A well-trained Consultant on Comfort & Indoor Air Quality is going to visit your abode and will, through the use of modern diagnostic instruments and procedures for testing, identify issues which have impacts on the living environment within your home. Then, your consultant will give you a personalized arrangement for permanently solving these problems.
Initial Consultation
Your checkup begins with an interview with an Auditor of Home Performance. Your input will offer useful information regarding whether there are rooms which feel clammy any time the air conditioner is working, or whether there exist areas of the house which require to be cleaned more often than the rest. We advise all the grown-ups in your abode to take part in this initial consultation everyone has a different perception of comfort as well as the quality of indoor air.
Inspection of Equipment
This commences with your cooling and heating equipment. Is it safe, efficient, and dependable? Your auditor is going to carry out a visual inspection of your equipment and see if there are any signs of improper installation, deterioration, or inadequate maintenance. They will tell you the lifespan of your equipment on the average. Also, they will assess the air filtration of your system as well as purification efficiency, to find out whether enhancements would clean the air within your home better.
Inspection of Insulation
If you have inadequate insulation, even the best cooling, and heating system will not be able to give you comfort and will cost a lot of money to run. Your auditor is going to carry out a visual inspection of the levels of insulation across the length and breadth of your home and find out whether they are in line with currently stipulated levels. More significantly, they are going to look for hidden imperfections like hollow wall cavities, which permit heat and air to escape despite your insulation. They will also check the levels of attic ventilation.
Infiltrometer® Blower Door Test
All houses are expected to have a little bit of air leakage. However, the majority of houses leak excessively. Among the signs of excessive leakage are uneven temperatures across the length and breadth of the house, excessive dust, wasted energy, dry air in winter, cold drafts, and clammy air during summer. Conversely, some abodes are excessively airtight, a situation that can result in unhealthy air within the home.
To determine the airtightness of a home, the scientists of the Department of Energy at Princeton University created the blower door equipment. On several occasions, it has been featured on television and in magazines among which are Better Homes & Gardens, National Geographic, This Old House, and Popular Science.
Using an automated blower door system (an Infiltrometer®) your Auditor of Comfort and Quality of Air within your home will assess how airtight or leaky your entire abode is, and where adjustments are possible.
Evaluation of Air Leakage
All air leaks are not the same. From the standpoint of air quality, those that happen around your doors and windows are good leaks, as they let fresh air in. Bad leaks are one that let in moldy, dusty, or contaminated air from your garage, crawl space, or attic. Air ducts that leak often let in contaminated air, and make your cooling and heating equipment to function far below optimal efficiency. Being part of the blower door test carried out using Infiltrometer®, your auditor is going to identify the points at which the worst air leaks occur, and where adjustments are possible.
Diagnosis of Air Flow
Whenever the air duct system of your home has blockages or design flaws, the flow of air in your home is going to be unevenly distributed or restricted. This costs you a lot of money and is capable of causing you a lot of discomfort in your abode. Nationwide studies carried out on electric utilities indicate that more than 66% of air conditioners and heat pumps have this issue. Your auditor is going to carry out tests on ‘static pressure’, – such as a blood pressure check on your ducts to uncover any design problems or hidden blockages.
Hood Test on the Electronic Capture of Air Flow
Have you gotten rooms which are difficult to cool or heat? There are very cheap remedies. Your auditor is going to use a hood for capturing airflow to determine the exact volume of conditioned air that is reaching those rooms ( as long as the supply vents can be reached). If the flow of air is inadequate, the auditor will establish the causes and proffer solutions to it.
Customized Home Solutions Plan & Report
Upon the completion of the inspection as well as testing, your auditor is going to explain the results, and also offer you an ordered plan of suggested home solutions. Many of them such as weather-stripping, or the addition of insulation – can be carried out by homeowners at weekends. Other enhancements can only be handled by professionals.
You will learn how to do the following in the course of your Comprehensive Home Performance Energy Audit:
- Achieve evenly-distributed, comfortable temperatures across the length and breadth of your home
- Sustain healthy, comfortable levels of humidity all-year-round
- Decrease dust, noise produced by a system as well as repair bills
- Reduce the amounts you spend on the utility ( usually 10% to 50%)