, benefit package, and all of the companies overhead divided by the number of hours they have for sale. Another example is profit percentage- not a dirty word, without profit who will still be around to honor your warranty?

Then there are the variable expenses:
1) The number of associated items the contractors have decided are important enough to include with the installation of the appliance for safety and reliability. This only varies by contractor, every one of their installations will be generally the same. Guess what, the cheapest bid is also the "cheapest" contractor. It only includes whatever is absolutely necessary to get in and out as fast as possible. Then, whenever there is a warranty call it is always going to be one of those unnecessary parts that failed and you get billed. Shame on that contractor? Or shame on you, consumer with the ability to make good choices on the front end?

2) The second variable is the quality of the "box" installed. The better the quality of the appliance, or "box", the longer it will last. It will also make less noise, consume less energy, provide better comfort, have the smallest carbon footprint, and deliver better indoor air quality. Generally, the highest quality box is only a small number of dollars more than the baseline investment. The time it takes to recover the difference is two to five years. Plus it gives you something to brag about when you take your home to market.

This is where it all ties together. You are going to buy a box from the contractor that actually performs a computerized load calculation and does a good quality, safe installation that makes him or her responsible 100% for your satisfaction. Feed the rest of them to your dog.

So the installation does not change, the profit margin does not change, the labor and overhead recovery does not change. Just the box changes.
That is exactly the point. Your dollar, paid to have the unit installed, is the same if you buy the crappy box as if buy the best box, so you need to leverage your labor dollar to achieve the largest return on investment.

If you were going to pay a professional chef prepare a meal for you and your loved ones would you go out and buy hot dogs?

Those who make good decisions always get ahead, those who continue to make good decision always stay ahead.