I have inspected hundreds of homes that have clear paths of travel through the insulation to work area.  Then you get to the area where they did the work and the insulation is pushed out of the way or compressed.  Not to mention the hole created to run the cables.  These holes and the displaced insulation is a large energy penalty on the home costing you more monthly to heat and cool your home.  I have seen holes drilled into the ceiling for a single wire as large as two inches.  As stated in my post on attic air sealing, these holes allow the air that you paid to condition to easily escape, costing you money.  Even the compressed or displaced insulation is affecting your utility bills.  As another in the home performance industry, Energy Vanguard wrote about uneven insulation in their blog titled “Flat or Lumpy – How Would You Like Your Insulation?”  Now of course how much it really costs you depends on the amount of holes and actual displaced insulation.  But sometimes it can be severe, actually cause comfort and durability issues.  So what may have been a rather efficient home is now full of holes in the ceiling and insulation increasing your monthly cost to operate the home. 

As a result I would grab a can of foam and a rake to seal these holes and even that insulation out so your home can perform at least as well as it did before the contractors tracked through attic.

1. Open the blinds: Some of the coldest days of the year are the clearest and brightest, so let the sun shine in and help heat your home.  There are homes designed to utilize the sun’s rays as their primary heating source (Passive Solar), so there is no reason your home can’t take advantage of this free heat source.  Just be sure at night to close the blinds to retain the heat in the home and help reduce drafts.

2. Add layers: Not only am I surprised by the number of people that live in complete darkness during the day, but how many want to keep their home warm enough to wear shorts & a t-shirt.  By wearing clothing appropriate to the weather outside can greatly increase your comfort and allow you to reduce the temperature in your home, thus saving you money.

3. Set back your temperature: The rule of thumb is you can save between 1-3% for every degree that you set your thermostat back for an 8 hour period of time while you are at work and sleeping.  The Department Of Energy estimates that you can save up to $180 a year with this simple strategy.  You can make this even easier by installing a programmable thermostat that you can have automatically adjust the temperature in the home and can have it start to heat the home before you wake up in the morning or get home from work so you do not have to contend with the cold temperatures.

4. Maintain your heating equipment: Servicing your heating units and replacing filters regularly can boost efficiency by 3-10% according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).  It is recommended to have oil-fired boilers cleaned and tuned annually, and gas systems, every two years.  Not only will regularly servicing your oil and gas fired heating equipment help improve efficiency, but ensure safety if your heating contractor performs combustion testing, in the hopes they catch high levels of carbon monoxide.

5. Seal those leaks: Excessive air leakage into the home can waste up to 25% of your homes heating and cooling costs.  Installing foam gaskets behind outlet and switch covers on exterior walls is the simplest strategy.  Sealing the gaps around window & door trim is another easy cost effective way to reduce infiltration and reduce drafts.  However sealing those air leaks in the attic is where you will get the most bang for your buck as you will trap the warm air in the home as it rises.

If you are a handy homeowner and looking for other ways around your home to conserve energy and reduce your heating and cooling costs,  follow my blog series Kill’n a Hog….an Energy Hog as my family reduces the energy consumption of our 1960’s home.

A simple explanation of what air sealing is, it is the work performed on the home to reduce the amount of air infiltration into the home by sealing small and sometimes large gaps and crevices.  I utilized the DO–IT–YOURSELF Guide to Sealing & Insulating with ENERGY STAR to perform the air sealing in the attic before installing insulation.  These holes in the home can waste approximately 25% of the typical homes heating and cooling cost and is almost always the most cost effective improvement that can be done to most homes to reduce the utility bills and increase the indoor air quality (IAQ).

Air sealing not only helps reduce your heating and cooling costs, but sometimes more importantly, air sealing helps to improve the indoor air quality and durability of the home.  Tighter homes typically have less dust because not as much gets pulled in through these cracks; they are typically more durable because excessive air and moisture does not enter the walls or attic that could cause mold and rot.

The goal of air sealing your attic is to make the ceiling as air tight as possible to stop any air movement.  Now most home owners don’t think of their attic being full of holes.  However it is full of them, plumbing stack penetrations, wires, can lights and other ceiling fixtures.  If you hold your hand over these holes, you can feel the hot or cold air from inside your home making its way into the attic, costing you money.  Because as this conditioned air leaves your home, unconditioned air is being pulled into your home through other gaps or crevices in your home, typically in the basement (more on sealing the basement in a future post).  When your home has low levels of insulation, it is easy to find these holes.  However if you have good levels of insulation, you can find these holes by looking for discolored insulation, as most insulation types are air filters and the discoloration is a sign of air movement.  So review the air sealing guide, buy a few tubes of caulk and cans of Great Stuff and seal up those holes and start saving.

Here is a video series on the Fine Homebuilding magazine website on air sealing your attic that is worth watching, or check out other attic air sealing videos on YouTube.

