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Is Allstate now promoting Home Performance?
Well, not exactly, but this TV ad nonetheless demonstrates the importance of water heater safety and regularly checking your home's combustion equipment:
Don't let this happen to you. Call The Insulation Man to find out how we can perform a comprehensive Home Assestment and review your Combustible Appliances in an effort to offer solutions to upgrade your Home Performance.
Not only could we help lower your utility bills, we could also save your house!
Easter Bunnies Prefer LEDs
The folks at Cree illustrate how hot incandescent bulbs can get--hot enough to melt a chocolate bunny while his pal under the LED bulb goes unscathed.
This poor Easter Bunny didn't stand a chance, and neither did it's captives Utility Bill!
Visible light is measured in a unit called Lumens. 450 lumens is the light produced by a 40 Watt Incandescent Light Bulb. 450 Lumens can also be produced by a 9-13 Watt CFL (Compact Fluorescent) or a 4-5 Watt LED (Light Emitting Diode). The lower wattage use means less wasted energy, less wasted energy means lower utility bills and happier Easter Bunnies.
Switch to LEDs and/or CFLs and see for yourself how much savings you can enjoy just by switching a simple light bulb.
Before and After Infrared Imaging
Just last week we wrapped up another job in Vestal, NY. With the impressive infrared imaging cameras we possess we are able to not only estimate problems, but also confirm solutions. Take a look at how well we were able to improve this room!
*Please be advised that Blue symbolizes cold whereas white symbolizes hot.*
Don't be afraid to comment and/or ask questions!
Interesting Topic Discussed on Home Energy Pro's Website
Pat Dundon, owner for 22 years and counting, views and comments on blog posts from Home Energy Pro's website. Sometimes he virtually helps others through their problems based on informati0n they provide to him. This is quite the feet because the people he is trying to help are states and/or countries away!
Every once in a while though, he will come across an interesting artical that he wants to share. Today it is a blog post by Anna Jursik from February 4th 2013 titled Advances in Spray Foam. In this post Anna is going over new certifications, chemicals and discussing the effectiveness of not only Spray Foam but also cellulose and fiberglass.
The post is set up in an interview format with Building Science Corporation's Principle Dr. Joe Lstiburek. Dr. Lstiburek is known as one of the leading minds in the Building Science world.
Please take a few moments and read over what he has to say.
Hot Stuffy Rooms
Problem: Stuffy, hot rooms. Most houses tend to have a room or two, often on an upper floor, that won't stay cool even when the air conditioning is cranked.
Solution: Hot rooms can be the result of a number of things, and an assessment by a certified energy auditor is the best way to determine the exact causes. Most of the time, a combination of solar heat gain (from unshaded windows) and the natural effect of heat rising within your house are the culprits. But there may be other, less obvious factors too--an uninsulated hot water pipe in the wall or floor, leaky ducts, poor attic insulation and more. There are many solutions, and an energy efficiency professional will identify which ones will have the greatest impact at the lowest cost.
Why the Insulation Man doesn't just sell Insulation
Have you ever had a day at work when you couldn't get your computer to turn on so you continually hit the power button on the monitor and CPU until you were red in the face. Then instead of calling the IT Technician you decide to take matters into your own hands to try and fix it yourself. But you begin to realize that every step forward takes you two or three steps back? Then when you breakdown and call the IT Technician they come in and don't even look at the CPU, instead they trace the wires from the outlet to the power strip and find that the power strip needs to be turned on. This method of problem solving by addressing the entire system not one issue is known as a holistic approach. In a case where you are having issues within your home, the IT Technician would be replaced with a Home Performance Contractor.
The Cree LED LLF Downlight - The Standard Bearer for Useful LEDs
At EnergyCircle we're repeatedly extolling the virtues of LED lighting. Eons more efficient than anything else on the market, it looks good, and is what everyone will be doing. There is still a lot of uncertainty regarding what's available right now, and rightly so. LEDs are on the cutting edge of lighting technology, and they're being improved every day. Just this week Philips announced that their Master LED Bulb, a good looking fixture available right now in parts
Not Just for Birthdays Anymore: A Chimney Balloon will Keep Your House Warm, Save You Money.
We're always on the lookout for clever, easy ways to make your home more comfortable, less drafty and more energy efficient. A chimney balloon is one of these.
Here's the scoop: a lot of homes have chimneys that are rarely used. Maybe you have a fire in the fireplace once in a while, but typically it's reserved for special occasions. The rest of the time the chimney, which is designed to effectively remove smoke and unsafe gases from your house, keeps removing air from your house, but it's not the unhealthy air that a fire creates -- it's the warm air inside your home that you're paying to heat with your home's central heating system.
Vampire Hunters: Tackling Vampire Energy in the Kitchen.
Upgrade Your Refrigerator, Save Money Twice.
One of the biggest energy guzzlers in your home (besides, most likely, your thermal envelope, which lets expensive conditioned air escape through air leaks and poorly insulated walls) is the refrigerator. Upgrading it, believe it or not, can save you a bundle of money in the long run, as long as you don't simply put your old fridge down in the basement and plug it back in. Now, before you balk at the high upfront cost of replacing your fridge, let us explain why we (admittedly, energy-efficiency/penny-pinching geeks) think it's a good idea:
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