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Home Energy Evaluations by PipeWorks

In this video, Paul Giglio, owner of PipeWorks services shows us how a comprehensive home energy evaluation can help uncover and solve common home comfort and energy waste problems. Using a blower door test to depressurize the building, the technicians at PipeWorks are able to determine the amount of air leaking in and out of the house, and the main sources of air leakage. This kind of evaluation will help the technician design a home energy retrofitting plan that will prioritize the areas that provide the best return per dollar invested, in terms of energy savings and improved comfort.

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There are 88 million homes in the U.S. and Canada alone that burn twice as much fuel for heating and electricity for cooling than they need to. This is because they are insufficiently insulated and poorly air sealed. They also have energy-wasting building assemblies, such as ducts in the attic, cathedral ceilings, cantilevered floors, rooms over garages, vented crawls spaces, leaky can lights, knee wall assemblies and much more. As air leaks in and out of a home uncontrolled, your heating and air conditioning systems have to work more, and often you experience uncomfortable temperatures throughout the house, with rooms that are too hot in the summer, or too cold and drafty in the winter. All these problems can be fixed but most homeowners don't get them fixed for one simple reason: they are afraid it will cost too much. In this video, Larry Janesky - building scientist, entrepreneur and author of four books on building science and performance subjects - will demonstrate how stopping energy waste to make your home more comfortable not only makes sense but it is actually one of the best investments you can make for your home, life and the planet. A typical project to make your home more comfortable and energy efficient may cost an average of $7,500. The work may include air sealing, insulation, sealing and insulating air ducts, fixing dirt crawl spaces, or any number of other problems in a home. When you make a home more comfortable by controlling heat flow out of the house in the winter, and into the house in the summer, you are reducing the cost of home ownership by reducing electric and fuel bills. The repair costs and the savings will vary based on each home's size, features, and on the job work that was done, but by cutting heating and cooling expenses by 35%, the average 2,200 sq. ft. home can save up to $1,300 per year. Savings are even more significant in northern states and in bigger homes. That means that after 6 years, the average homeowner would have saved the full amount he paid to get the home fixed, while enjoying a more comfortable home, and will continue to save $1,300 every year after the initial investment is paid off. On the other hand, if the problems aren't fixed, homeowners will continue to pay $1,300 more for fuel and electricity, year after year, until they have the problems fixed all while living in an uncomfortable home.If your home is fixed, over the course of the 6 years it takes for you to get the money back, you will also save 400,000 cubic feet of natural gas and prevent 26 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. To save that much fuel and keep that much carbon dioxide from being released into the environment by, for example, installing solar panels -- you will need to spend an average of $26,000, or nearly four times as much. If we fix 50 homes in your neighborhood, over 25 years, each homeowner will save $40,000 and collectively they would burn 100 million less cubic feet of natural gas; or 25,000 gallons of oil per year -- that's 625,000 gallons in 25 years. Over 25 years 7,200 tons of carbon dioxide will be kept from being released into the atmosphere. If every home in the U.S. and Canada was fixed, we would save 121 billion dollars in fuel costs.Everyone would like to save money while having a more comfortable home, and if given the chance, help save natural resources and help the environment. Home energy efficiency improvements are a one-time deal that will help you accomplish all that. This is why energy efficiency and home comfort truly are
Home Comfort Pays for Itself | Ideas Worth Sharing
If you think energy waste is something you only find in older homes, and that new homes are all built with energy efficiency in mind, you are seriously mistaken. A lot of new homes are built with no regard to energy efficiency whatsoever. Sometimes it is because building codes are not updated to meet new energy efficiency standards. Sometimes it is because the builder is unaware of current best green building practices, and sometimes it is simply because they are trying to cut costs in a tough economy and spend more on visible features like energy efficient windows, and green roofing, while forgetting proper insulation and air sealing. Larry Janesky, owner of Dr. Energy Saver, walks us through a new construction project showing the various details that are normally overlooked by builders. Such oversights can result in wasteful and very uncomfortable homes, very expensive heating and cooling costs, and high energy bills. Improper attic insulation, that doesn't meet the U.S. Department of Energy recommended R-Value for the regions is among the most common issues in new construction. Improperly insulated ducts running through unconditioned attics are other sources of energy waste. Some architectural features such as cantilevers, bay windows, and custom windows with round frames, pose additional challenges when it comes to insulation. In particular, they create odd spaces that are hard to fill with popular insulation choices. Fiberglass bats, for example, is the material of choice in most new construction projects, because it is the least expensive, yet it only works when evenly distributed and fluffed inside wall cavities. Compressed fiberglass loses R-Value. These odd spaces around architectural features are often neglected or poorly insulated, creating gaps and cold spots in the building envelope. Common sources of air leakage are often overlooked as well. Holes around pipes, fixtures, ducts and duct chases, allow unconditioned air to move through and leak in and out of the house if not properly sealed. If you have concerns about your new or old house energy consumption, and want to make your home more comfortable and affordable to own, call your energy conservation experts at Dr. Energy Saver!