Energy modeling in new home design, construction and renovations can be a very effective tool to weigh the cost effectiveness of any design strategy used to improve energy efficiency in a home.  Actually most energy auditors use some form of energy modeling to show their customers what kind of financial payback they could expect when implementing any of the recommended improvements.  So why is this tool not used more within the design industry?  Energy modeling is a standard service I provide with any home design work that I do, as well as a service that I provide to other design and construction professionals.  I offer this because some jurisdictions do require an energy compliance certificate.  Granted most design professionals and builders use REScheck as their preferred method.  However, REScheck will only demonstrate compliance using the trade-off approach and the prescriptive packages approach as described in the energy conservation codes.

More advanced software packages such as REM/Design which I use takes this a step further.  REM/Design and other software packages will not only provide you with a compliance certificate, but it will provide design loads along with estimated energy usage and cost to operate the home.  This can be helpful as a preliminary sizing tool for your heating and cooling systems.  What is also valuable about this feature is it gives you the ability to weigh the cost effectiveness of “upgraded” insulation levels or more efficient systems.  The software will even break up the loads into building components, so you know where most of your energy is being lost in the homes envelope.  For instance a recent project I was consulting on, I was able to determine that the six skylights the homeowner wanted in their passive solar home were more of an energy penalty than an overall gain.  So there was a compromise and the number of skylights was reduced to 3 as a daylighting strategy instead of one for heat gain in the winter time.

In an article posted on the American Institute of Architects website (Sustainable AIA: 2031–Why Energy Models Don’t Predict Actual Energy Use), it discusses the criticisms that energy modeling does not predict the actual energy usage of the building or home.  To some degree that is expected, energy modeling simulates the energy usage of a home to determine design loads based upon your geographical region.  Each software package takes into account occupants; however they cannot take into account occupant behavior which has a huge impact on the performance of any building or home.  Of course each software package has its flaws and performs some calculations better than others.

In the coming weeks, Chris Laumer-Giddens with Energy Vanguard in Georgia who is a licensed architect and HVAC designer will tell us the basic differences in some of the more widely used energy modeling tools.

During my conversations with customers I am always telling them it was an easy transition into the job because I am already knowledgeable of construction techniques and building science.  I just needed training on the equipment and testing procedures.  So for those that are interested in home energy audits, here is a great video on the basics of blower door testing that was produced by the Montana Weatherization Training Center.  Over the past year, they have produced a whole series of videos on their WXtv site, featuring different aspects of the energy auditing and home weatherization industry.

Check out the Montana Weatherization Training Centers WXtv to view more great videos geared towards training the weatherization industry.

A picture and comment posted on twitter reminded me of that.  It sparked a conversation with John Morefield (@Arch5cents) of Architecture 5¢, he is quick to remind us we don’t work for sexy, we work for our clients.  And that is what makes our job difficult.  What is not aesthetically pleasing to our trained eyes may be beautiful to our clients.  After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  With each project we spend lots of time with our clients to personalize their home, and at times it can be hard to not get personally attached to the project because you have made some sort of personal connection with that person, couple, or family.   So we have to remind ourselves that every aspect of our job is about design, we are designing our clients new way of life and it goes way beyond the exterior facade.  We design spaces, solve problems and in general improve our clients way of life by accommodating their needs and wants.

Now I don’t claim to be a strong designer, nor do I have a style.  My style is what the clients’ style or needs are; I solve the problem handed to me.  And sometimes aesthetics takes a back seat to budgets, programming needs and site constraints.  Again, we as designers may not be satisfied by the final solution, but in the end, if the clients life has been improved and they are happy, then it was a successful project.

View more photos of this project on our facebook page.

As I am now performing home energy audits, I am inspecting way too many homes built before the 1960′s with small to large additions or alterations.  Yet the majority of the original structure in not touched.  This is why I am visiting these homes, they have these brand new additions and brand new high efficiency furnaces, yet they are not comfortable.  No surprise when a newly insulated addition is added to the home and the original structure stills sits uninsulated.  But what may be more disturbing is the rare addition built within the past couple of years that are extremely under-insulated at the ceiling.  And what amazes me even more is that home owners are so conditioned into thinking that they are uncomfortable because they have “bad” windows.

In the case of the under-insulated additions that are only a couple years old, I am not sure who is to blame.  Is it the home owner not informed by their designer/architect of the current standards, or is the contractor cutting corners to save on cost.  In either case, why is the building inspector not flagging the low levels of insulation in the new addition?

The discomfort in the original section of the home and increased utility bills can easily be remedied by insulating the existing structures exterior walls and ceiling.  Now I must admit when working for architectural firms, I did not know the history of insulation and when it’s use and levels began.  However when performing field measurements, it’s an easy thing to take note of and at least bring up with the home owner.

Now this is where the change in thinking takes place and going beyond code minimums.  The building code does not require upgrading untouched portions of an existing home to increase energy efficiency.  My question is why wouldn’t we?  If work is already being done to the house, why wouldn’t the investment be made to add wall and ceiling insulation to the original home?  Because it always kills me going into an open attic and see the addition with code minimum levels of insulation that just stops as soon as it reaches the existing structure and drops virtually nothing.  Now come on, how much would it really cost the project to insulate the entire attic.  Especially since the contractor is already up there doing work.  In the overall scope of the project, insulation is a small investment and actually has a return in energy savings and reduced utility bills.  In most cases I see a 5 year or less payback to insulate existing exterior walls and even less time for ceiling/attic insulation.

