This Old House-Bruce Torrey held up a chunk of fiberglass insulations the he'd just ripped from a crawl space off the third floor of Madeline Krauss and Paul Friedberg's soon-to-be-renovated Shingle style home. Turning it over, he showed Maddy the dirty black streaks that coated it's edge. "Wow, what is that?" she asked with concern. "Was there a fire?"
Thankfully,the house-the site of This Old House TV's 2007 project house hadn't been damaged by flames. But the ugly smudges were a warning that the three story house could still burn it's new owners-with outsized heating and cooling bills. The Marks were soot streaks caused by drafts whipping against the fiberglass insulation, which collected dirt particles from the air. Finding such drafts is part of Torrey's job as senior building investigator for Building Diagnostic s, the Cape Cod based company the couple hired to conduct an energy audit on their house before construction began so they could learn where they needed to tighten up.
Leaks and drafts that let heat escape in the winter and trickle in during the summer aren't easily detected because they are usually the result of problems behind walls or in other hard-to-reach places. "Heat loss and drafts are by their nature invisible" says Torrey, who worked with TOH contractor Tom Silva to identify problems in the 1987 house. Together they ran a diagnostic energy audit, which relies on a combination of sophisticated equipment and good old fashioned detective work. For a cost of about $400, such an audit provides the homeowners with a written report detailing a homes problem areas and laying out cost-effective solutions
Windows tend to leak, but not necessarily through thin glass. "typically, air moves through headers and below sills,"Tom says. So, not surprisingly, the infared camera showed no insulation in the cavities above and below the windows at this house. Torrey then took out a candle size smoke stick, which emits a wispy column of non toxic white powder when it's squeezed, to help locate small drafts.
When we held it up mto the window casing the trail of smoke quickly bent toward the trim and disappeared behind it, telling him that there were uninsulated voids. The renovation plan calls for replacement plan calls for replacement windows that fit inside the existing frames. But first, Tom will drill a series of 1/2 inch holes all the way around the inside of the jamb-top,bottom,and sides-so he can inject expanding foam into the cavaties
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Have an energy audit done to your home and purchase windows or siding from us and we will pay for the energy audit, up to $400.
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