energycostreduction

PRACTICAL ENERGY COST REDUCTION FOR THE HOME How To Reduce Your Total Energy Costs 50% Without Touching Your Thermostat

Plus A One Time Maintenance Item That Will Save You $500

By Paul S. Hayden www.energycostreduction.com

Practical Energy Cost Reduction for the Home was produced by and is the intellectual property of Home Designs and Innovations, President/Owner Paul S. Hayden.

Copyright 2003, Paul S. Hayden

Disclaimer While the information contained herein is believed to be accurate, it will be understood that neither the author nor the publisher will have any responsibility or liability resulting from the reader’s use thereof. The reader will be responsible for his or her decisions to use or not use any portion of the information, and shall see that such decisions take into account his or her skill levels, the complexity of the task at hand, the appropriate tools and materials, the manufacturer’s instructions applicable to the tools and materials, appropriate safety equipment, the conditions at the site, the proximity of others, and common sense. By making or acting on such decisions, the reader accepts the foregoing. No part of this publication may be copied or duplicated without prior written permission of the author. This work is meant to be for your personal use only.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction

1

Some Cautions and Safety Suggestions

3

Simple Thermodynamics and Terms

4

Square Feet per Ton of Air Conditioning Capacity

6

Do You Know Your Own Home?

7

Insulation Load Ratio (ILR)

9

Preliminary Measurements

10

Air Handler Components Diagram

12

The Utility Room

13

Central Forced Air System

15

The Case For Adding a Low Return Air Duct

21

The Outdoor Unit

24

Reducing the Attic Impact

27

Attic Access

33

The Water Heater

36

Reducing Air Leaks and Humidity

38

Shade

40

Dust Reduction

42

Miscellaneous Cost Savers

43

A Problem With Gas Furnace Design

45

Energy Improvements That Also Have Health Considerations

47

When Replacements Are Necessary

48

Preserving Your Home

50

Emergency Generator in an Efficient Home

52

The Anti-Bio-Terrorist House

53

Conclusion and Operation of Your More Efficient House

56

Typical Improvement Materials and Sourcing

58

INTRODUCTION The purpose of this book is to teach homeowners how to significantly reduce the energy costs needed to operate their houses comfortably. The book will reveal the many do-it-yourself projects and procedures that handy homeowners can perform that will not only lower their utility bills, but will also increase their comfort and provide a healthier more dust free environment. At no time will I suggest that you alter the thermostat settings to achieve cost savings. That goes against human nature. You may keep the house the temperature you desire and still drastically reduce costs if you put the projects into action that are described. You will find that the costs of the projects to be quite minimal considering that the savings will continue into the future, and will be even more cost effective as utility rates increase. The projects are aimed at existing homes. However, new home construction would do well to incorporate these ideas as well as many more that I can describe. All of the projects have been accomplished in a variety of houses, in various climates, and from new houses to some many decades old. In my travels and examinations of houses, I have found that, unfortunately, the cost of the house does not appear to play much of a role in energy efficiency design, comfort or quality construction. Million dollar homes often do not incorporate the principles of superior energy wisdom. This may be because the owners find multi-hundred dollar utility bills to be insignificant to their spending ability. Others simply do not know good house construction and rely on their builder to provide an efficient package. A final purpose of this book is to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. A concerted effort of all home owners, both rich or not so well off, to make the energy improvements will help reduce brown-outs and lessen our need for off -shore oil.

You Too Can Save 50% You may wonder what kind of savings can be accomplished by completing the projects in this book. I cannot totally answer this question, as all houses are different, life styles vary, and the number of corrections implemented will vary as well. I can cite two good examples of what has been accomplished. My son’s house in Dallas is three years old, and he has reduced his annual utility cost (natural gas and electricity) by about 50%. In addition, his home is more evenly cooled, he has cleaner air and he can keep the house cooler in the summer than before the modifications. My home in Richmond, Virginia (a hot and high humidity summer season and a substantial heating season) has likewise seen a cost savings of about 50%. We purchased the house in 1976, so all the improvements have been retrofitted as outlined in this book. My typical clients have been able to reduce their home energy costs by at least 30%, and all appreciate the cleaner air and more comfortable temperature control. I will be using the air conditioning season to discuss the reasoning behind many of the recommendations, but bear in mind that the cooling season improvements will be just as applicable to the heating season in most instances. Also please note that geographic location is not a very significant factor in targeting the improvements. As an example, the recommended attic insulation R-value for Minnesota is the same as for Texas, but for opposite reasons. In Minnesota, the insulation is needed to keep heat in the house; in Texas, the insulation is needed to keep heat out of the house, and regardless of locale, less dust, pollen and mold are desired.

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The majority of the text describes the why, where and how to make improvements in the home. Included is a section titled INSULATION LOAD RATIO. Simply stated, it will reveal and compare the load each insulation application faces in today’s homes. You will find it quite revealing in the context of how our houses are grossly under-insulated where the demand is the greatest.

This is a working book. A preliminary measurement page is provided so that you will understand the challenges and progress of the modifications. Use the pages to make notes, record dimensions or a list of supplies. Pictures and diagrams are provided to illustrate key points and aid your understanding of the text. I encourage you to find a friend or neighbor, and tackle the projects together. Pool the skills of a few handy people, and all can reduce their bills. If you involve your children in some of the projects, they will learn some valuable lessons for their future home ownership. I estimate that most of the individual projects can be completed in half day increments.

Give a $10,000 Gift Giving a copy of this book to a friend can be worth $10,000 over the next ten years if they make the improvements outlined, in an average size house with the typical problems as noted.

In the Water Heater chapter, you will learn of a one time maintenance item that will provide a $500 savings for a cost of about $11. Please read the entire book including the CONCLUSION, which describes how to operate your improved home to best advantage for the systems you have improved. Prior to the CONCLUSION is a chapter on making your home bio-terrorist resistant. Actually, I believe the air injection system described will have far more use in supplying pollen free spring and fall outdoor air. At the end of the book, you will find a list of typical supplies and sources.

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SOME CAUTIONS AND SAFETY SUGGESTIONS •

Use common sense. There was a guy in Virginia, who went up onto his roof to clean his gutters. He tied a safety rope around his waist after he had anchored the other end over the top of his roof and down to his car trailer hitch. His wife went to the grocery store........he went to the hospital!

•

Comply with local building codes.

•

Read product directions, cautions, and safety recommendations.

•

Wear proper safety equipment.

•

Read owners manuals.

•

If ever in doubt, hire a pro. I would rather that you only make a 50% return on your investment the first year, then to injure yourself or home.

•

Do not work in attics in high temperatures. Wait to the cool evening or early morning.

•

Always advise someone when working in attics and crawlspaces. They should check on you frequently.

•

Use good lighting in attics and crawlspaces.

•

Do not nail or staple radiant barriers, insulation, or other materials into electrical wiring, pipes, refrigerant lines etc.

•

Please do not step on sheet rock while working in the attic, it hurts when you fall through the ceiling, and your wife will yell at you.

•

Be careful on ladders, especially with power tools.

•

Keep flammable materials including body parts away from flue pipes.

•

Be careful when using razor blade knives to cut foam board, insulation, and radiant barrier material to size.

•

Use aluminum duct tape. Cloth duct tape has a tendency to release in heat over time.

•

Turn off appropriate electrical circuits and thermostats when working on equipment. Advise and tag switches to prevent family from turning on equipment.

•

Use good materials. These are one time projects and will save a lot of energy costs. Do them once correctly, and enjoy the fact that you are making a meaningful contribution to your savings and the reduction of wasted energy.

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SIMPLE THERMODYNAMICS and TERMS Hot air rises. Cold air falls. As simple as these two statements are, most home construction ignores them. Think of the two-story house with one central air system and the thermostat on the first floor. It is very difficult to balance the air temperature to satisfy both the upstairs and downstairs with one thermostat. It requires excellent blower efficiency, a good return air system, and a well insulated house. Another design shortcoming is the house with supply registers in the ceilings, and the return air grille also in the ceiling. When heating, the hot air enters the room at ceiling level, races across the ceilings to the return air grille and flows back to the central air handler. Life goes on a few feet below this river of hot air, and feet often remain cold. Heat moves to cold. The heat in a hot attic tries very hard to penetrate the ceiling of the air conditioned rooms below. The heat also flows into the components of the central air system such as the ductwork and the air handler if they are in the attic. Summer outdoor heat pushes through glass windows quite quickly, and winter indoor heat radiates to the outside just as easily. The greater the difference between two temperatures, the faster they try to equalize, with heat moving to the cooler medium.

Some Terms: A/C. Abbreviation for air conditioning when referring to cooling. ACH. Stands for air changes per hour. A rating of 0.25 means that the house exchanges 1/4 of its internal air for outdoor air every hour, or one complete air change every four hours. Obviously, leaking ductwork, open seams on air handlers, poor weather stripping, loose windows etc., increase the air flow out of the house, and this loss is in addition to conductive heat and cooling losses through walls, ceilings, floors, windows, and the forced air system ducts and air handlers. AFUE: Annual fuel utilization efficiency. A rating for a fuel burning system efficiency including combustion efficiency, start-ups, shut downs, and losses between cycles. BTU. British thermal unit. This is a commonly used method of rating heating or cooling equipment capacity. Its value is the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water one degree of Fahrenheit. Air conditioning capacity is often rated in tons, and one ton is the equivalent of 12,000 BTUs per hour. CFM. Cubic feet per minute, a rating for any fluid flow such as air. Cooling Degree Days (CDD). A measure of how hot the weather was for a given day. It is calculated by subtracting 65 degrees from the daily average temperature of a given day. For example, if a day averages 85 degrees, then the CDD is 85 – 65 = 20. Delta-t. The difference between any two temperatures is called the delta-t. As an example, if it is 100 degrees outside and 70 degrees inside, then the delta-t is 30 degrees (100-70). I will be using the term many times in this text.

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Ductwork. The tubes or pipes that transport the air in a forced air system to or from each room. Supply ducts take the air to the room registers, and return ducts take the air from the return grilles back to the air handler. Emissivity. (E-value) the measurement of the transfer of radiant energy. An E-value of 1.00 means that 100% of the radiant energy is emitted or passed on to another material. Concrete emits over 90% of its radiant energy, so it is a poor radiant barrier. The plywood underside of a roof emits over 90%. Low-E windows pass on about 20%, which is far more efficient than plain glass. The best radiant barrier commonly available is aluminum foil. Radiant barriers of aluminum foil, mounted on paper to add strength, have an E-value of 0.05 which means they emit only 5% of radiant heat and they block the remaining 95%. Heating Degree Days (HDD). The measure of how cold the weather was for a given day. It is calculated by subtracting the average daily temperature from 65 degrees. For example, if a given day averages 40 degrees, then it had a HDD of 25. (65 – 40 = 25) R-value. The rating of insulation to resist heat flow. The higher the better, i.e., R-30 is twice as effective as R-15 in reducing heat flow. Note, insulation does not keep cold out, it keeps heat in or heat out. Radiant heat. An electromagnetic wave of heat. The sun heats the earth with radiant heat. It travels millions of miles through the total cold of space to warm the planet. It penetrates our roofs and walls if there is not a radiant barrier. (Aluminum foil is an excellent radiant barrier). It is the heat you feel on your face while looking through a window from inside an air conditioned home. Radiant heat raises your car interior to 130+ degrees on a 70 degree sunny day, and causes your attic to become a 140+ oven sitting on top of your house. SEER value. This term refers to the cooling seasonal efficiency of an air conditioning system. The higher the SEER the more efficient it is, i.e., the less electricity required to produce a Btu of cooling. For many years, the minimum SEER by building code was 10. Houses built in the 80’s required less. The code is scheduled to change to 12 in 2006 for all new construction. We could have stronger energy policy since there are many makes and models of A/C systems that are capable of 13,14 and 15+ SEER today. In 1999, when my 24 year old upstairs heat pump unit died, I replaced it with a 15 SEER system since it does the bulk of the cooling (remember, heat rises), and the unit provides all of the upstairs heat in the winter season. When my first floor heat pump finally goes (now 27 years old), I will replace it with a 13 or 14 SEER A/C unit, and because of the home improvements made, I will reduce the cooling capacity by 20%. Stratification. Air stratifies if not kept moving and mixing. The temperature of air at the floor may be 5 degrees cooler than at the thermostat, and 8-10 degrees cooler than at the ceiling. We live in the lower 48” of our rooms. We sleep, sit, watch TV, read, bathe in a tub etc. in the lower four feet of the room we occupy. Thus, attention has to be made of this fact to have uniform comfort.

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SQUARE FEET PER TON OF AIR CONDITIONING CAPACITY To find the square feet per ton of A/C capacity you need two pieces of information. Hopefully you know the livable or “conditioned air ” space of your house expressed in square feet. The other factor you need is the total tonnage of your A/C systems. If you look on the housing of each condenser (the outdoor unit), you should find a metal plate with the model number. In the number, or at the end of the number, you will likely find one of the following:018, 024, 030, 036, 042, 048, 050. These numbers refer to the thousands of BTUs that the system can produce. One ton of A/C capacity is 12,000 BTUs per hour. So if you see 018, it means 18,000 or 1-1/2 tons; 036 is equal to three tons (36,000 divided by 12,000) Add up the total tonnage and divide it into the sq. ft. of the house, and you will have the number of sq. ft. per ton of cooling capacity. Example: 036 + 024= 5 tons, 2500 sq. ft. divided by 5 = 500 sq. ft. per ton. The Texas utility company CoServ, states the following on their web site:“ Central Units... Refrigeration air-conditioning units should be sized appropriately for each house. Houses that have few energy-conserving features will probably require as much as one ton of airconditioning capacity for each 500 square feet of floor area. Houses in which careful attention has been devoted to energy conservation may require as little as one ton for each 1,000 square feet. Houses in the coastal area may require more air-conditioning capacity for humidity control, even if they contain energy-conserving features.” In the example above, the house with one ton per 1,000 square feet of living space would have only half of the cooling cost of the house with one ton per 500 sq. ft. Compare your square feet per ton to the following chart that I have put together with definitions: 800-1000 sq. ft. per ton of A/C capacity - This ratio would require excellent house design with such features as continuous soffit vents, 2x6 walls, excellent insulation, “buried ductwork”, well sealed ducts, well ventilated attic, R-49 attic insulation, isolated utility room, strategic shade, attic radiant barrier, a tight house in general. 600-800 sq. ft./ ton - Good overall design and construction, well ventilated radiant barrier attic, properly sized A/C equipment, tight house, isolated utility room, well sealed, high R-value, insulated duct system. 400-600 sq. ft. / ton - Average design and construction, high attic temps, poor duct placement, leaking ductwork, oversized A/C capacity and high utility bills. Less than 400 sq. ft. per ton of A/C cap. - Poor design or poor construction, loose house, hot attic, exposed ductwork in the attic, leaking duct system, over capacity A/C, extreme utility bills. By making the appropriate improvements, you will effectively reduce the needed A/C capacity for your home. By staggering the thermostat settings of a multi-unit system, you can let one unit carry much of the load thus reducing the number of “on/off cycles” of each system.

