The Absolute, Unquestionable Truth
About Most Heating & Cooling Systems 8 Years and
Older.
(This is where you will save a
In a typical house with ducts located in the attic or
crawlspace, approximately 20 to 40% of the heating or cooling never makes it to the living
space. (
If your HVAC system (heat, ventilation, air conditioning) is located in your crawlspace or attic, it likely is costing you money (could be lots of money!) through several issues.
Here are Your
Concerns to Consider:
The pipes that carry your conditioned air to and from the air handler are your ducts. This system of curves, elbows, straight-runs, boots, registers, tees & wyes is critical to the comfort of your home. Every splice and juncture is a likely candidate for leaking air. Your central system (in theory) should be a closed-loop attachment to your living space. (Imagine a hamster cage with an exercise tunnel going out from one side of the cage, making an adventuresome loop, and returning to another portion of the same cage.)
In our free home energy assessment, we visually inspect your duct system. In this way we catch about 75% of the potential leakage in your system. Some areas are impossible to reach/see, and only through pressure testing (Our $179 Home Performance Assessment) the house can we discover these leaks.
As we discover gaps, tears, seams pulled apart, miss-aligned boots and collars; we seal them with a thick coating of mastic sealer (designed for this purpose). We then remedy the problem that created the hemorrhage.
Leaking expensive air on the supply side of your system is only heating/cooling your attic or crawlspace. Having a leak in the return side is drawing dusty, (sometimes mold-laden) or super-heated air into your system, only to cause a warmer temperature-drop across the cooling coils (i.e. warmer air in – warmer air out) in the summer or heat loss (colder air in – colder air out) in the winter. Either season, your unit is working harder to overcome the leakage. ($$$)
Attics in metro
Almost with daily frequency, we discover ducts with little or no insulation. A properly cooling A/C coil has temperatures in the 44 to 46 degree range. Blow that expensive 50 degree air through 70 feet of un-insulated pipe and the air temp entering your room could be 75 degrees! I consistently find (summer) start-up readings of 85+ degrees, (measured at the register/vent). Temps entering the room should drop to within a few degrees of coil temperatures, after a minute or two of run-time. If they don’t, there are 3 possible reasons:
· Ducts and sheet metal need to be better insulated to protect against unwanted heat gain.
· Ducts are suspended against super HOT roof deck at higher attic elevations. This environment is worst-case scenario.
· Excessive friction-loss due to U-turns, tight bends, constriction, etc in your ducts. Longer runs (distances) need larger diameter ducts to compensate. Goal: get the conditioned air through the duct as quickly as possible.
Usually, there should be a return vent in every room (except bathrooms, kitchens, rec. & utility rooms generating excessive moisture, or occupied with appliances, etc). Any room where the door is usually closed, needs a return (remember the exceptions). Contractors have formulas that tell them required ratios of return vs. supply vents, and size standards. Too often, a careless (low-bid) contractor will comply by installing one, large “central” return vent. In this case, the HVAC runs longer, laboring to vacuum the stale, trapped air from the far reaches of this lone, return vent. Higher energy bills and hot/cold areas in the house are the result of this issue.
In most cases, we can add return vents where needed. This simple remedy has brought more joy to homeowners than we can mention. Vacuum the uncomfortable and stale air from the room; filter and heat/cool it – and redistribute it somewhere else throughout the house – all within a minute of the HVAC coming on. Finally, your rooms can better reflect the temperature on your thermostat!
Two Minutes + 3
Degrees = BIG BUCKS!!
1. Scenario: Attic or crawlspace mounted system. Poorly or un-insulated, leaky ducts.
Remedy: We seal and wrap ducts.
Your comfort immediately improves: Let’s say we have now dropped your register temps 3 degrees, (summer season) and cut the costly start-up time by 2 minutes. (This example is very safe/attainable/affordable example). You can FEEL a 3 degree, or more, change in air temperature. And instead of taking 4 minutes for your room supply-vent to finally reach these temps, it takes less than two.
2. Consider this: Perhaps your unit cycles on & off forty times/24 hour period. Our improvements shave 2 minutes of “compressor time” (or heating) from each cycle. Look at this formula:
Two minutes x 40 cycles = 80 minutes/day saved on expensive air- conditioning/furnace run-time.
80 Minutes/day x 30 days (your utility billing period) =
2400 minutes or 40 HOURS of
Utility Savings during PEAK Demand with highest prices!
Do the Math. Its BIG Bucks you will now save, each and every month. (And you thought you needed a new A/C or Furnace system…). Your home is now more comfortable, AND less expensive to keep that way.
“Excellent experience! I can’t wait to see our next electric
bill and to compare our A/C running time.
We are actually hoping for more hot weather now…” K.P., Conyers. (The A/C in this lakeside home ran 20
hours out of every 24 hour period!
Their A/C tech said the system was fine, he had done all he could
for them. We found plenty of home
performance improvement – and did the work for less than half the cost of
the new, larger system the A/C tech was trying to sell them!)
When we improve your insulation, you might just double your savings! (And don’t forget to consider the improved marketability of a super-insulated, HIGH PERFORMANCE home and central cooling/heating system.)
Bob Bird
BIRD-Family Insulation
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www.Birdinsulation.com
404-538-9168