A perfectly comfortable home is a home where you never think about being cold or hot. For many home owners, they find themselves hot in one room and cold in another. And when this occurs it often causes a battle of the thermostat and a constant adjusting and re-adjusting in a never ending cycle trying to achieve comfort. Diagnosing comfort problems is complicated and often it takes an expert but here are the fundamentals.

• Drafts – If you have a room that is cold in the winter and hot in the summer look for air leaks in the room. When the wind blows, can you feel air coming in around doors, windows, plug plates, or plumbing penetrations? If so, that could be a key factor in the cold air that you may feel moving across your feet.

• Windows – Windows are a major factor in a room’s comfort. Even the most efficient windows are still not as insulative as your walls. Windows also allow sun rays into the house. This can heat up a room significantly in the summer making it too hot. If your windows face the east or west you can use shades or window films to block the sun’s heat.

• Humidity – Have you ever noticed that 100 degrees in a hot humid climate feels a lot different than 100 degrees in a hot dry climate? High humidity makes your home feel clammy. Even though the temperature of your house may be right, high humidity will keep you from feeling comfortable. Humidity can be caused by improper venting, crawlspace moisture, or a poorly functioning HV/AC system. Since up to 50% of the air that enters your house comes from the crawlspace, managing the moisture in there is very important.

• Balance – When an HV/AC system is installed it is supposed to be designed to supply the right amount of conditioned air to each room. If the HV/AC installer makes an error, or the room is not performing as designed, it can cause there to be either too much or too little conditioned air flowing to a room. If it is too little, it will be cold in the winter and hot in the summer. If it is too much, it will be hot in the winter and cold in the summer. If you think you have this problem you can use the baffles on your duct system to try and adjust the flow to a room. The best option is having your system balanced by a professional who can calculate how much air should be flowing to each room and match the air flow from your system to that calculation.

Your home’s comfort is very important because it can cause your home to be a pleasant or unpleasant place to live. Improving your home’s comfort can also help avoid family feuds over what temperature to set the thermostat at.

Tags: Cold Room, Hot rooms, How to fix cold rooms, How to fix hot rooms, HVAC Balancing
Posted in Air Quality, Home Comfort | No Comments »

A question I hear people often ask is, “will energy efficiency improve my home’s value?” If you are considering implementing energy efficient features in your home, but don’t know how much longer you may live there, then you may be asking this question as well. The answer breaks down into two parts; improved home value & selling features.

Improved Home Value:
With the option of selling your home is on the table, the first thing to do is determine the approximate timeframe of when the house will go on the market. Figuring out whether you will keep your house for the next 5, 10, 15, or 30 years will help you analyze the potential benefits you will realize from specific energy efficient improvements. Based on your timeframe, look at each energy feature and begin estimating the approximate amount that it will increase your home’s value and what the annual savings will be. Once you have determined this for each improvement, subtract the amount it will improve your home’s value from the total cost of the product and divide adjusted cost by the annual savings to get an estimated return on investment. Once you have done this you will be able to pick out the improvements that will pay themselves back so that you can realize a financial benefit by the time you sell your home. If you chose improvements that pay themselves back in two years and you plan on living in the home five more years, at the point of sale you will have received a 150% return on your investment… and that is a lot better than most investments these days.

Selling Features:
The other aspect that must be considered is how much it will increase the appeal of your home to a potential home buyer. In order for someone to buy your home, they must see benefits that are more attractive than the house down the street. If you can feature new windows, a clean sealed crawlspace, or a warm, draft-free home, these benefits can set your home apart and make it sell. I just received an email from a builder we worked with to install a sealed crawlspace system in one of his new homes. He informed me that it was under contract and included this quote from the buyer. “My husband was very impressed with your home and especially with the crawl space-as was the inspector.” So clearly, energy efficient features can make your home more attractive to buyers. The key is making your realtor aware of the improvements and marketing the benefits.

Working with Appraisers:
If you get your home appraised before selling it, work with the appraiser to inform him of the improvements you have done so that he can account for them in the home’s value. Some appraisers are more aware about energy efficiency, but many don’t even consider it when looking at a home. Let them know the cost of the improvements and the approximate energy savings from them. If they are equipped with this information and can see the benefits, then they are much more likely to accurately account for your investments.

Tags: Energy Efficiency and Home value, ROI of Energy Improvements
Posted in Energy Saving | No Comments »