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DO YOU KNOW YOUR OWN HOME? “Is this why the kids have had headaches, the house is so humid, and the sheetrock nails are popping?” Asked an owner when he discovered that his gas water heater flue exhausted into the non-vented attic of his built-in garage. He had lived in the house for two years. The flue pipe to the roof had never been installed. This could have been fatal. I am surprised by the number of homeowners who do not understand how their houses operate. They are unaware as to where the exhaust vents from baths, clothes dryers, laundry rooms, kitchen range hoods, and water heater flue pipes are located. They never clean their dryer vents from one end to the other for lint build up. Many people do not know where their natural gas and main water valves are located, nor what tool is required to turn them off. They do not know where the master circuit breaker for the electrical system is located. These are the people who have never looked under, over and through their homes to discover disconnected air ducts, leaking water pipes, missing roof flashing or even missing flue pipes. These are the people who complain of mold after a bathroom exhaust tube has blown hot moist air against the underside of a cold roof for a year or so. Or, they replace a laundry room floor after a few years of the dryer exhausting hot humid air into the crawl space under the house. How many people have put a few drops of oil in the taps for their central air blower motor every year or two? How many people have changed the anode in their water heater, thus spending $11 once every 6 years versus $500 when the heater leaks? (See chapter on Water Heaters.) Some comments that I find amusing if not pathetic: “My crawl space is always nice and cool in the summer.” ( Why do you suppose that happens?) “My attic is always nice and warm in the winter.” ( Who paid to heat the attic?) “You don’t need much insulation in Dallas, it doesn’t get very cold here”, stated an insulation contractor who has no concept of how and why insulation functions. “I don’t know where the air filter is, we have never had it changed.” “How often should you change a 90 day filter?” Here are some quotes from A/C contractors: “The way to solve loose house construction, sloppy duct work installation, hot attics and poorly insulated houses is to throw a lot of extra A/C tonnage into the house”. “10% duct leakage is acceptable to us”. The homeowner replied with, “Then you won’t mind paying 10% of my monthly cooling bill”. The contractor reworked the attic ductwork and removed over 80 feet of excess duct, and sealed many air leaks with aluminum duct tape. “That’s what we had in the shop at the time”, a contractor answered when asked why a 3000 sq. ft. house had 8 tons of A/C capacity. (5t and 3t; a total of 5t would have been sufficient for that house; only 3-4t if it had been well built)

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Ask Yourself These Questions •

Do you know the R-values of your attic and floor insulation?

•

If you have a crawl space, is it covered with plastic?

•

Do you know the SEER value of your A/C (air conditioning) systems?

•

Do you know your base utility bill? (the no heat, no cool time of the year expense)

I suggest that you write in the values and answers to the above questions. Hopefully, this book will raise the level of awareness as it reduces your utility costs. Some insulation values to help you estimate your R-value: Type of Insulation Fiberglass batt or roll Loose fill blown-in fiberglass Loose fill cellulose Foam board, foil faced (polyisocyanurate) Foam board (polystyrene) expanded Foam board (extruded polystyrene) Spray polyurethane foam

Thickness or Depth about 3 to 3.5 per inch of thickness about 2.5 per inch about 3.5 per inch use 7 per inch use 4 per inch use 5 per inch about 6-7 per inch

Multiply the thickness or depth times the R-value to determine the wall or ceiling total R-value.

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INSULATION LOAD RATIO (ILR) I developed this simple factor to demonstrate the relative load insulation faces in various key places in the home. The ILR is the difference in temperature between two air masses divided by the R-value of the insulation separating the two air masses. The lower the ILR, the better protected or shielded the area being insulated. Examples: (a) Wall insulation. If the out-door temperature is 100 degrees and the-indoor temperature is 70 degrees, then the difference is 30 degrees (known as the delta-t). If the wall has R-13 insulation, which is typical for 2x4 construction, then the ILR is 2.3, (30 divided by 13). (b) Attic insulation. If the attic temperature is 140 degrees and the in-door air is 70, then the delta-t is 70 degrees. If the house has R-19 insulation, then the ILR is 3.7, which is too high for efficient cooling, and too high for containing house heat in the winter. (c) Ductwork in attic. If the attic air is 140 degrees and the chilled A/C air in the duct system is 50 degrees, then the delta-t is 90 degrees. Duct insulation is typically R-4, so the ILR is 22.5, (90/4). In essence, the coldest and costliest air handled by your central air system is in the hottest part of your house and has the least amount of insulation! Therefore, much of the cooling you paid for is lost to the heat penetration of the ductwork and the air handler case by the excessive heat in the attic. Remember, all of the house air is eventually pumped through the duct system.

Bottom line, our houses need a better match of insulation value to the load faced by the insulation. In situation (a), there is not much that can be done to lower the ILR since the house is already built. If you were considering adding vinyl siding, I would recommend a layer of foil faced fan fold be installed prior to the new siding. This would improve both the conductive insulation value and provide an excellent radiant heat barrier. If the house had been constructed with 6” thick walls with R-19 insulation, and a layer of R-6 foam board, the total R-value would have been R25, and the ILR would have been just over 1, which is extremely energy efficient. In situation (b), major improvements can be made. If we improve the attic venting so that the temperature drops to 120 degrees, and increase the insulation to R-30, then the ILR drops to 1.6. R-49 insulation would reduce the ILR to 1.0 in a 120 degree attic. Situation (c) is the real world for far too many homes. In this case, both the attic heat build up and the duct insulation need to be vastly improved. We need to reduce the attic temperature to no higher than 5 degrees above out-door air temperature, and bury the ductwork under many inches of insulation. If the attic is held to 105 degrees on a 100 degree day, and an R-value of 25 is added (about 10”of blown-in insulation, or 8”of a rolled batt) then the ILR for the air in the central air system drops to 1.9 which is a 90% improvement, and the ILR for the attic floor drops to 0.8 which is a 78% improvement! This reduces the heat transfer between the attic and house interior, and greatly curtails duct losses in both summer and winter. The chapter on Reducing the Attic Impact will address this area in detail. Good common sense house design would incorporate the solutions provided in this book.

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PRELIMINARY MEASUREMENTS Use this worksheet to record your initial temperature readings, and return to the sheet after the improvements are completed for comparisons. YOU WILL NEED TWO DIGITAL THERMOMETERS WITH SENSORS ON A 10’ PENDANT. I HAVE BOUGHT A NUMBER OF THESE AT TARGET STORES FOR ABOUT $10 EACH. THEY HAVE A MEMORY THAT WILL HOLD THE HIGH AND LOW READINGS UNTIL CLEARED BY PRESSING A BUTTON, AS WELL AS A CONSTANT CURRENT TEMPERATURE READING (see CENTRAL FORCED AIR SYSTEM chapter for more detail) • • • •

Take the readings on each of your central air systems (if more than one), in either the heat or cooling mode. Turn the system on by the thermostat, and open a door or window so that the system will not satisfy the thermostat for 15 to 20 minutes. Let the thermometers stabilize at their respective positions so that you get true operating temperatures. You will be testing two points of the system at the same time and comparing the readings, then “leap frog” one thermometer for the next pair of readings. See Air Handler Components Diagram on page 15 for test points A, B, C, and D.

MEASUREMENT #1

Season Cooling

Heating

Temp at return air grille (A)

___________

___________

Temp in return air plenum (B)

___________

___________

Delta-t = the difference between the temps

___________

___________

What Measurement #1 Indicates: Heat gain if in cooling mode, as return air traveled back to the air handler. Heat loss if in heating mode, as air returned to the air handler. MEASUREMENT #2

Season Cooling

Heating

Temp in return air plenum (B)

___________

___________

Temp in supply air plenum (C)

__________

___________

Delta-t = the difference between the temps

___________

___________

Move thermometer from (A) to point (C)

What Measurement #2 Indicates: In cooling mode, you should see about a 15 to 20 degree drop as the air goes through the cooling coil (evaporator). In the heat mode, you should see a gain of about 16 to 18 degrees if using a heat pump on a 32 degree day (backup electric heat off), and a 30 to 40 degree rise if a gas furnace or gas heated water coil. Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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MEASUREMENT #3

Season Cooling

Heating

Temp in supply air plenum (C)

___________

___________

Temp at the most distant room supply vent (D)

__________

___________

Delta-t = the difference between the temps

___________

___________

Move thermometer from (B) to point (D)

What Measurement #3 Indicates: In cooling mode, any rise in temperature is the loss of cooling (actually heat gain) that the ductwork suffered as it carried the air conditioned air from the air handler to the distant room. In heat mode, any loss in temperature is the heated air loss from heat source to distant room. Air Flow Indicator Tape a strip of tissue paper to the distant grille (D) so that the air flow flutters or blows the strip. As you complete the sealing of the system, you will see the improved air velocity effect on the test strip of paper. The difference in air flow indicates how much conditioned air you were loosing in leakage.

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AIR HANDLER COMPONENTS DIAGRAM

TEST POINT (A)

1. RETURN AIR GRILLE & DUCT – house interior air returns to air handler

TEST POINT (B)

2. RETURN AIR PLENUM – connects return air duct to air handler 3. AIR FILTER COMPARTMENT – connects return air duct to air handler 4. FILTER COMPARTMENT DOOR – see #3 above 5. BLOWER MOTOR AND FAN VANES – (inside case) 6. COOLING COIL – (evaporator, inside case) 7. REFRIGERANT LINES 8. CONDENSATE DRAINAGE TROUGH – (inside case) 9. DRAIN LINES 10. GAS FURNACE – (if equipped) 11. GAS FLUE 12. GAS LINE

TEST POINT (C)

13. AIR SUPPLY PLENUM – heated/cooled air to supply ducts

TEST POINT (D)

14. SUPPLY AIR DUCTS TO ROOMS & AIR REGISTERS – (supply registers at wall, floor or ceiling)

(L) POTENTIAL AIR LEAK POINTS – (SEAL WITH SILICONE CAULK OR ALUMINUM TAPE)

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THE UTILITY ROOM I suggest starting with improvements here because the utility room demonstrates a basic lack of sensible building design and illustrates a disregard for the owner’s utility costs and dust free air. It is one of the worst offenders to efficient heating and cooling. I am referring to the room or space that contains the clothes washer and dryer, and often a water heater.

Why Add Heat to Your House in the Summer? The washer adds heat and humidity, which you do not want in the cooling season, and the dryer adds heat and dust to the house as well. The water heater only adds heat. However, the greatest offender is the exhaust blower in the dryer. When the dryer is operating, the blower is exhausting thousands of cubic feet of house air every hour. This is air that has either been cooled in the summer or heated in the winter. A 2500 square foot house with 8 foot ceilings contains 20,000 cubic feet of air. Two hours of dryer operation will just about suck all of that air out of the house! Any fan or blower exhausting air from a house interior, causes negative pressure in the house that is equalized by outdoor air leaking into the house. The air is replaced by hot summer air with high humidity, dust, pollen etc. or by dry, cold winter air. The replacement air enters the house around doors and windows, down chimneys, through gaps around ductwork, wiring, pipe openings, and attic pull down steps. In effect, due to the added humidity, when operating the dryer in a typical home you have opened all the windows long enough to replace all the indoor air once every hour of operation. The homeowner does not notice the effect (except in the utility bills) because the entering air is widely dispersed and the central air system operates to over come the temperature change and humidity rise.

Are You Paying to Heat/Cool Air That is Immediately Sucked Out of Your House? To add insult to injury, many homes have a forced air supply register in the laundry room which helps distribute the dryer dust / lint and utility room humidity through-out the house as the air travels back to the central air return grille. Of course a lot of the freshly heated or cooled air is lost to the dryer fan. Folks, you do not have to heat and cool the air that the dryer is going to immediately exhaust! You can correct the situation, create cleaner air, and lower energy costs immediately. The remedy is to segregate the utility room and its air from the rest of the house. Using adhesive backed weather strip foam tape, weather strip all the way around the utility room doorjamb. Glue, caulk or screw down a threshold for the bottom of the door, and place a length of weather stripping under the bottom of the door for an air tight seal when the door is closed. The adhesive backed foam weather stripping can be seen on the doorjamb. Now that the room is secluded from the house air when the door is closed, you must supply the room with an air source. A window opened a few inches will suffice for electric dryers and water heaters, but you must supply more air for gas appliances. Often you can put a vent through the floor to a crawl space, or through a wall to the out doors, or through the ceiling to an attic, or through a door to the garage. I would advise inserting some filter material behind any opening to the outside or garage to help keep the room less dusty or pollen contaminated. I have some clients who have disconnected the central air supply duct to the laundry room at the air handler in the attic, and left the room A/C register open so that the dryer pulls down hot attic air when Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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operating. They have installed a screen or some cut-to-fit filter material over the end of the duct. If you can not find the correct duct to the utility room, at least remove the grille, stuff some insulation in the duct, aluminum tape the backside of the grille and replace it. (This will send some additional conditioned air to other parts of the house). In this picture, you can see the disconnected end of the central air ductwork that is serving a laundry room ceiling register. A protective bug screen covers the end of the duct. The distribution box in the right side of the picture has had the duct connector collar removed and the opening blocked with some foam board and sealed with aluminum tape. If you have a gas appliance in the room, you should call your local building inspector and ask what local code requires for air source if the room is confined and isolated from the house interior air. Typically, 1 sq. in. per 1000 BTU of total capacity in the room (gas dryer plus gas water heater capacity rating) is sufficient, but it may have to enter the room in a high and low placement. In cold climates, an awareness to severe winter temperatures must be watched so that the room never drops to freezing. If it looks threatening, close the window or vent for the night. My laundry room window was open all winter, and even on 12 degree nights, the room temperature never fell below 45 degrees. As a security precaution, I advise placing a screw in the window track to prevent further opening from outside. Also, I have a section of cut-to-fit A/C filter material in the window opening to catch any dust or pollen. Obviously, if you have louvered doors on the laundry room, they should be replaced with paneled doors or sealed with a thin material such as luan plywood on the inside to render them airtight. Remember, the whole purpose is to isolate the utility/laundry room from sharing and exhausting house air. Note: If you place a bead of waterproof caulk around the perimeter of the room, you may prevent a washer water leak from doing major damage to other rooms.

