Is your crawl space working properly? In our area the crawl space is popular and a popular place for problems. From critters to wet insulation these spaces are almost never right. Here are some posts that might help you get your crawl space in order.
Your crawl space is impacting your home comfort.
Keep the critters out of your crawl space by encapsulating it.
Green term defined: Encapsulated Crawl Space.
Should you vent your crawl space?
It keeps coming back to me time and time again – the best value is found in higher quality solutions and not in low price. It seems to be true in every aspect of life – the best quality solution is almost never the lowest price. I am certainly not advocating for the highest price solution, as there is a balance to everything. Sometimes things cost more simply because they are new inventions, have more features, or because they have a particular brand name. That is not higher quality. Higher quality comes from long-term sustainability, durability, and functionality. Higher quality in the built environment is something that is energy-efficient, healthy, and durable. Higher quality reduces long-term costs and provides better solutions that are durable and comfortable.
The problems that occur with low price and low quality is often not evident on the surface. It might literally be below the floor surface. For instance, a floor vent’s supply run should be sealed to the sub-floor for the best quality solution, much like how a low-cost door handle will not be durable: It will need repeated maintenance and adjustment to allow it to function properly. A low-cost HVAC (heating, ventilation, and cooling system) solution is likely to impact indoor air quality, short cycle, and not keep the humidity at a comfortable level. A low-cost insulation strategy will increase energy usage. A low-cost flooring will not last and will require regular maintenance and probably replacement.The low-cost solution in almost every case increases long-term costs through maintenance and replacement costs.
So how do you determine the best value? It takes careful evaluation of the products used in buildings. An architect does continuous research to evaluate materials and to determine the best value solutions. An architect sets the performance standard for the construction.
When making decisions for your next building project, be sure to ask as many questions about quality of the solution as the price of the solution. The long-term costs (as little as 4-5 years) will almost always be less with the higher quality solution.
Why have an Energy Audit
An energy audit will allow you to better understand where to spend money to get the best return on investment. An energy audit is a test that can determine whether you house is air tight and if not where the holes are in the thermal envelope. For years we have heard, don’t make your house too tight – so tell me, why did you install all the windows, how big of a hole do you want left in your wall. Making a house air tight is not a negative; it will then allow you to control the fresh air intake of your home rather than filtering your makeup air through your attic insulation, your vented crawl space, or through your walls. An energy audit will give you the information to determine if you should replace your HVAC system, windows, and / or appliances. This is a test that every home owner should have in order to better understand their home and how they spend their money.
Did you know: The average new American home has a 28% duct leakage on a well installed and maintained heating and cooling system. That means you are probably wasting 28% of your money on each months electric bills.
Did you know: A vented crawl space or vented attic are not recommended in Virginia as it promotes bad indoor air quality and leads to higher energy bills?
Give us a call to schedule a basic energy audit today or call our friends at Building Knowledge for a complete energy audit assessment of all the systems in your home.
Should you use spray foam insulation on your next project? Common questions answered by Ken Wells from Elite Insulation
A common question we face on each job is which kind of insulation is right for the goals established. I asked Ken Wells to answer some of the common questions we face. Here are his responses:
Any improperly installed insulation has the potential to cause or lead to indoor air quality issues. This is why it’s very important to choose your insulation contractor carefully, just as you would with any other contractor. There are also many other building products and home goods inside your home which have the potential to be the source of indoor air quality issues. Spray Polyurethane foam insulation utilizes diisocyanate, which isn’t scientifically detectable after 1 hour of when the foam ins applied. Installing spray foam requires a professional certification and proper equipment to install it. Properly installed spray foam insulation is an inert plastic and is just as safe as the plastic trash bag in your kitchen trash can.
Fiberglass works by trapping air inside tiny glass fibers that contain small bubbles of air, which slows the transfer of heat. It’s installed by folding, wrapping and cutting pieces to place in stud cavities. Human installation error coupled with the fact that fiberglass doesn’t hold in heat well and loses 40% of insulating capacity when outside temperatures are below 20° F make it an inferior product in comparison. Fiberglass has been laboratory tested to lose 8% of its labeled R-value right out of the bag, and has a 28% loss in R-value as commonly installed. Spray foam is sprayed by a certified spray foam applicator, expanding into all gaps, cracks and cavities and can adapt to any structural design, virtually eliminating human installation error. Most importantly, it’s an air barrier with excellent thermal properties for your home that seals warm and conditioned air in your home year round.