How New Homes Waste Energy
  Welcome to episode #64 of “On the Job.” In this video, Larry Janesky, owner and founder of Dr. Energy Saver takes us to a home in Connecticut, where Dr. Energy Saver was called in right after the house was audited and sealed through a state sponsored energy conservation program. The purpose of this video is to show the differences between the work performed by these state-hired contractors and the work executed by Dr. Energy Saver technicians. Many states offer similar energy conservation programs, where contractors are hired by the state to perform home energy audits and improve energy efficiency through air sealing and insulation procedures at little to no cost to the homeowner. The contractors will usually spend a few hours in the house, measure air leakage by performing a blower door test, air seal the most accessible leakages, and issue a report.  The state will pay them based on the reported rate of air leakage reduction. In most cases, no further test is ever performed, so it is quite common to find reports with overestimated reduction rates, as this particular case shows. When Dr. Energy Saver performed the blower door test, they found a much higher air leakage rate than the report stated. In this episode of “On the Job,” Larry walks us through all the important and significant details that were overlooked by the program contractor, including things like bathroom and drier vents venting straight into the attic – where they not only create an energy problem but also a mold and moisture problem. Other grossly overlooked details included poorly sealed and insulated ducts running through the attic, no air sealing around can lights, insufficient attic insulation, and many architectural features that demanded special attention in terms of air sealing and insulation. While this specific attic was especially challenging due to the way it was built, the vast majority of homes have similar details that tend to be overlooked in state-sponsored programs because a thorough energy efficient retrofit can never be performed in a few hours. It usually takes days of hard work and attention to detail. When homeowners call for an energy audit, they are usually trying to make their homes more comfortable, save money on utilities, or both. Unfortunately, in many cases, the state-sponsored work accomplishes neither because it is just not thorough enough. You are not paying for the audit or the work, but you will still be overpaying for heating and cooling, because the energy problem isn’t fixed.  By having a Dr. Energy Saver technician perform a thorough home energy audit and a complete home energy efficiency retrofit, you will be making a one-time investment on effective solutions that will pay for itself in energy savings alone in about 6 years, and after that you will still have extra money in your pocket for as long as your house stands – all while living in a comfortable, healthy and energy efficient home!
The Difference Between State Energy Programs and Dr. Energy Saver
What makes Dr. Energy Saver companies different from any other energy conservation company? Each dealer is managed by people who are passionate about energy efficiency and green remodeling. They practice a unique whole-house approach to assess each home as an individual system-- making for the perfect and custom solution.When you invite Dr. Energy Saver specialists into your home, they will do much more than just take measurements and crunch numbers. They will evaluate all of your home's features, your family's needs, and your budget, to come up with a solution that will give you the best savings and results per dollar invested. They will then perform all the necessary improvements.Dr. Energy Saver is more than just a home energy audit company or a energy saving service provider. It is the result of many years of experience and hard work in the home improvement industry, and a deep understanding of building science and home energy consumption. All of the Dr. Energy Saver dealers and technicians are trained, certified and consistently updated in the National Energy Conservation Center, in Seymour, CT. This houses a state-of the-art technical and testing facility with 40,000 sq. ft. of hands-on-educational displays. The facility is the first of its kind and, to date, the largest in the U.S. Would you like a greener, more comfortable and affordable home? Call Dr. Energy Saver today, and experience the difference!
Saving Energy at Home | Home Energy Audits and Conservation Experts | Dr. Energy Saver
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