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CENTRAL FORCED AIR SYSTEM The typical central air system consists of an air handler (the large box that houses the cooling coil and heating source and blower fan), ductwork (tubes that carry air), the out door unit which is called the condenser (heat exchanger and compressor are in this box), return air grilles, and supply air registers. The heat source could be a heat pump, gas furnace, oil furnace, electric coil, or hot water coil. Assuming the mechanical condition of the heating and cooling system (many houses have multiple systems) is in proper working order, there are still a number of energy wasters in every system I have examined. The good news is that a handy homeowner can usually make all the improvements needed to bring the system up to its full potential.

Ductwork Air Leaks Are Worse Than an Open Window Consider the central air system (s) to be an air tight closed loop in which the house interior is part of the loop. Open connections in the ductwork, leaking panels on the air handler, air leaks around grilles and registers are worse than an open window. An air leak into an air handler in a hot attic can easily allow 145 degree air to be pulled into the system with force, in contrast to an open window that allows 100 degree air to drift in on a hot day.

Follow the Air Path Hot house air typically is drawn into a return air grille and is transported through a large duct to a box called a plenum, which adapts the dimensions of the duct to the dimensions of the air handler. The plenum is usually made of sheet metal or a product called duct board which is a foil covered insulating material. The plenum is fastened to the air handler case, sometimes only with aluminum duct tape. There is usually an air filter compartment at one end of the air plenum, most likely where the plenum joins the air handler. After passing through the filter, the air goes through the cooling coil (called an evaporator) into a fan and is then pushed by the fan out the end of the air handler into another plenum that distributes the cooled air to a variety of ducts to the individual supply registers at each room. From the return air grille to the fan in the air handler, any leaks along the way will allow air to be sucked into the system. From the fan (known as a squirrel cage blower) to the supply register in the rooms, any leaks will allow the cooled air to be blown out of the system. Both situations are very wasteful. On the “suction” side of the system, the leaks can allow dust, pollen, mold, high humidity and hot air to be pulled into the system. A rather modest air leak in the return side of the system can drastically reduce the cooling efficiency due to high humidity contacting the cold evaporator coil and condensing into water.

Note: You may notice small levers or handles sticking out of the supply ductwork close to the supply plenum. These handles are fitted to baffles or doors called dampers, and they are used to adjust the air flow for the best balance to each room. I have a client who luckily has dampers on each supply duct for the single forced air system that handles his two story home. He adjusts them for winter to keep most of the hot air flow downstairs, and re-adjusts them for summer to push the cold air upstairs.

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Attic Ductwork Exists in an Oven Since there is usually a fair amount of the ductwork and often the air handlers themselves in either the attic, a basement or crawl space, leaks are wasteful as well as unhealthy. I have seen systems in attics that had gaps that I could slide my hand into that were allowing a huge volume of 145 degree air to be pulled into the system. I have also seen the same situation in crawl spaces in which very stale moldy air was entering the system, and the house smelled of the mold until the leaks were corrected, and in garages that allowed auto smells to enter. In a new house in Dallas, the attic was almost comfortable on a 100 degree day due to two air handlers blowing 50 degree air into the attic through numerous leaks. The house had double the cooling capacity that good construction would have required, and yet it could not cool the master bedroom and a few other rooms adequately. The owner asked the A/C installer why he had so much extra capacity and the installer replied, “we know our installation is sloppy, we are not paid enough by the builder to do it right, we know the new houses are not tight and the attics are poorly ventilated, and we have all this exposed ductwork in the attic that is 145 degrees in the summer, so we throw a lot of extra cooling tonnage into the house so that the owner will be cool and not come back at us”. Since making the improvements covered in this book, the house is now as cool in every room as desired, the monthly utility bills have been cut in half, and the air feels and smells fresh. This was a perfect example of a builder producing a sloppy design that did not give the A/C installer any consideration, poor workmanship, poor insulation, all of which resulted in more expense to the builder due to buying larger A/C units than necessary, and left the owner with extreme utility bills. Bottom line, you want the conditioned air in the house to be contained (no air leaks), to be well filtered for both health and efficient operation, to be well insulated, and to flow smoothly through the entire cooling/heating system. You do not want excess cooling capacity as it will allow the system to satisfy the thermostat long before it has dehumidified the house, and the unit will turn on and off very often (short cycling).

Would You Stop Your Car Every 10 Miles on a 1,000 Mile Trip? Short cycling produces wasteful power surges at each start-up, and a few minutes of inefficient operation while pressures stabilize. Over capacity in an A/C system is comparable to starting and stopping your car every 10 miles and allowing it to cool during a 1,000 mile trip versus starting it once and driving at a constant speed for the 1000 miles.

Fix The Air Leaks (and some preliminary tests) I hope I have made the point that every house I have seen, old or new, expensive or moderately priced, has had air leakage problems. Let’s fix the leaks. First, tear some facial tissue paper into strips about 1 inch wide and 8 to 10 inches long. Turn the A/C unit on, and tape a strip of the tissue paper to the supply register that is farthest from the air handler of that particular system. Position the tissue so that is fluttering in the air stream. Pick a few other rooms and do the same. These strips will give a visual indication of your improved air flow as you seal the leaks. You may find some supply registers where the air flow is too weak to lift the strips at all. This could indicate kinked, disconnected, blocked, or badly leaking ductwork for that supply register. Second, you need to purchase two digital thermometers that have about a 10 foot sensing pendent. These can be found at Target, Radio Shack or Walmart for about $10 or less. You will use these in a variety of situations through-out this book. Since fixing air leaks will also improve the cool air throughout the system, you need to take Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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some temperature readings. If you have a two story house, I would suggest you start with the upstairs regardless of one system or multi -systems for the house. “Across the coil” is an industry term that means simply, the difference in temperature of the air from one side of the cooling coil in the air handler to the other side of the coil. In other words, how many degrees the system is cooling the air at the air handler itself as it passes through the evaporator coil. To take this measurement, you need to punch or drill a hole large enough to insert the thermometer probes or sensors into the system. DO NOT PLACE THESE HOLES IN THE AIR HANDLER CASE ITSELF. You can safely put the holes into the air plenum on the return side, and downstream into the supply or cooled air side in its plenum. Don’t worry about the small leak from the holes, they will be easily covered with aluminum tape later. Slip a temperature probe or sensor into each hole after turning the thermostat down far enough to keep the system running for many minutes. You need to do this test on a hot day to get meaningful readings. After about 8 to 10 minutes of running, you should notice that the difference between the readings is fairly constant. Let’s assume the return air temperature is 75, and the cooled air is 55. The difference is 20 degrees, so the “across the coil” is 20 degrees. A typical range is 15 to 20 degrees, but that range is highly affected by air leaks, humidity and blower speed in addition to a properly functioning A/C system. Record the “across the coil” temperature, and remove the probe from the return air side only. Take that probe to the farthest supply register in the room where you placed the tissue paper. Tape or tie the probe so that it sticks into the cold air flow in the supply register. You can give it time to reach full cold by returning to the air handler and taking its latest reading. It will take a few minutes, so be sure the A/C system continues to run. Then, quickly return to the farthest point room and read the temperature. Let’s assume it is reading 65 degrees, and the air handler cold reading is now down to 52 degrees since the A/C system has been operating for quite some time. Your delta-t (the difference between any two temperatures) in this example is 13 degrees. That tells you that 52 degree air is warming by 13 degrees before reaching its farthest supply vent. That would indicate substantial loss of the cooling you paid for. The loss is caused by two factors: (1) low air flow probably due to leaks, (2) excessive heat gain through poorly insulated ductwork in a hot attic. Since making improvements to my own system in duct sealing, insulation and reduced attic temperature, the cooling loss in our upstairs unit on the farthest supply register is about 1 degree on a 95 degree day. Note: You will repeat the preliminary tests for each central air system in the house.

Are You Filling Your Ductwork with Dust Buildup? Begin with the return air grille. There are two types of grilles used for the return air. In most older houses, the grille is simply a louvered piece of metal mounted to the wall, floor or ceiling, that covers the air duct that carries the air to the air handler. The second type is a filter return air grille. It has a hinged louvered grille that can swing open to allow replacement of an air filter. This is by far the most desired type, and I recommend that the non-filtered grilles be replaced with filter grilles. If you have more than one return air grille per system, you are fortunate. By replacing the grilles with filter grilles, you will be able to increase the filter surface area of the system, there-by trapping more dust, pollen and mold. . Example: Let’s say you have an air handler that currently holds a 20x20 inch filter, and two non-filter grilles that can be refitted with 14x20 filter grilles. Instead of filtering with 400 square inches (20x20), your system will be filtering with 560 sq. in. 2(14x20). That is a 40% increase in surface area. In addition, the air velocity passing through the two filter Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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grilles is 40% slower than the air handler 20x20 filter location. By filtering slower air flow, less dust is pulled through the filter, and you will trap the dust before it enters the ductwork where it can build up and support mold growth. There are even more important reasons for the modification. By filtering at the return air grille, you will no longer use filters in the air handler (filter grilles are more convenient), and this will allow you to seal the air handler filter compartment door and seams with aluminum duct tape. The filter compartments are usually very loose fitting, leaky construction that allow a large volume of outside (attic, crawl space, garage or basement) air to be pulled into the system. If you already have return air filter grilles installed, or if you make the modification yourself, be sure to do these two things. (1)- caulk or aluminum tape the inside frame of the grill housing to the ductwork so that there is not a gap into the wall between the sheet rock or wood support. Often, there is a 1/2” gap in this area, and the wrong air is pulled into the system. (2)- on the surface that touches the filter, I recommend that you line it with adhesive backed 1/4” foam weather stripping. This creates an air tight seal when the filter door is closed thus pushing the filter frame against the foam, and it often eliminates whistling, as it forces all air to flow through the filter. Remember, and I cannot stress this point enough, you are trying to create an air tight envelope of the entire air volume in the house interior and ductwork. You want to eliminate leaks into and behind walls, attics, crawl spaces in and out of plenums, ductwork and air handler cases wherever possible.

Allergies Anyone? Regarding the filter material you select: I use the pleated filters because they are far more efficient in trapping dust, pollen and mold. The spun glass low cost filters catch very coarse dust only, and are used to prevent large dust and hair etc. from clogging the cooling coil in the air handler. They do not trap the real dust and health problems floating in the air. For people with allergies or those wanting a cleaner house, I recommend the Filtrete Micro Allergen 1000 or the Ultra Allergen 1250 models. They are products of 3M and do an excellent job of keeping the air clean and fresh smelling. There are many other excellent filters available as well. Now that the return air filter grilles do the filtering, you can move to the air handler itself.

Cleaning the Air Handler Interior and Sealing the Case Before taping the seams on the air handler, I recommend a through cleaning inside the case. Start by turning off the unit at the thermostat. Read the service manual (you may have to ask a dealer for a manual). Basically, you will remove the cover that houses the cooling coil. There you will find a finned aluminum coil. On the return air side, you may find a layer of dirt, dust, construction saw dust, or hair buildup. Vacuum the coil surface for the big stuff, being careful to avoid bending or denting the fins of the coil. I would then use a coil cleaner (available at typical hardware stores) or an anti-bacteria cleaner such as Simple Green. Spray it on the coil, wash in the direction of the fins with a nylon brush, and then spray on clean water to rinse the coil. The dirty water will flow into the condensate drain pan or trough, and then into the drain tube. Be sure the trough or pan are draining freely and are scum free. If you are confident in your ability to handle mechanical situations, I would recommend cleaning the vanes of the blower if they have a crud looking buildup. NOTE: If you clean the vanes, clean all of them so that the fan stays in balance. Usually the blower wiring harness is easily disconnected, and the blower slides out of the case by removing a couple of screws. I suggest an old toothbrush to clean each vane its entire width. If the blower has oil taps, you can put in a few drops of turbine oil. Replace the clean blower, re-attach the Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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wiring harness and replace the cover. Turn on the system, at least the “fan run” setting to insure that you did the re-installation correctly. Now you should wipe the outer case of the air handler so that aluminum tape will adhere to the surface. Then tape all seams of the case including the access panel with the tape. Leave a 2-3” section bare on the bottom case seam to allow water to leak to the emergency pan in case of a clogged drain. Note: The tape can be easily cut with a razor blade knife for future access. Tape or smear on some silicone caulk around every duct connection to both the return air plenum and the supply plenum. If you can feel air escaping from the unit, you still have leaks. I advise doing the taping session with the system cooling because it is easier the find the leaks at each seam or joint on the supply side of the blower. Remember, on the suction or return side, leaking seams and connections will allow air to be pulled into the unit. My policy is simple, I tape all seams.

Insulate the Air Handler Case While you are in a taping mood, you need to insulate the air handler housing if it is in the attic or crawl space. I use an R-value 5 or 6, 3/4” foil backed foam board that is sold at building supply stores in 4’x8’ sheets. It is easy to cut to the air handler case dimensions with a razor blade knife. I pre-cut each major section, remembering to allow for the 3/4” over lap that the thickness requires, and take the pieces to the unit. I usually use the foil backed foam board because aluminum tape adheres very well to it. In the picture below, I used plain foam board because the owner already had it available. Using aluminum duct tape, seal the foam board to the case, and seal the seams so that air cannot get between the board and the case. As when taping the case, leave a 3” section bare for water leak drainage into the safety pan. If you have an oil or gas furnace attached to the air handler, BE CAREFUL to allow 6 or so inches of clearance between the foam board and the flue and burners. Also, do not block the combustion air grille on the burner. Before leaving the air handler, be sure the emergency over-flow pan is clean, and pick up all pieces of the separation paper that you peeled from the aluminum tape. You have now double sealed and insulated the air handler. You may have noticed mold or dampness on the outside of the air handler, especially if in a crawl space. This is from high humidity air condensing on the cold surface of the case. One, it illustrates that “cold” is escaping from the unit, and two, it shows a mold source that is easily pulled into the system. You have probably eliminated both situations with the work just completed.

