Energy Investment: Tune up your House

An Energy Audit on your home is like visiting your mechanic when your car may be performing inefficiently. There are many reasons that your house may not be performing efficiently just like there may be many options with your car. There is low hanging fruit in both scenarios. Your Car: Low tire pressure= lowered fuel mileage... Solutions Keep tires properly inflated. Your Home: Lights are always on and are incandescent= wasted energy and higher cost of ownership....solution turn off the switch and replace those old bulbs with CFL Bulbs.
Maybe that is a bad example but there is low hanging fruit everywhere. Many times in your home there are many things that can be very cost effective in helping you to reduce your homes energy consumption, increase the comfort level and reduce your monthly expenses. This is where a Home Energy Audit with a Blower Door and Duct Blaster performance test can help. Identifying a leaky weatherstrip on a door is one thing but locating those hard to find air leaks and duct leaks is an entirely more confusing matter.
In addition to measuring the air leakage and duct leakage a good energy audit should analyze, insulation, windows, appliances, plug loads, moisture, ventilation, lighting, and of course mechanical systems. All of these things can be addressed by a trained professional. Please look up your local HERS Raters and BPI affiliated auditors when your are looking to tune up your home.

Why is this important?
As we move through home ownership and life in general we want to make good economic decisions. This is not to say that people don't want to have some toys and frivolous items as well. I would like to emphasize that an investment in energy efficiency is one that will never diminish. As energy costs increase and stock values decrease it becomes all more obvious that an investment in energy efficiency will be the most stable possible. You may not see returns like a hot stock portfolio but you are also guaranteed a positive return on most energy investments. As energy costs increase your investment becomes more proffitable to you. This may even free up a little extra cash that could be applied to that new car or those ever increasing health insurance premiums. So think of energy improvements as a long term investment with dividends that you can enjoy on your next montth's utility bill.

Upgrading your home, deciding the best options

Recently new tax incentives have become available for homeowners. These tax credits can be applied toward things like thermal improvements to your home, renewable energy systems, and energy upgrades to your home. How do you decide which upgrades will be the most effective? What areas are important to look at first? These are all questions that can be answered by looking analytically at your home. A Home Energy Rating is a good tool in beginning your decision making process. The raing could help you evaluate and decide on appropratie upgrades to your specific home. The rating would include pressure testing of the building envelope and duct system, visual inpsections of insualtion levels and quality, evaluation of HVAC and water heating eqipment, evaluation of appliance and lighting, and computer modeling to analyze areas of improvement. At the copletion of the rating you will be presented with enough information to make educted decisions on what appropriate upgrades would be beneficial. Check out your nearest Home Energy Rater at RESNET or take a look at Efficient Building Solutions website if you are in the Knoxville area.

Natural Ventialtion...

Over the last few days warm weather has visited us here in East Tennessee. I as well as I suspect many others in the area have enjoyed some natural ventilation in our homes. I think the change in the seasons is a good time to evaluate some of the energy choices that we make in our homes. For expample during these early spring/ late winter warm ups, there is a great opportunity to turn off the heating equipment and enjoy a little "free heat" from mother nature. During these warm days it is easy to open windows and let warm outside air into our homes. This provides fresh air into the home and is not going to be an energy penalty. Then as temperatures start to cool in the evening close those windows and contain some of that comfortable fresh air. It may not only be healthy, as many alergens and pollen have not yet arrived, but also cost effective in that you can eliminate the need for supplemental heat for days at a time. Go ahead and give it a try, it is a very low tech energy saving solution.

Zebra Alliance Groundbreaking

    There is a new Zero Energy Home initiative that is starting in Oak Ridge Tennessee. Four homes that are being designed to reduce their energy consumption by more than 50% will be constructed and studied in this development. Under the partnership between Schaad companies and Oak Ridge National Laboratories known as the Zebra Alliance these homes will be constructed using new construction practices and techniques. Check out their website at www.zebralliance.com for more information. This is has prom,ise to be a very exciting program for East Tennessee and the building community as a whole.

ENERGY STAR HOMES at the Parade of Homes

This Year there will be several homes inculded in the Greater Knoxville Homebuilders Association that will be ENERGY STAR certified Homes. Both PJS Construction and Lake Forest Construction will Showcase their ENERGY STAR qualified Homes.

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