This bill represents bi-partisan support of the Home Performance Industry by Representatives Welch and McKinley. Their leadership in a bi-partisan energy policy is desperately needed in the current congress. Thousands of home owners will be more comfortable and save money if this bill is adopted. The reduced impact on the environment will also be significant. This is a win, win, win for contractors, homeowners, and the environment.

We have been seeing an alarmingly high number of customers in Atlanta, who have spent thousands of dollars (most over 4 thousand dollars) for a radiant barrier. This type of transaction is a borderline scam in my opinion. How do you identify these companies? They normally sell one thing – radiant barriers. So, their solution to whatever ails your house is a radiant barrier. After all, it is all they sell. I agree with Curt Kinder “Beware energy and building advice from “one-trick ponies” AKA vendors of one particular product or service. That’s like seeking retirement investment advice from a whole life insurance policy salesman…the answer is predetermined.”

According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory:
“Radiant barriers and interior radiation control coatings are designed to work in your attic to keep some of the heat from the sun away from your living space. For homes with air-conditioning ductwork in the attic in the deep south (such as in Miami in Zone 1 or Austin in Zone 2), radiant barriers could reduce your utility bills by as much as $150 per year using average residential electricity prices. If you’re able to participate in one of the Time of Day rate plans, your savings can be even greater (almost $200 per year under the current Miami Time of Day rate plan).  For milder climates, like those in Atlanta and Baltimore, annual energy savings will be about half those of their southern neighbors. In the northern climate zones, the savings drops further, going from about $40 to $10 per year as you go from Chicago to Fairbanks.

If there are no ducts or air handlers in the attic, the savings are much less, going from about $20 per year in Miami to $5 per year in Baltimore, but a radiant barrier may still help to improve comfort and to reduce the peak air-conditioning load.”

Have you already accomplished every energy savings measure possible in the “Low Hanging Fruit” category? Have you also accomplished all the intermediate energy saving measures. If the answer is no, you do not want a radiant barrier. In the best case scenario, you will get about 12% savings on your cooling costs. Notice that I said best case. Almost no one will get this much savings. The more energy savings measures that you have accomplished in your attic, the less savings you will get from a radiant barrier.

The the heat gain through your ceiling is only about 20% of your cooling load. A radiant barrier can reduce the heat gain through your ceiling by about 40% in the best case. So your real savings is about 40% of 20% or about 8-12% of your cooling load. Note that I said cooling load. A radiant barrier has almost no effect during winter. The more blown in insulation that is in your attic, the less effective a radiant barrier is. See my more detailed information on radiant barriers here.

It is not that the science behind radiant barrier doesn’t work. It is simply almost crazy to pay thousands of dollars for an energy savings measure that only gives a small savings during part of the year.

However, there are some circumstances where if you have extra money, you may want to install a radiant barrier. If you do the installation labor yourself and you have already accomplished most other energy savings measures recommended for your home, and your HVAC ducts are in the attic, this could be a reasonable circumstance. If you want a professional installation of a radiant barrier in the Atlanta Metro, you can contact us using the I Want A Radiant Barrier page.

Where do they come up with 40%? Well, a radiant barrier can reduce the heat gain through your ceiling by 40%. However, the heat gain through your ceiling is only about 20% of your cooling load. So your real savings is about 40% of 20% or about 8-12% of your cooling load.

While you will not get a 20-50% reduction, you can get an 8-12% reduction. As with any modifications made to your home, you should view your home as a system. Changes made for one purpose can have more than the proposed affect on your home. This is the case with radiant barriers. First, this is not the most cost effective modification you can make to your home unless you have already accomplished other energy saving measures. In the vast majority of houses built before 2009, air sealing your attic and adding additional insulation followed by doing the same to your crawl space (see crawlspace insulation) will give you the most cost effective improvements. To know where to spend your money and get the most bang for your buck, get a comprehensive energy assessment. Second, adding a radiant barrier without air sealing the attic floor has a probability of causing condensation on the radiant barrier. In the winter, moist air from the living areas of your home can infiltrate into the attic and condense on the cold surface of the radiant barrier. This moisture can drip into the blown insulation on the attic floor and onto the ceiling joists causing mildew, mold, and rot.

Installation of radiant barriers has a relatively low cost, but varies based on attic configuration. So, if you live in the southeast, have already accomplished the more cost effective energy savings improvements, and your HVAC ducts are in the attic, maybe you want a radiant barrier. If you want to install a radiant barrier, you can contact us using the I Want A Radiant Barrier page.

Lets talk about the crawl space vents, vapor barrier, and batt insulation one by one.