Finish Sealing the System Assuming you started with the air handler for the upstairs if you have a two story house, it is time to return to the upper rooms and check on the air flow velocity progress. Hopefully, you have sealed enough leaks to notice an air flow improvement. There is another potential source of leakage. Remove one of the ceiling, wall or floor supply registers. You will likely find a gap between the sheetrock or flooring and the duct or vent box. This gap allows a lot of blow back air to either escape into the attic or into the wall cavities. These gaps also allow unfiltered outdoor air to enter the house. The grilles hide these gaps but do not seal them. Just as you sealed the gap behind the return air grilles, you need to seal behind the supply vent grilles. If the Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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gaps are quite wide, I use expanding foam and aluminum tape, being careful to not drip the foam, and to not overlap the tape beyond the outline of the grille. In the picture below, you can see the size of the gap that has been caulked prior to replacing the grille. With the return air filter grilles installed, the gaps sealed in the ductwork, air handler, fittings, and behind all the registers in the system, you should see a significant improvement in the air flow moving the tissue strips. The difference was all air lost to the outside that you paid to heat and cool. A leak anywhere in the forced air system is far more costly than the same size leak in a house wall because of the forced air system pressure. (Follow the same procedures for the first floor.)

Plastic in the Crawl Space Helps Eliminate Moldy, Musty and Damp Air in the House Before moving around under your house in the crawl space, you should install a layer of plastic over all the dirt. I recommend 6-mil thickness for its durability. The plastic should be cut to fit around all support posts, overlap at seams, and cover a foot up the walls of the foundation. Building supply stores have a caulk designed to seal the plastic at overlaps and on piers and block walls. The plastic will greatly reduce the humidity that penetrates the floor and insulation, which is a source of mold and stale air odor.

Is Your A/C Air Rotting Your Floors? It is very important to remove the floor or lower wall/floor mounted air supply registers if your house is over a crawl space. The register fits are usually so generous that large gaps exist. A mold problem is created when the cold A/C air chills the register metal, and damp crawlspace air condenses moisture on the register. I have seen flooring that was water stained and moldy 5”to 6” from the register. Seal these gaps with expanding foam, caulk or aluminum tape. Make the sealed surface a smooth transition from duct to grille seating to produce a quiet and efficient air flow. You may have to do some nail pulling to remove the low wall/floor registers. Replace the grilles with screws instead of nails. Always be alert to sharp duct work seams and edges. This is a good time to recheck the temperatures i.e., the delta-t across the coil, and the delta-t between the cold air at the air handler and the farthest room vent. Do not be discouraged if there is not a lot of improvement, especially in the rooms supplied by ducts that are in the attic. We have yet to discuss attic heat loads and the cures.

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THE CASE FOR ADDING A LOW RETURN Air duct We Live in the Lower 48” of Our Houses Many of the houses I have seen have air supply registers and air return grilles in the ceilings for the same level of the house. This is usually, but not always, the upstairs floor because it is quite easy to locate the air handler in the attic above, and to duct the supply air to the room ceilings, and the return air back through ceiling mounted grilles. This procedure creates poor heating comfort and inefficient operation of the system. As we all know, heat rises and cold falls. During the heating mode, the hot supply air is blown from the ceiling register, perhaps in a bedroom, moves across the upper two feet of the room, flows under the door transom, enters the hall and races back to the ceiling air return grille. The majority of the hot air stays high, and very little warming takes place at floor level until significant stacking of hot air has taken place. The higher the ceiling, the longer it takes to fill the upper feet of the room with warm air. There is nothing to pull the air down to floor level. Eventually, the heated blanket of air reaches the thermostat that is typically five feet above the floor, and the system turns itself off. Now, consider where we live in our houses. About 90% of the time we are in a house, we are in the first 48” of the room. We sleep, eat, watch television, work at our desk, bathe, on and on, in the lower four feet of the room. And, our feet are almost always at floor level or covered while in bed. So, we heat the heck out of the upper portion of the room, and live a few feet below the “warm zone”.

Warmer Feet at Less Cost The solution is really quite simple and extremely effective. You need an air return located close to floor level. It will suck in the cold air from floor level, and pull heated air down from the ceiling. The hot air stratification will be broken up as the air becomes well mixed, and you will be much more comfortable living in the air you paid to heat. It is also more efficient to heat cool air than adding more heat to warm air. (The greater the difference in temperature, the faster they want to combine or equalize). I used an upstairs hall closet wall to retrofit my system. I cut a 14” by 20” portion of sheetrock from between two studs just above the wall molding, and installed a duct in the hollow wall to the upper one foot of the ceiling. In the picture to the left, you can see both the ceiling mounted return as well as the added return grille low on the wall.

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Inside the closet, I cut a 8” by 14” opening between the same studs that made the hollow wall cavity, and a 10” circle through the closet ceiling between attic floor joists that thus provided the air path to the attic. As seen in the picture to the right, I then ran a 10” duct from the closet ceiling opening to the return air plenum of the air handler. Once all connections and the seam at the closet ceiling were well caulked, I installed a 2x2 ledger or furring strip around the top of the closet, 10” below the ceiling. I then installed a square of sheetrock and screwed it to the ledge. After taping the seams and painting the new work, the fact that my closet ceiling is about 10” below the hall ceiling is not noticeable, and the space was never used in the first place. The effect was immediate, and one of the least cost items that yielded great comfort and efficiency. Our entire upstairs air is better mixed, our feet are warmer, the central air system does not run as long in the winter to warm the rooms, and dust stirred up at floor level is quickly trapped by the return air filter grille. In addition, by adding 280 square inches of surface area, we increased the total up-stairs filtration by 83%. In the summer cooling mode, the low air return pulls in the cold air at floor level, and “drops” it back into the rooms from the ceiling supply registers. I have seen multi-million dollar homes that demonstrate the total lack of comfort design and these laws of common sense: hot air rises, cold air falls, and we live in the lower “48”. If designing a new house, I would pull 20% of the air from ceiling level and 80% from floor level. This would provide adequate circulation of the upper air, reclaim some of the winter heat before it is lost through the ceiling to the attic, and insure that most of the air we heat, cool and filter is circulating where we live. The diagram on the next page shows the air-path starting at floor level, moving up through the hollow wall, into the space above the “false” closet ceiling, and into the added return air duct. Since all of the sheet rock in my house was glued to the studs as well as screwed, the chambers between studs are fairly air tight. If you feel the sheet rock is not well sealed to the framing, you may want run a bead of caulk around the inside top of the hollow chamber, reaching in from the closet. The entire project took about one day, including the time to purchase the materials, paint the closet false ceiling, and replace the shelves.

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THE OUTDOOR UNIT (The condenser) The outdoor unit of your A/C or heat pump is called the condenser. Basically, the box-like unit contains a compressor, a large finned coil and a blower to pull air through the coil to either remove heat from the coil in the A/C mode, or to pick up heat from outdoor air in the heat mode of a heat pump. There are a number of energy robbing situations that are fairly easy to correct.

Starving For Air (a) Condenser too close to house or other structure. There should be at least 12” between the condenser case and any wall or solid structure on any side of the unit. Failure to provide the space, restricts the air flow and reduces the heat transfer. These units are only a few inches from the house wall, so one side of each condenser has restricted air flow. This results in poor air cooling for 25% of the coil surface. A good builder would not allow this to happen!

(b) Multiple condensers too close together. Houses with multiple zones often have all of the condensers lined up together, and often too close to each other. This placement causes the units to compete for the same air and in effect the fans pull against each other when on at the same time. These condensers are too close to each other, too close to the house, and further crowded by a doghouse on one side and construction equipment on the other. The house actually has a fourth condenser on the other side of the house. This large, very pretty and expensive home is an example that price is not a guarantee of quality construction by all contractors.

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Cooking Thy Neighbor (c) Units that are less than 3 feet apart, can discharge hot air from one unit directly into the intake air stream of an adjacent unit, especially if the wind is blowing from one unit to another. I have measured 110 degree air being sucked into the coil of a second unit on an 80 degree day. That situation certainly reduced the efficiency of the second A/C system.

(d) Clogged fins. Clogged, dirty, dented, debris filled, vine covered, leaf blocked or shrub crowded condenser fins restrict air flow and prevent the rapid and efficient removal of heat from an A/C coil. Note the hail damaged fins on the condenser in the next picture.

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Some people let their lawnmowers blow grass clippings into the coil. In time, the fins become blocked. I recommend hosing the coil and washing with a soft brush at least once a year. Dented fins should be separated and straightened carefully using a plastic comb. Some makes have a louvered case around the coil which provides good protection from toys and hail damage. The cases can be opened, usually taking off only one side at a time, flushing the coil with a hose and replacing the panel before removing the next panel. Shrubs around the condenser can be very helpful by shading the units and actually cooling the air flow through the shrub, but they need a foot of distance to prevent blocking air, and never close enough to allow limbs to contact the easily dented fins in high winds.

Some Condensers Blow the Hot Air Back Into the House (e) Condenser placement. Placement under windows or soffit vents is energy wasteful. The hot discharge air is blown against glass, or is pushed into the soffit vents and into the attic. These two situations add heat load to the house that is working to be cooled. Too often these details of planning and placement are ignored by the builder, and the home owner pays the higher utility bills. (f) Placement under decks. After reading the previous items, I think you will readily understand why placing condensers under decks is a heat trapping, reverse airflow situation. In addition to increased utility bills, some placements shorten the life of the compressors through overheating. (g) Too close to dryer vent. Clothes dryer discharge outlets blow a great deal of lint in addition to hot humid air. These elements are not good for the condenser coils since the lint can mat and block the fins, and the steamy air penetrates the electric controls in the unit. (h) Heat pumps need snow removal. In the winter, heat pumps need full air access to the condenser. Snow buildup around the unit can block the air flow and cause the system to go into defrost mode or to activate the backup electric heat. Take a stroll around the house and observe the condition and placement of your condensers. There are dollars to be saved by applying the items I have outlined.

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REDUCING THE ATTIC IMPACT The roof should provide weather proofing, i.e., keep rain out, as well as provide shade for the house. Unfortunately, the typical roof only provides weather protection, and it creates a massive hot air oven in the attic. A dark roof on a hot sunny day can easily create attic temperatures that reach 145 degrees. This huge heat load presses down into the house as well as through the ductwork insulation. Also, the heat load saturates every thing in the attic, and the retained heat often keeps the attic much hotter than outdoor air, even over night. The attic, its heat mass, ventilation, and insulation are worthy of a lot of attention in order to reduce your utility costs.

Does Your House Leave 30% of the Cooling Cost in the Attic? Using your digital thermometer, record the high temperature reached in your attic on a hot sunny day. The thermometers I have purchased from Target have a built in memory that will hold the high and low temperatures reached until reset. (You already have measured the “cooling loss” between the air handler and the most distant supply room register. You will now be making progress to reduce the heat build up that is causing the “cooling loss”). Once you have the attic temperature, subtract the cold air temperature that you measured as it exited the air handler. Let’s assume the attic reaches 145, and the cold air supply in the air handler was 50 degrees. The delta-t would be 95 degrees. Even your house air at 70 would leave a delta-t of 75 degrees with the attic air. So, if you have a house with an air handler and ductwork in the attic, you are essentially blowing all of the coldest air your system can create through tubes (ductwork) located in the hottest place of your home. From the Thermodynamics and Terms chapter, you know that the greater the delta-t, the faster the two temperatures will try to equalize. The factors affecting the heat gain into the central air system in the attic are; the insulation value on the air handler, the length and placement of the ductwork, the insulation on the ducts and the attic temperature. Insulation R-value for attics is often R-19 to R-30.However, the ductwork insulation is rated at R-4 in most cases, and the ducts are carrying the coldest air with the greatest delta-t compared to the attic air! A lot of cooling effectiveness is lost to these energy wasteful designs. Some times, the return air ducts are not even insulated. I have seen houses with more heat load for the air conditioner to overcome due to the attic and system installation, than the heat load generated by the house and its occupants. In a typical house, the attic is causing about 30% of the cooling cost. That means that almost 10,000 BTUs of a 30,000 BTU (2-1/2 ton) system never reaches the living area.

It Can Be Fixed The good news is that a number of projects can be accomplished by the homeowner that will greatly improve the situation. You have already made an improvement by sealing and insulating the air handler in the Central Forced Air System chapter. Next, if you have flexible ductwork suspended from the roof rafters, you would be advised to cut the straps and lower the ductwork to the attic floor wherever possible. Shorten the ducts by disconnecting the collar for the duct at the air plenum, removing the collar from the duct, taking out as much excess duct as you can, and then re-installing the collar on the air plenum and the duct to the collar. Do not kink the duct, which would restrict air flow. Be aware of flue pipes so that you do not let the ducts come too close to the heated surfaces.

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The ductwork in this picture is suspended from the roof rafters, which is the hottest place in the house!

Eliminate the Oven The next step is to reduce the attic air temperature. Perfection would be to have the attic air temperature no hotter than the outdoor air temperature. Reality for an existing house, is an attic no hotter than 5-10 degrees above outdoor air. I have been able to make improvements that reduced my 145 degree attic to about 103 degrees on a 100 degree day. Ventilation and reducing radiant energy are the keys. Ventilation: You have to let the hot air out, and more cool air in. It would be nice to have wide ventilated soffits with thousands of small holes all around the house to let a good flow of air enter the attic. This picture illustrates a continuous ventilated soffit. The space between each roof rafter has a source of fresh air with this type of ventilation. What I usually find instead, are small rough cut 3” by 4” holes behind 8”x16” grilles. In other words, I find a 12 square inch opening that should have been a 128 square inch opening. So, you need to look up into the soffit vent grilles to determine if you have full dimensional cutouts. Also, check to be sure there is not any blown insulation blocking the air flow. For good results, you may have to add vents.

You can see by the dark area, that the soffit vent on the left has only a partial opening in the soffit plywood. The vent on the right has the full cut. To let the air escape the attic, you need either roof vents, ridge vents, roof turbines, powered gable fans or powered roof vents depending on roof design.

