BEFORE THE AUDIT:
This customer was very energy conscious; she desired to maximize her home’s energy performance for the benefit of her living comfort and to reduce her energy costs. There were many issues that she hoped to address by doing a home performance retrofit. Her boiler had just been replaced but she still felt that it was running more than it needed to, based on the size of the home. She expressed to us that she was concerned that the home was very drafty and therefore contributing to excessive energy usage. Additionally she mentioned that during the warm seasons, she was forced to avoid using the upstairs because it was excessively hot and uncomfortable and would not remain cool. Another concern that she shared with us was that her close proximity to a heavy traffic corridor caused the home to be plagued by noise pollution and made it very hard to relax in peace. Before calling upon Building Sciences LLC, she interviewed four other companies, explained her concerns and received proposals from each. None of the other companies were able to satisfy all of her needs.
WHAT THE ENERGY AUDIT FOUND:
After meeting with her, hearing her needs, and performing the energy audit; we found that the home was indeed very leaky and drafty. We discovered that the reason her home failed to retain heated or cooled air was because the walls were not insulated. The attic had no air sealing done to it, her domestic hot water heater was out dated and beyond its time of optimal efficiency and her noise pollution problem was also a result of lacking insulation in the wall cavities.
WHAT WAS SUGGESTED:
Our team determined that we could meet all of her needs and proposed 3 packages as our solutions for her problems (Gold, Silver and Bronze packages). She was very pleased with our suggestions for the Gold package and hired us to install the following equipment and energy saving measures.
All exterior walls were drilled from the outside and filled with cellulose insulation, this created a thermal barrier to prevent heat transfer and acted as a sound barrier to cut down the drastic amount of noise pollution. All basement and crawl space walls were sprayed with 3” high density foam insulation to bring the entire space within the thermal envelope. In the attic, we sealed the top-plates of the walls and throughout the rest of the home we sealed penetrations to the thermal envelope to cut back on drafts and conditioned air losses. 9 inches of cellulose insulation was added to the attic to help contain cooled and heated air. A Navien on-demand water heater which is 97% energy efficient was installed to counter the wastefulness of her outdated and inefficient model.
THE RESULTS: Look through the images above to see the before and after difference of our work!