• Crawl Space Vents – The supposed purpose of crawl space vents is to ventilate the crawl space and reduce the build up of humidity and moisture. Unfortunately, no one told the Channel 2 weatherperson to keep the humidity low and day after day in Atlanta, you can get 80% humidity. Since you have created the neat holes for your crawl space, the high humidity air is invited inside. When humidity approaches 70% give or take, you have a food source (wood), you have mold spores (they are everywhere), mold can start to grow. Crawl space vents in humid areas of the country increase the likelihood of mold and mildew.
• Vapor Barrier – You most likely don’t have a vapor barrier in the form of 6 mil or thicker plastic covering the ground in your crawl space. The ground contains moisture year round and it is continually releasing moisture into the air. The moisture from the ground adds moisture to the high humidity air from outside and you get even higher humidity in your crawl space.
• Batt Insulation – Batt insulation works well when it is installed properly, fitting into a cavity tightly, incapsulated on six sides and it is not wet. The first thing we notice is that the bottom side of the insulation is not covered. This is following by noticing that because of the wiring and pipes, the insulation is far from fitting tightly into the cavity. Next, because of gravity aided by high humidity and moisture, the batts will start a sagging process and then fall to ground. Of course, when the insulation falls to the ground,  you notice there are holes in your floor for wiring and plumbing. These holes allow the nasty air from your crawl space to infiltrate your home bringing with it high humidity and bad air. In addition, this is additional air that you will have to heat or cool.

This is great. Now that you know at least three crawl space problems, you can resolve them and you’re done. Not so fast. As I have said before, the house is a system and it has never been more true than with a crawl space. Without understanding how the house systems functions, you could cause major problems by just correcting these three problems. Next, I will discuss the proper way to close a crawl space.

The Home Owner Managing Energy Savings (HOMES) Act was just announced. It should be introduced into the House soon authored by Rep McKinley and Rep Welch.

The HOMES Act is supposed to reward homeowners for reduced energy consumption as a result of a qualified home energy efficiency retrofit. It is bi-partisan rebate legislation that will propose offering homeowners up to a $8000 rebate for a 50% reduction in home energy use.

Residential construction has been hard hit in recent years. This legislation can help in multiple ways. It will produce good paying jobs for American workers, reduce the energy usage for retrofitted homes, and reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign oil.

I will post more information after it is introduced into the House of Representatives.

We didn’t have any fans inside the house, but I remember that we eventually got an attic fan and mounted it in one of gables.

It was my job to cut the wood for the fireplace after school.  I think I was 11 or 12 at the time.  It took an unbelievable amount of wood to keep the fireplace going on a cold day.  Granted, Florida did not have a huge number of cold days, but it usually took me a couple hours to cut enough wood for the next day.

After a couple of years, we were able improve the efficiency of our heating and acquired a pot-bellied stove.  This dramatically reduced the amount of wood that I had to chop.  And, of course only one room of the house was warm.

With the improvements in building science today, it is possible to improve tremendously on efficiency.

You can start with a right-sized house that fits the family that lives there.  It is hard to imagine the average family needing over 2500 square feet.  You can air seal the outside walls, floors, and ceiling or roof.  Add insulation, a high efficiency heat and  cooling source, and you would have a comfortable house.

So why is the house I just described so hard to find.  Well, most people just don’t quite get around to being interested in energy efficiency.

But, my thinking is, if they had to chop firewood each day, it would peak their interest.  Maybe, requiring everyone to chop firewood is a little impractical.  However, because of the convoluted operations of our government, energy ends up being subsidized.  This makes it more difficult to notice when we squander it.

Conserving oil, coal, and gas is important because there is only a finite amount of it.  Also important, is the damage to people and to our planet from the consumption of it.

Maybe, we should stop the subsidies.  Maybe, we should tax it because of the damage it causes.  Maybe, it should be more like chopping wood.  What do you think?

This is a large target that we understand pretty well and have the technology and expertise to drastically improve. We all know oil is a finite resource. Whether it is 5 years or 500 years, oil will run out. We can also probably agree that the pollution produced by our utilization of energy affects our health and we would be better off without it. There is also data that points to larger, earth altering problems that could be associated with our using of energy and with greenhouse gases. Whether this is a 10% probability or a 90% probability, I would like to see the amount of greenhouse gases reduced.

Technology is beginning to make inroads on this issue, but it is in its infancy. At present time, it cannot turn back the clock. However, every day it gets better. If we are going to attack this problem, we need time.

I agree with Ed Voytovich that “Building performance helps to buy time for science and technology to develop sustainable and viable alternatives to dwindling and climate-affecting fossil fuels, to better manage fresh-water resources, to minimize environmental devastation, and to slow down and eventually reverse harmful changes in the oceans and atmosphere.” That is what improving the energy performance of your home will buy us – time. Right now, we know how to improve the energy efficiency of our homes and we know how to better manage our limited water resources. We have the technology and building science to drastically reduce our use of fresh water and energy in our homes.

