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Home Issues
 Common issues

Here is a small list of common problems that indicate deeper issues are involved.
 

Drafty windows or doors, drafts can be caused by windows or doors that are designed poorly, installed poorly or just past there life cycle. While we would love to replace every window and door in every home we see, we have to admit. Some times a day of air sealing corrects these issues saving thousands !!!
If you would like to know how this works, ask us ! 

Dry throat, room etc, dryness in the winter is caused by excessive infiltration/exfiltration. You produce almost 15 gallons of moisture every day, so your home should be plenty moist. The warm moist air in your home exfiltrates in the upper portions of your home by traveling through thermal bypasses, creating a negative pressure towards the lower parts of your home. Cold air is dense, and therefore has low amounts of moisture in it. When this cold dry air infiltrates into your home and warms up, the air expands and its relative humidity drops even further. Cold dry air, heated can be the driest air on earth.
To correct these issues, we would try to air seal your home and then test it, and hopefully make it tight enough that we would need to provide ventilation to make sure that we don't create possible mold and mildew issues. If this makes you confused, see the light !

Cold Rooms, Rooms that just don't feel comfortable can be caused by many things, one common but lesser know problem is "mean radiant temperature".  To understand this better, forget what your learning about for one second.
Picture yourself with only a light jacket on a 20 F deg day. The sun is bright and strong, there is NO wind and your standing near a wall. As you stand there you close your eyes, you feel the heat from the sun, you even feel heat from the wall behind you. Your warm. You feel warm while the AIR TEMP IS ONLY 20 DEG !!! That's radiation working for you.
Now back to the mean radiant temperature problem. The Air temp in your room says 72 F !
but you feel like your 50 F.  Could it be the cold floor, the cold wall, or the cold glass window ? More then likely, its because of all three cold surfaces. Your body is acting like the sun, radiating heat to these colder surfaces at a rate faster then you can replace it.

Condensation, Water condensation is typicaly caused by a series of problems, poorly performing windows, insulation in walls or ceilings. Excessive indoor moisture could be the result of a gas heating or cooking appliance that needs servicing. Poor Ventilation, will cause excessive moisture as will leaks from the rain, ground water etc.

Cold Floors Flooring, especialy ceramic tile can be especialy troublesome. Ceramic tile glued directly to an uninsulated slab could be cold enough to freeze standing water.
Tile layed on a typical "mud job" might be cold from infiltration allowing cold air to dissipate heat from the ceramic.

Mold or Mildew Excessive and continual exposure to moisture will allow mold and mildew to flourish. Forget having a home with 0 mold spores, unless your home is in a bubble.
The spores will out live you, me and this story waiting for the perfect conditions. If your home has too much (or too little) humidity mold or mildew will grow.

Ventilation

The image below depicts ventilation rates of a typical home built from the turn of the century to up to 5 years ago during the course of a year.

Uncontrolled Ventilation

During the spring or fall, when interior temperatures match the outdoor temperatures, the phenomenon known as stack effect is nullified, basically not creating infiltration or exfiltration. During these weeks, your home has poor amounts of infiltration and can harbor mold, mildew cause allergies and lead to a sick home.  Any CO caused by heating equipment, cooking, gas appliances even electric stoves will linger and can create unsafe conditions.

The two blue lines indicate proper ventilation rates determined by the volume of your home or the number of people in it. Naturally there will be times when your homes infiltration is exactly what it should be, however these days are rare because wind affects your homes infiltration also !

As the temperature outside swings further down from indoor temperature, stack effect becomes more pronounced carrying away valuable heat and moisture. The opposite happens during the summer, your house more then likely cooled down overnight and is comfortable in the morning. However because the cool air is exfiltrating more quickly as the temperature outside rises, your home warms up quickly.

At extremes, your houses air changes per hour rate goes so high, you cant heat or cool it properly causing comfort and efficiency problems.

Controlled Ventilation.

Controlling the ventilation rate of your home with an energy star labeled ventilation fan may cost pennies per month to run using electricity, but can save you up to 40% on your heating/cooling bills. Besides saving money, your home is now a safer and healthier.

© 2007 Residential Energy Conservation