The up front costs for spray foam can be as much as three times the cost of conventional fibrous insulations, depending on your project. The benefits far out-weigh the difference in the up front costs. With spray foam insulation, you will be more comfortable in your home, which for most is their biggest investment. Utility bills are documented to be half as much or more with spray foam, which makes for a quick payback period.
For more questions answered, give them a call:
Elite Insulation (866-841-3034) offers:
Fiberglass Blown Insulation
Cellulose Blown Insulation
Fibergalss Batt Insulation (ask about our R-40 and R-49 Batted Insulation)
Cotton Batt Insulation
Spray Foam Insulation, Through PolyPro Spray Foam
Free, no obligation estimates
I do a lot of energy audits for Harrisonburg Electric Commission, they offer them free to their customers. The problems I find in most houses are very similar and are caused by lack of building science understanding. Air leaks in your thermal envelope are the biggest source of comfort issues and wasted energy for heating and cooling. You can find air leaks in your thermal envelope by looking at fiberglass insulation.
Find places where your pink fiberglass is black and this is an air leak.
This yellow insulation shows air moving through the wall from an unconditioned attic into a conditioned space. Stop the leaks and you will improve comfort and reduce wasted energy. It is easy to fix this kind of leak. You can remove the insulation and spray foam the cavity or you can cover the leak with a solid surface material and caulk the joints. These leaks add up quick and cost you a ton of comfort and money. You may hear from framers that you don’t want a house that is too tight. That is true, but you don’t want random air leaks around your house that add up to the size of a window. Control your air intake through your HVAC system and plug the air leaks in your home.
There was a time I enjoyed snow – that time has passed. To me now, snow is an interruption in my schedule, plowing a driveway, shoveling many hours, and dangerous roads. However, it is also an easy time to identify energy leaks in your home. Snow may help identify places you are wasting money through air leaks and poor insulation.
For instance, in this house we used to own in Timberville had a major insulation problem in the bonus room. That room above the garage was always a few degrees different from the rest of the house. You can see the snow has melted at the roof / wall intersection from heat coming through to the outside. When we did an energy audit on this house we found that the wall did have insulation in it. It was just installed in a way that allowed air movement and in one case a bridge to the outside. This room’s comfort issues and thermal bridge was corrected by Elite Insulation adding a layer of foam to create an air barrier on the outside of the existing fiberglass insulation. The room comfort was considerably improved.
From the front of the house you can see the trusses in the roof over the garage. This indicated more air movement from the conditioned space. This attic space was not accessible so all we could do when we insulated was to fix the back half of the roof cutting down most of the air movement. You can see there is again warmth coming through the wall at the roof intersection above the porch. Not an area that is easily fixed after construction so make sure you get it right during construction. All in we spend $1,500 fixing insulation problems on this house and lowered our annual energy bills by $500.
At our new (old) house there is still much work to be done. See the melted snow in between the windows on the roof – that is air escaping out of the hood vent above the stove. We need to improve our insulation in the attic to fix this problem. Also you can see we have storm windows which traps the warm moist air escaping from the house in between the window and outside creating condensation. We have a LOT of warmth leaking from out windows. However, this is the last thing we will fix as it is the most expensive and has the longest payback period of changes we could make to the house.
With this particular storm the snow drifts are massive. Nothing you can do here other than hope they do not pull gutters down or worse cause a roof collapse. Our roofs here are designed for 43 pounds of snow load psf. We should be ok now that the snow has stopped, but I will remain nervous until it melts.
Finally, watch how the snow melts on your roof. This will tell you, compared to your neighbors with a roof facing the same direction if you are average or above average with your attic insulation. I know our house needs attention since we don’t yet have R-72 insulation in the attic. If you are building a new house this is the time to get these details right, it will cost you less and save you more. If you have an existing house, things can be fixed to work more efficiently, but there is only so much to be done. The best we have done on an existing home is a 65% reduction in energy use. Let me know if you want help identifying the problems that need addressed at your home.