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Gabled Roof With a typical gabled roof, I recommend a gable mounted exhaust fan activated by a thermostat. If the house has continuous or at least a good supply of soffit vents, then an exhaust fan in more than one gable will greatly increase the air changes per hour. If the house only has two gable vents and does not have any soffit vents, then you can only install one gable vent fan without further modification to supply out door air. A 1500 square foot attic with a ten foot roof peak (ridge line) will contain 7500 cubic feet of air. Remember this number. A 1000 cubic foot per minute exhaust fan would take 7 -1/2 minutes to change the air just one time. Depending on house orientation and shade, this is usually not enough air changes to reduce the air temperature to acceptable levels. Therefore you need to reduce the solar radiant gain as well as improve the effective ventilation.

Radiant Heat is an Efficiency Killer Radiant barriers: The building material supply stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot often carry products called “radiant barriers”. One is a multi-layer 5/16” material that is made of aluminum foil and plastic bubble pack that comes in rolls up to 4’ wide. It is not cheap, but it is quite effective in helping control attic temperature buildup. The product is made by Reflectix®, Inc. (1-800-879-3645). Another product is made of a layer of aluminum foil bonded to kraft paper with a string scrim layer for strength. It is less expensive then the previous product, and in my opinion provides the best “bang for the buck.” It is made by Solar Shield® (1-800-654-3645). Both products provide good directions, and use aluminum foil, which is the best radiant barrier reasonably available. Remember, the foil side faces down into the attic, it’s the surface you will see after installation. You will get a double benefit from installing a radiant barrier correctly. You will block the radiant energy, and you will trap the hottest air between the roof rafters and roof decking thus channeling it to be easily exhausted from the attic.

Installing Radiant Barriers (a) If the house has continuous soffit vent, then a radiant barrier can be stapled to the underside of the roof rafters with its bottom edge against the floor joists or the top of the insulation. Cover the rafters all the way up to a point about one foot below the ridge line. I advise installing the material across the rafters with a power staple gun. In effect, you will have trapped the hottest air between the underside of the roof decking and the bottom edge of the rafters. The cubic volume of the air trapped in a 30’ x 50’ attic is about 900 cubic feet if the roof rafters are 2x6’s. The air will be pulled through the continuous soffit venting, up between the rafters to the top one foot of attic ceiling space, and then across the ridge line to the gable fan, or out the roof vent, or roof mounted fans. It is a lot easier to exhaust 900 cubic feet of air per minute than 7500! (b) If the house does not have continuous soffit venting, but rather soffit vents every few feet, then you need to leave 3” of space across the bottom of the radiant barrier and the attic floor or top of insulation, so that air can flow up behind the material and out the top. In both cases, you will be exhausting the hottest air and at a lower volume (900 cu. ft.) than trying to clear the entire attic air (7500 cu. ft.) every minute.

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Caution – never completely trap the air between the roof rafters, decking and the radiant barrier. Always leave an opening at the top of each “chamber” for the hot air to escape, and a space at the lower edge for air to enter each “chamber”.

Hip Roof A hip roof is more difficult to exhaust due to its “closed” roof design. Unless there is a very open continuous ridge vent, then a fan in some location is required. Powered roof vent fans, with staggered thermostat settings are about the only practical exhaust method. Here again, a radiant barrier material applied to the underside of the rafters will reduce radiated heat, and reduce the volume of air that requires rapid exhaust. Follow (a) or (b) above, depending upon the soffit venting. Note: Instead of using a flexible radiant barrier, I have used 4’x8’ sheets of foil backed foam board that is 1/2” thick in some installations, especially where the roof pitch was low and access to the edge of the attic was too tight. It is rigid enough to slide into place. It is more expensive but adds some conductive insulation R-value versus the thin barriers. You may have to cut it in 2’ x 8’ panels to make it easier to carry into the attic. Using roofing nails, you can tack it in place across the rafters, and follow the spacing as discussed above. With either product, you will be making significant reductions in radiated heat (which also penetrates insulation) as well as effectively containing the super hot air for efficient removal. In one house in Texas, with a hip roof and non-powered roof mounted “turtle shell” air vents, we built a 12” diameter sheet metal duct that connected three of the roof vents together on the underside of the roof. In the end of the duct, we used a step up transition to bring the duct diameter to 13”. The 13” was necessary to accommodate a 13” diameter gable exhaust fan. The arrangement allowed the fan to remain in the attic for easy servicing, and enabled the fan to blow the extreme hot air out through the three roof vents. Note, only one or two roof vents would have been too restrictive to the 13” exhaust fan. Even when the thermostat has not activated the Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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fan, the hot air flows quite well out of the attic since the ducting creates a “chimney effect”.

Ventilate the Hottest of the Hot Summary: To reduce the attic heat load on the ductwork and the house, provide a lot of soffit ventilation, and exhaust the hottest air rapidly. With a foil radiant barrier installed as directed in the instructions, you get a double benefit. You reduce radiant heat and you reduce the volume of air that must be exhausted. This allows more air changes per hour with less fan power expense, and the barrier increases the insulation effectiveness by preventing radiant energy from entering insulation and heating it.

Attic Insulation The next step in protecting your cooled house air in the summer season from the hot attic, and to save house heat in the winter, is to increase the R-value of the attic insulation to the recommended level for your area. The Dept. of Energy has a web site that you can access to find your area’s recommended levels. Basically, in most of the USA, the attic recommended R-value is 38 to 49. The Texas and Maine recommended levels are the same at R-49, but for opposite reasons. In Maine, they are trying to keep heat in the house; in Texas the high R-value is to prevent heat from penetrating the house. Typically, I would recommend a blanket of R-25 insulation laid across the floor joists if you presently have at least R-19.

Plug Some Air Leaks First If you have batt or rolled insulation already installed, I would suggest that you lift the insulation wherever you see wiring and plug (caulk) the holes where the wire passes into the walls below the attic. This will stop the air flow into hollow walls.

Now to the Insulation There are two important areas in the attic that need to be well insulated, and you may be able to accomplish both goals with one application. Certainly the ductwork needs to be either wrapped with enough insulation to provide R-8 to R-10 (about 2”), or buried under a layer of additional attic insulation. The second area needing attention is the attic floor which should be brought up to recommended R-value. If your ductwork is on the attic floor joists, you may be able to have new insulation blown over the area thus burying the ductwork in a sea of insulation. Do not bury any recessed lights that are not rated for zero clearance (IC rated). If you use batt insulation, be sure to use non-faced (no vapor barrier) when placing the new insulation over existing insulation.

An Approach I Took Gave Great Results I recently added a layer of R-25 to my existing R-27 insulation. I rolled the insulation across the floor joists (perpendicular) so that I have a well sealed surface of insulation. Almost all of the ductwork is totally covered. The result of the added layer has enabled the A/C system to move cold air from the air handler to the most distant room register with very little cooling loss. In one area, I wanted to preserve some decked storage space, so I installed 2x4” stringers across the already decked floor, and rolled out R-13 insulation between the 2x4s (I sliced open the backing paper to prevent moisture blocking). I then decked that area (it was easier to “double deck” than to pull up the original decking and risk ceiling sheet rock damage below). The total R- value is only R-38 in the decked area, but it is less that 40% of the attic, and I have greatly reduced the attic temperatures with a radiant barrier. The only duct that is exposed above the insulation was double wrapped with insulation. Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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The Results All of these changes have lowered my heating bills as well as the cooling costs. As an example, January of 2003 had 53% more heating degree days than the same time period for 2002, yet due to the improvements made, my total utility costs were only 15% higher for the 2003 time period. Without the improvements, I would have expected a 40% or greater increase.

A barrier made of fan fold foam board has been installed to hold loose fill or blown-in insulation in place to cover ductwork.

You Are Making Progress! By now, you have improved the insulation on the air handler, covered the ductwork with more insulation, reduced solar gain with a radiant barrier, added attic floor insulation, and through better ventilation, reduced the attic temperatures. Note, be sure you have not blocked the soffit vents or the air flow to the area behind the attic radiant barrier. Also, do not leave any exhaust outlets from laundry or bathrooms buried. These vent tubes should exhaust through the walls or soffits in order to dispose of moisture laden air. If you need added storage area in the attic, I suggest you build some shelving over the insulation. Do not compress the insulation with boxes etc., as it will reduce the effective R-value.

Radiant barrier and elevated shelving over a new layer of batt insulation.

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ATTIC ACCESS There are generally three methods of access to an attic: (a) Opening With a Lid (b) Pull Down Steps (c) Built In Walk Up Stairs All three can be energy wasteful from an insulation and air leakage standpoint.

Put A Lid On It (a) Opening With a Lid. The simplest is the lid that is usually accessed by standing on a ladder. The lid is usually a piece of plywood simply resting on a lip around the ceiling opening. It is un-insulated, and the fit between the lid and the lip allows air leakage. For this arrangement, I recommend that you build a 5 -1/2 ” collar in the attic around the opening using 2x6 lumber. You may have to build a 2x4 collar to attach the 2x6 material in order to provide a strong bracing surface for the 2x6 collar. Screw the corners and caulk the seams. Also, be careful to line up the top surface of the collar so that a plywood panel will be flush all the way around the rim. Once you have the collar strongly installed (the collar must be strong enough to support a person climbing into or out of the opening), put adhesive backed foam weather strip on the top surface of the 2x6 so that a lid will provide a tight seal. For the new lid, I would use 1/2” plywood and hinge it to the side leaving the best access to the attic to the non-hinged side. Then install about a 2” layer of foam board or cut a piece of 3-1/2” fiberglass insulation and affix it to the top surface of the new lid. Follow the same procedure with the original lid, except you don’t have to hinge it. Put foam insulation on the top of the lid, and weather strip the mating surface of the receiving lip. You have now double sealed the opening, insulated the lids, and provided a dead air space between the lids, which is further insulation in itself.

Results: no drafts, no dust, no heat loss, no heat gain, less noise. You should treat a ceiling mounted whole-house exhaust fan grille the same way, that is, install a removable, insulated lid over a homemade collar around the fan housing in the attic to prevent massive air leakage when the fan is not in use. One cleaver client put a rope and pulley system to lift the fan housing lid (hinged on one side). He can reach the rope from his attic access point so that he does not have to crawl all the way to the fan housing. He simply pulls the rope and ties it off before turning on the exhaust fan. It’s not rocket science, but it works.

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Do You Have Drafty Pull Down Steps? (b) Pull Down Steps. The pull down step design I find in most homes, is non-insulated, loose fitting, and quite drafty. A lot of dusty air passes to and from the attic around the typical pull down panel. You need to address the pull down step system in much the same way as the push up lid system. First, build a collar of 2x6 construction around the opening in the attic, and install a hinged lid. Remember to hinge the lid to leave the best access to the attic. Insulate the attic side of the lid, and weather strip the top surface of the 2x6 collar. Also, weather strip the attic side of the pull down panel of the steps around its perimeter so that the weather striping is somewhat compressed when the steps are in the up or stored position. A good installation of this improvement will be readily noticed in a reduction of hot air gain in the summer and less heat lost in the winter. Also, attic dust will less likely be pulled into the house.

When Did We Forget To Not Be Wasteful? (c) Built In Walk Up Stairs. Built in walk up stairs also require some attention. First, the door to the stairs should have a threshold and be well weather stripped. Second, I like to place a foam board panel on the attic side of the door for better insulation. The third improvement is to build a pull down, pulley and counter weight system. It is not difficult to do. Using 1x2” furring strips, install a continuous ledge about 1/2” below the attic flooring inside the stairway opening. Cut a piece of plywood to fit the ledge leaving about 1/4” clearance all the way around the plywood and the stairwell walls. Hinge the plywood lid over the lowest step end of the wood framing, so that you can lift the lid as you climb the steps to the attic. Since the weight of almost a whole sheet of plywood is substantial, I advise a rope and pulley system with a counter weight using something such as a concrete block to provide the weight needed to make opening of the panel quite easy. The correct amount of weight will enable you to open the lid to any position and it will maintain that opening. Foam board the attic side, install a sturdy handle on the underside to enable pulling the lid down and closed. Some nylon rope and a couple of pulleys complete the job. You will have to determine the best location for the counterweight. In addition to providing the double seal and insulated dead air cavity, you will have improved the insulation of the two walls of the stairwell that have minimal insulation, and prevented the dumping of a large mass of cold air into the living spaces whenever the door to the attic steps is opened during the cold season. Without these modifications, the stairwell walls and the door to the stairs are facing out door temperatures all year. You only have to drive down a street when the early morning frost is on a roof to spot the non-insulated non-lid stairwells by the melted portion of frost just above the stairwell. My grandparents had a pull down lid at the top of the attic steps in their house that was built in the early 1900’s. Allow about 4-6 hours to build a pulley/counterbalanced/hinged pull down door system for your walk up stairs.

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YOUR WATER HEATER After your heating and cooling costs, the water heater is your largest home utility expense. There are a few improvements that will reduce the operating cost, plus I am including an item that will save generally each household about $500 for taking a simple preventative measure. First, I will cover the energy savers.

Have You Hugged Your Water Heater Lately? Water heater blanket. A water heater spends most of its life simply standing by in a holding mode, storing hot water for immediate use. Water heaters suffer inadequate insulation properties compared to the temperature difference of the hot water and the surrounding air. Assuming 140 degree water, with surrounding air of 70 degrees for a water heater inside a house, the differential is 70 degrees, and the typical insulation value is R-6 to R-8. Not a very good ILR (9-10). The situation is even more damaging when you consider that the heat lost by the water heater has to be removed by the A/C system in the summer if the heater is in the house envelope of conditioned air. I cringe at the comment, “We like to air condition the utility room to keep it cool, because the water heater keeps it so hot otherwise”. There is a comedy of errors! Other placements include crawl spaces, attics and garages, in which the heater is exposed to temperatures perhaps in the single digits. There just are not any logical placements where a heater blanket of additional insulation is not beneficial. Water heater blankets are available at home building supply stores, and are easy to install. Follow the instructions and be aware of not covering key openings. Insulate the water pipes, both cold and hot, with foam pipe insulation. Install heat traps if the hot and cold pipes do not have them. (Available at hardware stores) Flush the heater. The bottom of a water heater accumulates a layer of sludge or trash and discarded oxides from the sacrificial anode (see below). This layer is especially cost damaging with a gas water heater because it insulates the bottom shell of the tank from the gas flame, making the burner run longer to heat the water. Draining a bucket of water and sediment once a year will help keep the interior clean. A drain spigot is located at the bottom on the side of the water heater. I recommend that you add a brass hose cap with washer to the spigot. Often, draining a water heater can leave a slight drip that is easily stopped with the hose cap.