If each person in the United States improved the energy and water efficiency of their home according to their financial resources, this would produce tremendous change. With our current knowledge of building science, we can easily cut energy use in existing homes by 20%-40%. The EPA says that for the typical household, by just replacing existing faucets, showerheads, and toilets with WaterSense products, the household should save about 4400 hundred gallons of water per year minimum, even if the fixtures are new. This is roughly equivalent to 110 loads of laundry. At the same time, this household should save 400 kWh of electricity or 2000 cubic feet of natural gas.

This is why the energy performance of your home matters. The most informed way to start down the path of improving the energy efficiency of your home is to get a home energy assessment. However, there are many small steps you can take. You can develop a list by searching for “energy savings” on the web.

The first house that I remember when I was six, had three rooms.  My bedroom was a section of the main room.  The house sat in the edge of an orange grove with a huge field, usually filled with flowers, out front.  I can’t remember it having any kind of heat. Of course, it was in Florida.

I will have to admit though, that the functions of a house has changed in the intervening years.  Our house at that time was meant for cooking and sleeping.  It was not for entertaining.  No televsion, radio, or magazines would be found there.  There was no home office or computer area.  I did not play in the house.

Because of the myriad of changes in the world since that time, the needs of a homeowner have necessarily been altered.  A vast amount of entertainment occurs in the home since the advent of television and the electronics explosion following it.  Many people work at home and have a home office.  Also as people spend more and more time indoors, they would like to bring the outdoors, inside.  House have more windows, decks, patios, pools, and combination indoor/outdoor entertaining areas.

Since I was six, houses grew to be huge and now appear to be shrinking again.  The National Association of Home Buiders says that the average house size is about 2400 square feet.  That is still over twice the size of when I was boy.

With peak oil looming in our vision, house size is extremely important.  The smaller the home, the less material to build, and less energy to heat and cool.  Did we really need to increase house sizes approximately 240% since the 1950′s.

We certainly have more entertainment gadgets now than ever and it is “necessary” to have several in every room.  Is it really optimum for family and group dynamics that every individual spend the majority of their indoor time alone in their “own” room?

It seems to me that smaller houses are healthier for the planet as well as healthier for the family.  I think it is time to examine our ideal home.  Do we really need a specialized room for each function?  Will not a desk in a corner suffice very nicely for those who do not truly use an office for several hours a day?  Do we really need media rooms or wouldn’t a television and other electronic gadgets in a family room perhaps cultivate more “family”.

Does anyone use a formal living room any more?  And what about dens?  So a smaller house might have some of the following features.

• multi-use rooms
• smaller bedrooms
• a connection between inside and outside
• density of storage

For years, standard building practice in Atlanta was to insulate under the floors over a ventilated, unconditioned crawl space. A better approach is to create an enclosed, conditioned  crawl space by sealing and insulating the foundation walls rather than the sub-floor.

The benefits of a conditioned or an enclosed crawl space are:

• A clean dry crawl space
• Significantly reduced humidity
• Warmer floors in the winter
• Lower heating bills
• Cleaner air inside the home
• Fewer insects
• Duct work and water pipes are within the conditioned area of the house so they become more energy efficient and are protected against freezing.
• Overall, a more comfortable home.

A sealed crawl space is protected from moisture by using a vapor barrier on the floor and walls. There are other components to consider like; the quality of the vapor barrier, how to close the foundation vents permanently, crawl space insulation, sealing the vapor barrier to the foundation walls, conditioning the crawl space and crawl space moisture control.

Moisture Control

We know moisture is a major problem with crawl spaces. We also know the foundation vents, the dirt floor, the foundation walls and the cracks around the rim joist are sources of negative crawl space conditions.   The open foundation vents are the number one reason for energy loss in the crawl space.

The first step is to permanently close the foundation vents.  Once the vents are closed it is time to address the open earth and the foundation walls.  To eliminate these areas from causing problems again, we install a 12 mil polyethylene vapor barrier.   We prefer the 12 mil vapor barrier because of it durability. It is important to use a polyethylene barrier that is made from virgin resins. This will insure a long life for your investment. Most low cost polyethylene barriers are made from recycled plastic. While recycling is great for most products, it is not the best choice for this application because over time it breaks down and becomes brittle. The open seams, cracks or splits in the vapor barrier will render even the highest quality barrier ineffective.