I understand that most of the time, budget is an issue or the designer may not want to compromise their vision to pay for efficiency upgrades.  In the case of a $100,000 plus addition to a home, $2,000-$4,000 to completely insulate the exterior walls and ceiling of the existing home is a drop in the bucket, especially when it provides comfort to the home owner and will provide a savings in utility bills for the life of the home.

This is where home energy audits and energy modeling plays a role.  Home energy audits should be the first step before any work is done to the home to help identify where efficiency improvements can be made, and also identify any situations that can potentially be hazardous, especially when heating and cooling systems are being altered.  Many home energy auditors can also provide energy modeling relatively inexpensive for residential projects.  Like for commercial building it can help right size systems and show financial payback for improvements made to homes.  Some consultants can even provide system and duct work sizing which can actually provide a cost savings at time of construction because it is not left to the HVAC contractor to do the design work.

So I challenge the design and construction industry to look beyond the scope of work and use your training and the tools available to look at the big picture and how by making changes to an existing home is going to change its overall performance not in terms of energy usage but comfort and durability as well.

Joshua looks at this opportunity to get knee deep and dirty in the building science industry, experiencing firsthand what time and systems can do to a home, as well as see good and bad ways to build a house.  The position will provide Joshua with the latest information and techniques for retrofitting homes to improve energy efficiency.

In the meantime Sym-Home will finish out its current design contracts.  Joshua will continue to blog about his experiences in the field and focus his free time to finish the Architectural Registration Exams (ARE) to become a licensed architect as well as obtain the LEED for Homes credential.  At that point in time Sym-Home will be available on a limited basis for residential design services.

We thank you for your support, and hope you will continue to follow our activity on facebook & twitter.

Overall my family and guests enjoyed our time at the lakeside cottage in upstate New York.  The open floor plan flowed nicely and left plenty of room for the 5 kids to run around and play.  The 4 bedrooms gave both families plenty of room and allowed them to have their own private space.  This will be nice for the owners as their family grows in size and is passed along between generations.  The bunk room was a hit with the kids and the open railing served its purpose to monitor the little ones from sneaking out.  My wife liked how she could lock the first floor bathroom and Master bedroom can act as a Master Suite by opening the pocket door.  During the planning and design I was skeptical of the placement of the laundry in the main entry.  Although spacious, the main entry is very utilitarian and is only used as a transition between spaces and the laundry goes almost un-noticed.  Plus being only a summer home, you tend to overlook the utilitarian nature of the space.

The large South facing windows provide a great view of the lake (a far cry from the original design provided by a drafter that was originally hired).  And with the clerestory windows, plenty of daylight was available in all areas of the home.  This also took advantage of the prevailing winds and is a very effective way to naturally ventilate the home.  At times it felt as if we were sitting on the screened in porch.

Overall the experience staying in the home was good and it was a fun project to work on.  Therefore  looking back, I really wouldn’t change anything that I did.  As a designer, our job is to solve problems and create places.  We were given the task to add two bedrooms and an additional bath to and existing cottage, and I think we came up with the best solution possible.  However the only complaint from the owner is they wish they had more storage space in form of cabinets and a larger deck that will soon be rectified.

Sym-Home is now providing residential design services, home energy audits and consulting.  Sym-Home specializes in energy efficient, healthy & durable homes.  Joshua Lloyd, owner of sym-home, draws from a decade’s worth of experience in the architectural field. In addition, his experience includes producing construction documents and coordinating LEED documentation for Ohio’s first LEED Platinum Home, located in Columbus, Ohio.

Sym-Home also provides home energy audits, helping home owners to take control of their homes energy usage by providing them the appropriate information after a thorough inspection and test on the home to see where the most energy is used and prioritize a list of recommended projects in terms of financial payback.  Joshua Lloyd, is a certified Building Analyst through the Building Performance Institute (BPI) to conduct home energy audits.

Sym-Home also provides consulting services to homeowners, builders and other design professionals.  Sym-Home can assist project teams with issues related to high performance structures, from building science issues, schematic level energy modeling for both commercial and residential structures, and LEED documentation and coordination.

Sym-Home considers residential design and home energy audits as a complimentary service to each other, especially for home owners looking to renovate or add on to an existing home.  Home energy auditing tools can be a valuable resource during the design and construction phases of a new home and renovation.

For those of you who have been following the renovation process, we will be re-posting all the projects with more images and information regarding each project in a series called “To Kill an Energy Hog”

About the Building Performance Institute
The Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) is the nation’s premier building performance credentialing, quality assurance, and national standards setting organization. BPI supports the development of a highly professional building performance industry through individual and organizational credentialing and a rigorous quality assurance program.

About Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED)
LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.