Now for the BONUS SAVING ITEM, the water heater ANODE Almost every water heater has a long rod, bolted in from the top, that is called an anode. The anode is sacrificial, in that it gives up itself over time to prevent the water tank from rusting. The rod is about 5/8” in diameter and a few feet long. As long as the rod has anode material (usually aluminum or magnesium), the tank can not rust. This is because the anode is reversing the polarity of the tank oxidation process and it oxidizes first. When the useful life of the anode rod (about 6 years is typical) is exhausted, the tank begins to rust through, and a water leak/tank replacement is in your future. Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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Saving $500 in One Hour Replacing an anode rod is not difficult. It has a large hex head just under some of the insulation in the top shell of the tank outer case. You only have to push some of the insulation aside to find the head. You do not have to remove the shell, or disconnect the piping. Turn off the water to the tank, and turn off the electricity or set the gas to “pilot” so that the heat does not come on while changing the anode. Attach a garden hose to the drain spigot on the heater, and open a hot water faucet in the house to break the vacuum. Then open the water heater spigot and drain the water level down to the safety valve level, which you can check by lifting the safety release lever. (Be sure to close the lever before turning on the water). Using a socket wrench, you will unscrew the old anode and replace it with a new anode. You can buy anodes on-line from the internet, or from a plumbing house. I have even purchased them from SEARS using a model of similar size to my water heater and requesting a replacement anode for their heater. The threads are the same, and most household rods are about the same length. If too long, it can be cut to length with a hacksaw. The rod has a steel core with the sacrificial metal around the core. On the internet, I have seen rods advertised for $11. That is significantly less than the replacement cost and labor of a new water heater, and the leak damage possibility. Once changed, write the date on the water heater, and check it again in about 6 years; you can make a guess as to how much rod life was left if you know the age of the heater. GO

AHEAD, SPEND $11 AND SAVE $500.

An anode rod next to tape measure.

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REDUCING AIR LEAKS AND HUMIDITY Many of the subjects covered in this book are closely interrelated. Obviously, you will reduce outdoor humidity from entering your home if you reduce air leakage, which in turn saves air you paid to heat or cool, which in turn lowers your utility bills.

Every Improvement Has Multiple Benefits I will start with air leaks and then discuss some specific humidity sources. You have already made major improvements in leakage when you sealed the forced air system from one end to the other. Now, for some other key areas to investigate. (a) Window seals. There may be a rubber or plastic seal under the window sash that contacts the windowsill when the window is fully closed. I have found major cold air streams blowing under numerous windows, even in new construction. Almost always, the problem is trash in the form of yard mulch, straw, glass clippings etc. In new houses, this frequently happens by the landscape crew installing shrubs or sod while the house painters still have the windows open for ventilation. By the time the new owner moves in, the windows have been closed and locked with the seal compressing the trash. A quick walk through the house with a rag in hand will correct the situation by simply opening each window and wiping the sill and the bottom seal. (b) Storm doors. The better doors look quite attractive as well as serving a few good functions. They can prevent air leakage around a door, they help insulate a door by trapping a dead air space between the house door and the storm door, and if made with tinted or treated glass, they can save the finish on the more expensive wooden door from damaging UV rays. (c) Wall outlets. Electrical wall receptacles often have a cold flow of air due to air entering the wall cavity from the outside. I seal the holes in the back of the box with an appropriate foam or caulk, after first turning off the power to the receptacle. (d) Exterior holes. Spend a few moments looking at all the penetrations through your outside walls. Usually there are excessive openings where power lines pass through for A/C condensers, cable and telephone lines, water pipes for spigots, A/C refrigerant lines, gas lines and exhaust blowers. A good expanding foam will close these air sources. Notice the large hole behind the electrical junction box in the picture to the right; access for rodents, water and air. (e) Down draft vents from cook tops. The powerful fans needed for down draft exhaust systems usually require a 6 or 8 inch metal duct that exits the house wall through a large hooded vent. The back draft preventing damper is usually a substantial source of air leakage into the house, especially on a windy day. I have felt strong gusts of wind blow back into a kitchen due to poor damper fit, or a weak spring on the damper flap. Some people glue a metal washer or two, to the flapper to give it more weight which helps hold it against the wind, but you do not want so much weight that exhaust flow is restricted. Personally, I do not like down draft cook tops for a number of reasons. (f) Fireplaces. Close flues when not using the fireplace, and a quality glass door set will further reduce air flow in and out of the house. A sooty chimney is not a good source for replacement air. Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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(g) Under your floor. Crawl space houses need a through exam under the floor. There are often many pipe and wiring holes that extend into the hollow walls in the house. These holes can introduce air, mold and humidity, and should be filled with an expanding foam. Also, look for missing pieces of insulation that were not discovered when you sealed your duct work joints. (I RECOMMEND R-19 UNDER FLOORS IN CRAWL SPACES FOR MODERATE CLIMATES, AND R-25 IN SEVERE CLIMATES). The problem with most under floor insulation is fit. A batt of insulation that is open at one end or sagging below the under side of the flooring, is allowing outdoor air to be in contact with the floor, which results in ‘0’ R-value for that area of the floor.

Humidity Control One of the largest energy loads for your air conditioning system, is the removal of moisture from the air. Anything you can do to reduce indoor humidity during the A/C season, will help lower your electric bill. Sealing the A/C system, putting a lid on the attic access points, and general tightening of the house all help hold indoor humidity to a minimum. Two other sources are: (a) The crawl space we discussed in the last section has great potential as a source of moisture that can enter the house through the floors. Crawl spaces need a layer of 6-mil plastic over the dirt or gravel, that is completely sealed at all seams (overlap), and at support posts and walls using a plastic adhesive caulk available at building supply stores. The caulk will adhere to both plastic and concrete block. If there is an air handler in your crawl space, it should be well sealed with aluminum tape and insulated so that high humidity does not condense on the air handler case or ductwork and thus drip on the vapor barrier just discussed. Units that are installed in crawl spaces that “sweat” are great breeding surfaces for mold, and the ones that “sweat ” the most, are the ones with open seams that allow the mold spores to be pulled into the air handling system. Crawl space moisture can make a house smell musty, dampens insulation and can rot sub-flooring wood. (b) Internally generated humidity. Cooking, washing, bathing, automatic defrost refrigerators, dishwashers, and breathing all release moisture into the air. Use exhaust fans (the type that really exhaust the air from the house) in the kitchen when cooking in the A/C season. Use exhaust fans in the bathrooms, keep the utility room door closed, wipe shower doors and walls and put the moist towels in the utility room are all methods of lowering the humidity burden on your A/C system. NOTE: During the heating season, humidity is desirable. This is not the time to try to remove the extra moisture from the air. Cooking, showering etc., help offset the typical very dry outdoor air that is drawn into the house. However, good attic ventilation is still essential during the winter so that moisture does not condense in the attic.

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SHADE Shade Is Nature’s Gift To Air Conditioning It can cut your cooling bill in half, but most homes do not have a full canopy of natural shade, hence the in-depth chapter on attic cooling. By following the attic instructions, you will have turned a costly heat mass into shade for the house. Here are some more key areas where shade will reduce your cooling costs. (a) East and west facing windows. When mentioning shading windows, most people think first of the southern exposure glass. Actually, the sun traverses such a high arc in the summer, that the rays hit south facing glass at a steep angle, and much of the radiant energy glances off the glass. This is not the case for east and west exposure. The morning sun beams in perpendicular to east windows; straight rays burn directly into the rooms jump starting the heat of the day in that side of the house. In the afternoon, already the hottest time of the day, the west sun cooks the windows and walls with perpendicular rays that soak through bricks and siding well into the evening. You need vertical shade, such as trees, shrubs or trellises to block walls and windows from direct sun. Sunscreens of various tints and blocking percentages are helpful but not as good as shade produced a few feet from the house.

(b) Southern windows. Since most of the rays strike a glancing blow, arbors that filter and block rays from heating patios, are helpful in reducing southern heat gain. Wide overhanging roofs can provide 100% shadow for south facing walls, but that feature is usually designed in, not added to an existing house.

(c) Condensers. Your A/C condensers should not sit in direct sunlight for the best efficiency. Remember, the fan is trying to cool the refrigerant in the coil, and direct sunlight only makes the task more energy costly. Shrub barriers can shade and protect condensers.

This condenser is shielded from neighbor view and well shaded from the western sun by shrubs. It is also fairly well protected from snowdrifts.

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Create Your Own Unique Shade (d) Blinds and curtains. Plantation blinds are very popular in Texas to block the intense sunlight. Actually, it’s somewhat amusing to see houses with vast quantities of windows completely shielded with shuttered blinds to block the light. Translucent cloth cellular (air pocket) shades are fairly effective in blocking out some summer heat and insulating the window glass in winter, while still allowing light to filter in softly. (e) Skylights. Skylights can add dimension and airy brightness to a room, but they need some energy consideration. When trying to heat a room with skylights, a lot of heat enters the chase (recessed portion of the ceiling) and is lost through the skylight. In the summer, skylights can add substantial heat gain to a room. Losers in both seasons! Since we do not stand and stare out of a skylight, a translucent panel under the skylight would not interfere with their function. I have three large skylights in a south facing sunroom. The skylight chase is about two feet deep for each. Just above the ceiling level, I installed a wood ledger all the way around the opening, and built Japanese grid paper panels that fit on a gasket (adhesive backed foam weather striping) on top of the ledger strips. The panels, similar to Japanese stand-up screens, allow beautiful diffused light to pass through, but add almost two feet of dead air space between panel and glass. Winners in both seasons! Instead of Japanese paper, you could use rigid translucent plastic or even cloth. The idea is to block the direct sun, yet let in the light without losing your winter heat. The photo to the right shows a translucent paper panel that can actually slide into a compartment in the sunroom attic. When closed, the panel traps air and insulates against winter heat loss, yet allows diffused light to enter the room. Notice the air grill just under the paper panels. It allows ceiling air to be pulled down through a wall and blown into the room at floor level. There is not any stagnation in our sunroom in the winter. (f) Trees. Trees are nice, probably the best shade around, but they take time before large enough to be effective. If you do plant trees for summer shade, and live in a winter heating climate, plant deciduous trees on the east, south and west exposures so that you gain winter solar heat.

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DUST REDUCTION Dust is detrimental to cooling and heating efficiency, as well as to health. A dust coating on A/C coils restricts the heat transfer, and dusty ducts support bacterial and mold growth. So, a few words on dust (including mold and pollen) reduction may prove helpful to both your lungs and wallet. (a) Pleated filters. I have mentioned using a good brand of pleated return air filters in some previous chapters. An added benefit is the use of additional return air filter grilles. By spreading the filter task over a greater surface area, you will trap more dust, and the lower air speed through the return filters will aid in the capture and holding of smaller particles. If you have allergy concerns, I recommend that you use the premium filters. (b) Vacuum cleaners. Invest in a good vacuum cleaner that has multiple filters with a final HEPA filter. Carpets should be vacuumed frequently, at least once a week in high activity areas. When dusting and/or operating your vacuum cleaner, TURN THE CENTRAL AIR FAN TO “on”. This will help keep the dust air borne until trapped by the return air filters. (c) Attic pull down door. I have already covered this topic. The insulated hinged lid will help prevent fiberglass insulation and attic dust from entering the house envelope. (d) Fireplaces. Fireplaces are not a good source of air, yet most homes have an open flue even when there is not a fire. Close the flue when not in use, and install glass doors on the hearth. Sprinkle some baking soda in the cleaned fireplace to reduce the sooty smell. (e) Clothes dryer. As discussed earlier, keep the utility room door closed, and give the room its own air supply. Periodically, I recommend pulling the dryer forward, detaching the dryer vent pipe, and blowing a stream of air through the vent tube with an electric leaf blower. This should clean the tubing and dislodge a fair amount of dust and lint, which will help shorten the drying cycle. Once again, you can get double benefit from one action. (f) Clean refrigerator coils. Either behind or under most refrigerators, there are heat exchanger coils that need to remain clean. I have seen some that were totally blocked with dust, and the owner was complaining of inadequate food cooling. There is a fairly easy method of cleaning bottom coils without creating a dust storm. Roll the refrigerator out from a wall, and duct tape a plastic skirt around the base of the refrigerator. Tape the plastic (about 18” wide) to both the floor and the refrigerator sides, front and back. Then cut a small hole in the “skirt” and insert the suction nozzle of a vacuum hose. Using a small portable air compressor with an air nozzle, you can insert the high pressure nozzle into a slit in the plastic “skirt” and blast the dust off the coils while the vacuum cleaner captures all of the dust. The whole process probably will take less time then it took me to type this. Pull the tape, roll the refrigerator back into place, and wipe the floor where the unit was standing. Once a year is enough if you do not have pets.

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MISCELLANEOUS COST SAVERS Please do not be distracted by this section being called “miscellaneous”. There are some important cost savers included. (a) Garage considerations. If your garage is connected and integral to your house, it is advisable to insulate the door. I recommend using foil backed 4’x 8’ by 3/4” foam board cut into sections that fit the door partitions. Also, do not overlook the garage attic as a heat mass that hurts cooling efficiency. It needs to be treated just like the main house attic with ventilation and insulation. I suggest you use garage attic with pull down steps for storage rather than the house attic if that is an option. Another major energy looser is leaving the garage door open in cold weather. I have seen water heaters and air handlers standing in sub-freezing temperatures with the overhead doors fully open all day. This usually means two internal house walls are exposed to the cold temperatures as well. Below is a photo of a foam board insulated garage door.

(b) Lighting. If you have areas where lights are on for long time frames, such as kitchen, front porch, and security lights, I suggest replacing the bulbs as they die with florescent screw -in bulbs. They turn most of their energy into light instead of incandescent bulbs that turn 90% of their electricity into heat. One client had three 100 watt bulbs in recessed fixtures over their kitchen sink. The sink was certainly well illuminated, but the power usage and heat generated by 300 watts from incandescent bulbs was out of proportion with the benefits. The lady of the house did not want florescent lights because of the slight hesitation they present. I suggested replacing the middle bulb with a 65 watt halogen, and on either side with 25 watt florescent bulbs that produce the equivalent light of 100 watt incandescent lights. They now have almost the same illumination, the light comes on instantly, and they require 62% less energy. (c) Heat a cold area. If you sit for long periods at a desk, computer, sewing machine, or craft table, you may find using a radiant under-desk- wall-panel or heated foot pad to be very comfortable. They are available on-line (internet) from office supply companies. It is more economical to heat the cold area than the whole house.