Now that the crawl space environment can be controlled the next step is to dry it out.  One option is to install a Honeywell DR65  dehumidifier.  This is will dry the home’s structure and works extremely well in a high humidity location like Georgia.  First, even before price is considered, the dehumidifier has to be sized right for the area. This means, once the humidity levels are under control, the dehumidifier should spend more time off than on. Most often a dehumidifier is viewed as working great because it runs all day everyday. The fact is it’s not working at all. If the dehumidifier is running all the time it can not get the humidity levels down to the setting on the control panel. What you have is a dehumidifier that is only helping to remove some moisture at the expense of your electric bill. A dehumidifier that uses 6 amps of electricity (about 700 watts) and runs 24 hours a day seven days a week will cost between $65- $80 a month in electricity. When the dehumidifier is sized properly it will sit quiet and only come on when the levels rise above the control panel settings. It will quickly reduce the moisture in the air and shut back down. A cheap dehumidifier can cost you more in electricty in than the entire cost of a quality unit.

Not all crawl spaces need a dehumidifier. It is our opinion that the best solution is to condition the crawl space with the air from the home.  This is usually the most economical solution as well.  With proper air exchange (which makes the air cleaner), the home is more efficient and it is more comfortable. Keep in mind you now have a clean and dry crawl space.

Conditioned Air

There are a few components to accomplishing a conditioned crawl space successfully; conditioned air circulation and proper insulation.

The benefits of conditioned air in the crawl space are:

• Clean dry crawl space
• Warm floors
• Lower heating bills
• Cleaner air inside the home
• Overall, a more comfortable home.

Air from the home, usually supplied by the HVAC system, is delivered to the crawl space as if it were any other part of the home. A return vent is also installed to keep the crawl space from being pressurized. When heated air is delivered in the winter months, the object is not to heat the crawl space but to deliver heat to the home one level lower. The advantage is the heat in the crawl space stays in the home. Heat naturally rises so it will pass through the floor and enter the living area. When the warm air rises it will leave the floor warm and comfortable. This alone will make the investment worth it. The heat continues to rise to the ceiling and on its way it warms the living space occupied by your family. When the heat comes out of the registers on the main level it immediately heads to the ceiling without restriction. With heat passing through the floor the home has a longer heat retention cycle. In other words, this reduces the amount of heating cycles, the furnace runs less and the heat bills are lower.

During the summer months the efficiency works the complete opposite. In the summer the air return is the key vehicle for the efficiency and the supply supports the circulation of cool air to be exchanged.  In the summer, the ground in the crawl space stays about 55-60°F at about 48” (this is a medium guide and may very depending on location). With an air return in the crawl space, the home can utilize this free cool air. Now when the air conditioner (A/C) comes on it circulates the air from the home, mixes it with the cool air in the crawl space and then redelivers the dehumidified air. This causes the A/C to work shorter cycles and run less often saving you money. You will gain the energy efficiency and the furnace will control the humidity in the winter because it will cook the moisture out of the air and in the summer the A/C will step up and dehumidify the crawl space air.

Properly Insulating the Crawl Space

Properly insulating the crawl space is very important to the energy efficiency of a conditioned crawl space. Insulation in the floor joists cavity is no longer needed if the crawl space is conditioned. In a condition crawl space the insulation is needed around the perimeter of the foundation walls. We install Owens Corning rigid foam board and leave a termite inspection gap below the sill plate.  The rim (band) joist is a critical area of heat loss because there is only 1 ½ inches of wood between the inside and the outside. This is also an area with small openings or cracks in the wood. We use spray foam to air seal and insulate the band joist.

Close the door!  You’re letting all the air out!  Remember hearing that as a kid or saying it to your own?  No matter how well your home is constructed or how new, your home is vulnerable to gaps, cracks, joints and seams where air can squeeze through.  When you add them all up, it’s like leaving a door or window open year round!  Your home is losing energy and it is costing you money and comfort.

You see it in your utility bills and feel the drafts in the winter and the humidity in the summer.  Air infiltration can account for 30% or more of a home’s heating and cooling costs and can contribute to problems with moisture, noise, dust and the entry of pollutants, insects and rodents. Reducing infiltration can significantly cut annual heating and cooling costs, improve building durability, and create a better indoor environment.

Blow and Go!

While some insulation companies will gladly add insulation, they may not have the training and/or the expertise to identify air leaks in your attic or basement.  As the industry refers to it, they perform a ‘blow and go’.  Arbor Insulation has the knowledge, experience and resources to solve your comfort and energy loss issues.  There are several ways to reduce the air infiltration but they all have some issues; too costly, too hazardous or just can’t do the job correctly.  One effective solution currently on the market is the Owens Corning™ EnergyComplete™ system.  The Energy Complete system and proven Owens Corning  insulation combine to seal the gaps in your home’s attic and walls, making it an oasis of peace and quiet.

For more information, call us at 404 728 0001

Check Our Credentials!

Arbor Insulation is one of the only air sealing and insulation companies in Atlanta with a Building Performance Institute Certification (www.bpi.org) as both a Building Analyst and Building Envelope Professional.

We are also very proud to have been selected, trained and approved to become one of the only Authorized Honeywell Weatherization Companies in Atlanta.