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(d) Programmable thermostat. If your life style is such that you could have periods of time when the house does not have to maintain constant temperatures, then a setback or programmable thermostat can save money. I would caution that you keep the temperature within a 10 to 12 degree range to prevent sheet rock, flooring and furniture stress. (e) Appliances. When replacing appliances, look for those with the Energy Star® approval. Gas dryers and water heaters are less costly to operate than electric in most of the USA, so if natural gas is available, you would be wise to check that option when appliance change time comes. I added gas to our house and installed a gas water heater and dryer. We retained the electric water heater as an in-line storage tank. The gas heater provides all the hot water needed, and the water is moved forward into the extra storage tank so it remains hot on its way to domestic use. The gas water heater also provides our downstairs and basement heat by being pumped to a coil in the central air system. The central air thermostat now activates the pump when heat is needed, and the hot water is pumped through the coil and returned to the bottom of the water heater. It is quiet, clean, provides hot air very quickly, has only one moving part and is very efficient. We do not use the heat pump function except for air conditioning. When the current 27 year old unit finally dies, we will replace it with an air conditioner system only. (f) Water lines. I believe in insulating all water lines that you can find, both hot and cold, with slide-on foam pipe insulation. It keeps the hot water hot longer, and reduces the time waiting for hot water to reach a room. The cold line insulation can prevent “sweating” with subsequent water damage, and may prevent a frozen line some cold winter night.

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A PROBLEM WITH GAS FURNACE DESIGN There is a design short-coming of many gas furnaces that hurts energy efficiency. To understand the problem, we must first look at how most gas furnaces are designed and function in a forced air (central air) system. A stack of burners fires a flame against one side of metal panels, called a heat exchanger. The flame heats the exchanger, and the fumes and some heat exit into the flue and through the roof. The house air is blown by the central air fan against the other side of the heat exchanger thus picking up heat and disbursing it through ducts to the various rooms. The two air streams (combustion air and house air) never mix unless there is a leak in the heat exchanger or the air handler case. Intermixing of the air streams would be very dangerous. The combustion air enters the open grille on the burner side of the air handler.

One Side of the Heat Exchanger is Always Exposed to the Outside Air in Attic and Crawl Space Installations Assume that the gas furnace air handler combination is located in an attic. The flame side of the heat exchanger is exposed to what ever the attic temperature is, and it begins to reverse the process by taking heat from the house air and chilling it until the next firing cycle. Often a “stack effect ”is created in which the warmed air rises in the flue thus pulling more cold air into the firing chamber of the heat exchanger. As warm internal house air rises into ceiling mounted grilles, the reverse air flow continues giving up heat to the chilled side of the heat exchanger. (Crawl space air handlers often have a moisture condensation problem around the “cold ” heat exchangers during air conditioning in high humidity areas.) In the summer season, the outside of the heat exchanger is exposed to hot attic air, and the cooler house air is blown across the heat exchanger on its way through the system picking up added heat from the exchanger. Friends, it is called a heat exchanger because it transfers heat from one side of the metal panel to the other side. It cannot discern if it is warming A/C air with attic heat in the summer, or cooling heated air when not in the firing mode in the winter...it is a heat exchanger! It is a “two way street”. (Sealed combustion systems are less prone to the problem, but still pick up attic heat in the summer A/C mode).

An Alternative Solution Getting Double Duty From One Appliance That is “ON” All the Time I am not suggesting that you rip out your present system, but I do want to explain that other options exist that are more efficient using gas for house heating, when replacement time comes. Since the house with gas furnace heat obviously has gas available, I recommend using a well insulated, high efficiency, gas fired hot water heater for both hot domestic water and house heating. Gas water heaters are extremely reliable and since they are always “on call” to heat your water, they do not need the timer controls, sensors and relays of a gas furnace. We keep our hot water hot all the time; there are no cold starts, and there are models available with 94% efficiency. Instead of a gas furnace in the central air handler, there is a hot water coil that is connected to the water heater through insulated lines. When the thermostat calls for house heat, a small (one moving part) water pump pushes hot water to the water coil in the air handler. (It is not difficult to retrofit) The central air blower pushes house air through the water coil fins, which rapidly heats the air for the house. The hot water returns to the bottom of the hot water heater and the cycle continues until the central air thermostat is satisfied. Generally, water leaves the water Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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heater at 140 degrees (depending on where you have set it) and returns to the water heater about 30 degrees cooler. Properly sized, all hot water users and the hot air system can be in use at the same time, since the output water is 140 degrees, or as set. One gas water heater of proper size can supply multiple central air systems. In effect, the water heater becomes the furnace, and the hot water can be pumped any where for heat extraction. With multiple central air systems, each system is equipped with its own thermostat, pump, water coil, and water lines to and from the water heater. The described system is quiet, efficient, and allows the air handler case to be completely sealed and insulated. The possibility of furnace fumes getting into the house air and the need for gas lines to furnaces is eliminated, and only one flue is needed for the house. In reality, the high efficiency gas water heaters are designed to pull in their own combustion air and exhaust the burner fumes through house sidewalls using PVC pipe. I retrofitted my downstairs heat pump system a number of years ago by simply adding a water coil and pump, and wiring the thermostat to turn on the pump when it calls for heat. Our utility bills went down, and the air is much warmer then the heat pump produced. For air handlers located in attics or cold crawl spaces, a freeze module can be installed to activate the pump if freezing temperatures are approached at the unit. I have seen houses with two water heaters, two gas furnaces and four flue stacks sticking through the roof. Each stack is a potential rain leak, and all that piping poses a gas leak potential. One properly sized gas water heater with insulated water lines to the air handlers would have eliminated three roof stacks, two gas furnaces and improved the efficiency at less up front cost. As for potential water leaks from the coil, remember it is enclosed in the air handler which has a safety pan under it if in the attic or house interior.

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ENERGY IMPROVEMENTS THAT ALSO HAVE HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS REPAIR OF FURNACE AND WATER HEATER FLUE PIPES (carbon monoxide leaks) CONDITION AND CLEANLINESS OF HUMIDIFIER ON CENTRAL AIR SYSTEM (mold producer) CLEANLINESS AND CONDITION OF COOLING COILS IN CENTRAL AIR SYSTEM (mold, dirt blockage, drainage tray for condensate can be bacteria breeding pond in some older units) BETTER AND COMPLETE FILTRATION IN RETURN AIR SYSTEM (anti-allergy pleated filters) SEAL ALL DUCTWORK AIR LEAKS (reduce air loss, air bypass of filters, dust spreading, coil buildup which in turn helps breed mold growth) ATTIC COLLAR WITH INSULATED LID FOR PULL DOWN STEPS (seal out air borne fiberglass insulation, dust and pollen are pulled into house with make up air for furnace, water heater and clothes dryer exhaust) ISOLATE AND PROVIDE OUT SIDE AIR FOR CLOTHES DRYER (reduce lint pulled back into living area and reduce makeup air through air leaks in house and possible back drafting of flues) TURN CENTRAL AIR FANS TO “ON” WHEN VACUUMING, CLEANING, EXTRA GUESTS (trap air borne dust in filter system)

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WHEN REPLACEMENTS ARE NECESSARY This book has concentrated on improving your home as it currently exists to reach its full potential in energy efficiency. However, sooner or later, your A/C, heating or other major systems will need replacement. I urge you to look at these situations as opportunities to upgrade to higher efficient equipment when replacement is necessary. It is almost always cost effective to do so. Electric Water Heater. If you have natural gas available to your home (sometimes available if three neighbors request it), then I would recommend installing a high efficiency gas water heater. Actually, we converted as soon as gas was available, and kept our electric heater in the system downstream of the gas heater. In this way, the hot water is always moved forward to the turned off electric tank, which simply serves as inline storage. Incidentally, you do not need a through-the-roof flue pipe for the newer gas water heaters. Our new high capacity heater uses pvc pipe and exhausts through an adjacent wall much like a clothes dryer. Clothes Dryer. As above, if gas available, I would replace an electric dryer with a gas dryer. They dry faster and at less cost per year. Be sure air supply and exhaust air meet code, and I advise using metal exhaust duct, not plastic. Gas Furnace. I covered this subject in the Gas Furnace Design chapter. Even though there are closed air systems available, I would use the circulating hot water coil mounted in the air handler or plenum as my source of heat. I retrofitted my downstairs heat pump forced air system with a water coil, and it has been delivering fast, hot air at significant cost savings. The costs of the water coil, piping to and from the air handler, and the small pump, were less than a gas furnace repair my neighbor had last month. Air Conditioning. Replacement of your A/C system is costly, to say the least, but offers a great step forward if your current system is over 10 or 12 years old. For the past few years, the mandated SEER has been 10. The higher the SEER, the lower the operating cost, and in direct proportion. In other words, a 12 SEER unit is 20% less costly to operate than a 10 SEER. In 2006, the minimum code requirement will rise to 12. Our energy policy could be more aggressive, as I replaced our upstairs unit in 1999 with a 15+ SEER system. There are many 13, 14 and higher SEER systems on the market, but you have to be careful of diminishing returns when comparing cost to savings. I needed the super high SEER because the system is a heat pump and provides my upstairs with both cooling and heating. It is a top-of-the line Trane® XL-1400 system with an oversized variable speed air handler that ramps up in speed in stages, depending on the heating or cooling requirements. It is superbly efficient and quiet. For A/C replacement, I would recommend a SEER of at least 13 to 14. Energy rates will continue to rise, and some makes of A/C systems loose some of their efficiency over time. This will not make me very popular with the manufacturers, but I am not ready to embrace the new refrigerant yet. I would stay with the R-22 refrigerant for the near term just to avoid the double high pressures in the newer refrigerant units until more history is gained. I definitely recommend a variable speed air handler that can be operated all the time to constantly filter air at minimal annual cost. If you have made the improvements to your house and the heating/cooling system as described in this book, you will have made significant reductions on the heat and cooling load of your system. Before you make replacement decisions on equipment capacity, have a load analysis done by a reputable firm. Do not simply make replacement decisions based on the original capacities. Also keep in mind, that if you switch to a 94% efficient water heater for your house Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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heat source, you will need much fewer BTUs then an 80% furnace. I have a neighbor who has two 100,000 BTU per hour furnaces and his house would probably calculate at 50,000 BTUs in total from an engineered study. You also do not want excess cooling capacity. Your A/C system should run pretty hard on a 100 degree day, without a lot of on and off cycles. If it is over capacity, it may cycle over 100 times a day which wastes a lot of energy and will likely not provide adequate de-humidification. When our 27 year old very inefficient down stairs 2 -1/2 ton heat pump finally fails, we will replace it with a 2 ton straight A/C system since we now have hot water supplied air heat and a more efficient house. Window Replacement. Older houses with loose glazing, drafty, non-insulated single glass windows are often replaced. I recommend low -E glass in virgin vinyl, foam filled frames, with the mullions between two layers of argon filled glass. This is a fairly standard specification for good windows with a lifetime transferable warranty. We had 20 installed in one day. The windows tilt in for ease of cleaning, they fit tightly when closed, eliminate a lot of outdoor noise, and have further reduced our energy bills. New Siding. If you have new siding installed, I recommend an under-lay of foil covered fan fold. This is a common practice over old siding to provide a flat surface for the new siding. Some fan fold is only thin foam board. The foil covered fan fold provides a great opportunity for a radiant barrier for your walls. New Roofing. New roof installations provide an opportunity to have a ridge vent installed to aid in attic cooling. As a house preserving item, I recommend a layer of ice/water dam material. It has a peel off backing that exposes a very sticky surface for adhesion to your plywood roof deck. It is used in the valleys, rakes and along the eaves under the felt tarpaper and new shingles. Installed correctly, your new roof should be leak proof for decades.

Fix it, Fix it Once I have always tried to make any replacements with materials that eliminate future maintenance. Vinyl siding costs less than repainting the house every few years; concrete driveways do not require resurfacing as asphalt does; vinyl windows do not rot; aluminum gutters seem to outlast other materials; painted aluminum porch railings last forever compared to wood; epoxy paint for shower ceilings last decades; an upper middle-of-the line garbage disposal is quieter and usually made with stainless steel cutters and internal case, longer lasting than the low end builder line model. I have almost never been disappointed when buying upper end models, and I have almost always been disappointed when buying low end products. Buy it, buy it once.

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PRESERVING YOUR HOME In a few chapters, I have mentioned steps to take while working on an energy project that will also help preserve your home, and may eliminate costly repairs. For example, in the Utility Room chapter, you were advised to place a caulk bead around the perimeter of the room to contain a washing machine water leak. If the room is over a crawl space, you could easily install an emergency floor drain to exit into the crawl space or through a foundation vent with some pvc pipe. In the Water Heater chapter, I discussed the importance of changing your water heater anode every 5 or 6 years to preserve the tank. Of course, all of the energy saving projects will help your heating and cooling systems last longer due to fewer starts and overall less operating time. Reducing wide variations in indoor temperature and humidity will help sheetrock walls, hardwood floors, and furniture from undue stress and separation.

Other suggestions are: Use metal braided water hoses on your clothes washer and laundry tub. Foam pipe insulation even on cold lines will prevent condensation water drips from these pipes. Self stick vinyl floor tiles applied to under sink and pantry cabinets will handle water and chemical spills, and wear from pots, pans and canned goods. Do not insulate or block non-IC rated recessed light fixtures. Only those rated IC (insulation contact) can be enclosed by insulation. Use IC rated for any new or replacement fixtures. Do not store any container of gasoline, including leaf blowers, lawn mowers etc. in the garage, house or basement. Use copper lines to connect the refrigerator icemaker to the water source. The nylon lines have a tendency to crack. Put hose caps on the water heater spigots. Check the connection and strength of the fitting on your garbage disposal where the dish washer discharge hose connects. In many cases, the hot detergent water has eroded the neck of the fitting to the point of failure. It is a real mess when 10 gallons of dishwater is pumped into your cabinets. Know where, how and needed tool to turn off the following: (a) main electrical panel (b) gas to house (c) water line to house at the meter (d) water in the house at main valve Disconnect hoses from water spigots outside during winter.

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Periodically check the toilet tank hold down bolts. Have wood fire chimneys cleaned. Keep trees and shrub branches trimmed to prevent contact with the house or A/C condenser on windy days. Check the insulation on the refrigerant lines for tears that would allow hot moist air to cause condensation water damage, especially in attics. Install water line shock absorbers. Blow out your sprinkler system prior to freezing temperatures. Keep gutters clean.

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EMERGENCY GENERATOR AND THE ENERGY EFFICIENT HOME If you live in a wind, lightning or ice storm area, you may have a back-up generator to power key items of your home during electrical outages. Once you have completed the “energy overhaul” of your home, you may be able to operate the most important systems with a small (5000 watt) generator even in harsh winter conditions. This size generator can be purchased at warehouse stores such as Costco® or at home building supply stores at reasonable prices. I recall paying about $500 for that capacity a couple of years ago. The price jumps considerably as the generator size increases beyond about 6000 watts. You certainly want to supply power to refrigerators to safeguard food, some lights and to some form of heat source during winter to prevent serious house damage. I know of people who have moved into a hotel during multi-day power outages only to return to a variety of frozen water pipes that had split. In Richmond, Virginia, we experience a fair number of ice storms every few years because we fall on the snow/rain dividing line.

Give Your Generator a Chance to Keep You Comfortable We can survive quite comfortably for a few days on backup electrical power in the winter, and we can even air condition most of the house in the summer. The Trane® very high efficient heat pump that serves the upstairs only draws about 1700 watts in the A/C mode, so it can handle the summer heat where we sleep, and enough cold air falls downstairs to keep that floor comfortable as well. However, the upstairs unit draws too much power in the heat pump winter mode when it goes into the defrost cycle. It would overload the generator. And, we cannot operate the downstairs A/C in the summer, because the unit is so old and draws so much current. However, with the gas water heater supplying hot water to the water coil in the downstairs air handler, we only have to power the central air blower fan and the small circulation pump to have all the heat we need. Of course the heat rises and does a pretty good job of warming the upstairs. In both cases, heating the downstairs in winter and cooling the upstairs in summer, we have enough electrical backup capacity to handle the freezer, refrigerators, bath and kitchen lights, and a TV. We can even cook a microwave dinner if we turn off the refrigerator during the cooking cycle. This energy independence using a small generator during power outages, would not have been possible without the home improvements we have made. I included this narrative for you, as a benefit to keep in mind as you make your energy reductions. There are probably more power outages in our future than we have experienced in the past!

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THE ANTI-BIO-TERRORIST HOUSE (This offers a practical use as a spring and fall pollen-free fresh air supply system.) This is not a topic I had any intention of covering in this book, but I have been asked to comment on the “duct tape & plastic” panic of 2003. Personally, I find the prospect of a terrorist attack in which a neighborhood is “gassed” or subjected to germ warfare as extremely remote. Even more remote is the chance that a family would receive adequate notice and in fact be sitting in their “safe room” at the precise time of the attack. However remote, and putting my doubts aside, how would I prepare a house for an anthrax or other bio-attack?

Don’t Gas Yourself First, I would not try to survive in a duct tape and plastic room. Let’s face it, it is too small, it demands remaining in the room for long periods of “just in case” time, and it probably does not include a bathroom, bedroom or kitchen. A 10’x12’ room with an 8’ ceiling would cause two adults to become oxygen deprived in less than two hours due to consuming the oxygen, and the buildup of carbon dioxide. Some people would “gas” themselves in a frantic plastic room. Also, one must wonder when it would be safe to come out. Does each homeowner in every potential contaminated neighborhood call 911 and ask for a complete bio-lab house examination? Until the rest of the house is declared “clear” you couldn’t come out, because if, by the remotest of possibilities, there was a toxin in the house, it could be in the central air system, drapes, sofas, carpets, exhaust fan vents, shoes, toothbrushes ...the list goes on and on. The house interior would have to be decontaminated, even the TV remote control. So, for me, the plastic cocoon is out. My method would be to approach the entire house the way “clean rooms” are done in various dangerous industrial situations. I would inject filtered air into the house thus creating positive pressure that would force air to leave through all leaks in the structure, which prevents “bad” air from entering. Step One: I would follow the directions in sealing the leaks in ductwork (Central Forced Air System) and all parts of the central air system using aluminum duct tape. I do not mean to seal its usefulness, only the leaks. Clean the metal surfaces to insure a good seal with the tape. Be sure doors and windows are tight. Close fireplace flues. (Reducing Air Leaks) I am not going to achieve a perfectly air tight house. I am merely trying to minimize the leakage to reduce the volume of air needed to create positive air pressure within the house. You can still blow up a balloon that has a small leak! Step Two: Once I felt I had the house as tight as I could reasonably get it, I would hire a house air leakage testing firm. They use a temporary air door to pressure test a house and can determine how many air changes per hour the house experiences. They provide a rating expressed as ACH, which stands for “air changes per hour”. The typical new house today has 0.25 to 0.50 ACH, which means 1/4 total air change every hour to 1/2 air change every hour. Assuming a 3000 sq. ft. house with 8 ft. ceilings, the house contains 24,000 cu. ft. of air. If the ACH is 0.25, then the house has 1/4 or 6000 cu. ft. of air replacement per hour. That equates to 100 cu. ft. per minute (cfm) , (6000/60=100). A 100 cfm rate is not a lot of air to provide, but of course that is just the present leakage rate. Wind must be considered since it is both good news and bad news. The bad news is the profound effect on air infiltration. The good news is that the wind would help dissipate any toxic gas. To be on the safe side, I would guess that 800 cfm would provide enough air pressure to ensure air flow out of the house leak points in all normal situations, Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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including windy days. I would certainly ask the testing firm what they felt would be sufficient cfm to keep positive air pressure in the house. Step Three: A central air fan blower, just like the ones in my current systems, is not expensive. I would purchase a blower rated at 800 cfm and an air handler housing without heating or cooling coils. I would only need the housing to provide a container for the blower that provided an intake and output chamber. I would mount the air handler in the attic to place it high above ground level. This would provide air dilution before a toxic gas could reach the gable intakes. I would attach an output duct to run from the air handler to the top of a closet and attach it to a connection collar through the sheetrock. All joints and seams would be caulked and aluminum taped. I would install an adjustable diffuser on the closet ceiling so that I could close it to conserve energy when the system was not in use, and I would insulate and weather strip the inside of the closet door. Step Four: The other end of the air handler would be fitted with a rack for air filters. The filters would have to be well mounted with a gasket to prevent any air seepage around the filters. I would probably select 20”x20” for the filter size, which is very standard for an 800 cfm blower. The biggest challenge would be the selection and source of filters. Both charcoal and HEPA filters are available, and I’m sure I could find a company in the near future that produces toxic gas and bio-proof filters. The bio-filters would likely have to remain sealed until an attack was imminent and then quickly installed up stream of the other filters. Step Five: The described system has far more use than simply waiting for “code red”. I would use the system without the bio-attack filters in the spring and fall when outdoor air temperatures are mild and we wanted pollen free filtered air. Simply open the closet door, open the diffuser grille, and turn on the blower. If the system had to be used in a bio-attack in the summer or winter, the central air cooling or heating units would be turned on to help overcome the temperature extremes. If the system was ever used in a bio-attack, the filters would have to be removed by experts in safety suits, and the attic checked for contaminates. I don’t know what bio-chem medical experts would think about this design, but I would feel fairly confident in it, providing I had the correct bio-filters. Incidentally, this is basically the same principle used by our M1 Abrams military tanks. The non-terrorist use is appealing, and since some family members suffer from pollen allergies in the spring and fall, I may build it despite my disbelief in a bio-attack. I think I can construct the package for about $200-$300 not including bio-filters, probably less than a basket load of cloth duct tape I saw leave a store one day, and certainly less than the cost of our allergy and upper respiratory drugs for the pollen season.

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Note: Just before publishing this book, I built the system as described above, only using a smaller blower, and without bio-filters. I used a coarse spun glass filter to screen large particles, inline with a multi-pleated anti-allergy filter (MERV *12) to screen out pollen, and a foam/charcoal filter for odor. All the filters are 20”x 20” x 1”. I happened to have a used kitchen exhaust fan with hood, rated at 250 cfm., that I converted into a homemade air handler. The entire system is in the attic, and blows through a closet ceiling. I used a remote controlled electric outlet fixture like the one we put behind our Christmas tree, so that I did not have to do any rewiring. We can open the weather stripped closet door, push a button, and have a gale of fresh filtered air. As suspected, it is not powerful enough to pressurize the house in all wind conditions, but does a great job of injecting pollen free, fresh filtered air into the house, and our spring season allergies have been much milder than in the past. It took less than a day to build and install. The cost was low because I had the blower. I purchased one 4’x8’ foil faced foam board, some 6” diameter expandable duct (looks like clothes dryer duct only 6” instead of 4”), a roll of aluminum duct tape, a 6” ceiling register with adjustable damper, and the filters. Total cost was under $100, and everything was purchased from a local building supply store. Why didn’t I do this 1000 sinus headaches and 25 years ago? *MERV stands for Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value. The higher the MERV, the better the filtering ability.

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CONCLUSION AND OPERATION OF YOUR MORE EFFICIENT HOME I have performed every modification recommended in this book many times. The cost savings are tremendous, and if you performed all of the projects yourself, the return on your investment for time and material should be well over 100% in the first year. Your savings will continue to accumulate as long as you own the home, and the improvement costs will likely be recouped when the house is sold.

You Can Make a Difference; Take the Lead in Your Neighborhood Think of the national impact home owners could have if all houses reduced their energy consumption by 30% to 50%. Brown-outs, oil shortages, and Mideast dependency would be drastically reduced. Now that you have made the improvements, you may well have excess heating and cooling capacity. You do not have to replace your equipment, but rather will operate it more effectively. You will find longer time frames between your system startups, higher outdoor temperatures before your A/C comes on, and colder outside temps before the heat is activated. When your heating or cooling system finally reaches retirement age, you may be able to downsize the replacement equipment, thus saving replacement cost as well as operating expense. There are a couple operational procedures you may want to try. In a two zone house, I advise letting the upstairs unit do the bulk of the work during the cooling season since the cooled air will spill downstairs. As an example, assume you want the upstairs to maintain 70 degrees and the downstairs to maintain 72 degrees. Set the thermostats at those settings and you will find the up unit doing most of the work, and the down unit coming on rarely. In some cases, it is helpful to operate one system on “cool” and leaving the second system at fan “on” so that the cool air is well distributed throughout the house. The second system will activate the compressor to “top off ” the temp when needed. This method allows one unit to operate long enough to de-humidify the air. During the winter, you will reverse the procedure. Let the down unit supply the bulk of the heat which will rise in the house and fill the upstairs. In a single forced air system for the whole house, I would advise using a programmable thermostat and purposely putting in some variation in temperature settings. This will cause the A/C to have to overcome 2 or 3 degrees instead of only 1 degree, which will require a longer continuous run with de-humidifying benefits. During the spring and fall, there are often wonderful days when the temperature is comfortable and the humidity is low. Out door air would be great inside the home if it was pollen free. Attic exhaust fans can be used to pull in the air, and pleated air filters that fit a couple of windows can effectively keep the indoor air pollen free. See the chapter on Anti- Bio-Terrorist House for the useful purpose of filtered forced air injection. Indoor air quality should not suffer from the projects outlined in this book. It is doubtful that you could seal an existing house to the point of hurting air quality, and in fact, the isolation of the clothes dryer will help prevent negative pressure that could pull flue and chimney fumes into the home. The typical home built today has one air change every two to four hours, expressed as ACH .25 or .50. A reading of ACH (air change per hour) .25 means that 1/4 of the air is changed each hour, or 4 hours to change the air one time. Recently, a panel house was built in Oregon with an ACH of 0.07, which is one change every 14 hours. Your efforts to seal the air leaks in your forced air system, better filtering and a tighter house in general will go a long way to Practical Energy Cost Reduction For The Home

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prevent pollen and mold from entering the house. If in doubt, have an air leak test performed on your house, which will indicate the ACH of the house. Please do not be overwhelmed by the list of projects. It will take some time to be sure, but the satisfaction of seeing your operating costs go down and your air quality go up as you steadily make repairs is well worth the effort.

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Typical Improvement Materials and Sourcing Item

Source

Adhesive backed foam weather stripping Aluminum foil duct tape - buy the type with peel off backing Aluminum foil backed 1/2” or 3/4” foam insulation board (4’x8’) Attic exhaust - various Gable fans Ridge vents – note, some brands are much more effective than others Roof mounted vents Roof mounted fans Roof mounted turbines Caulk Coil cleaners - various Simple Green® Digital thermometers Duct and plenum insulation 4’x50’ roll of vinyl backed insulation foil faced foam board (4’x8’) Electric motor bearing oil Filters - various cut-to-fit - The Web® Electrostatic material is very good pleated - Filtrete® 1000 and 1250 models (products of 3M® Co) other makes available, some are very good Flexible ductwork, fittings Florescent screw-in bulbs Hot water coils and pumps – Try www.wwrothmann.com Insulation ---various attic - I prefer the itch free Owens Corning® Miraflex® R-25 2’x25’ roll pipe- foam tubes water heater blanket foam (can)- I prefer Daptex® (latex; water wash up if before it cures) - Great Stuff* by DOW Chemical Co. Radiant barriers Reflectix® 1-800-879-3645 Solar Shield® 1-800-645-3645 Return air filter grilles Soffit vents Solar screens - some are custom made Water heater anode

HBS (Home building supply store) HBS HBS HBS

Water heaters--ultra high efficiency (for domestic hot water and house heat)

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HBS Heating and A/C supply Warehouse and grocery stores Walmart, Target and Radio Shack Insulation supply companies HBS Hardware store HBS

HBS and A /C supply HBS Search on internet by subject HBS

HBS (call for sources if not available locally) HBS or A/C supply HBS HBS Search on internet for best price or plumbing supply I prefer the Polaris® model made by American Water Heater Group. They can be found on the internet at very good prices, delivered.

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Aluminum duct tape, digital thermometer, cut-to-fit filter material, pleated filter.

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