Enjoy more comfort and spend less on fuel this winter
By Tim King
This illustration depicts the most common places for cold air to enter a home and warm air to leak out of a home that is not properly sealed. PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Working with a master Jack-of-all-Trades, Do-it-Yourself dad, I can’t tell you how many times I heard the phrase, “Don’t worry, trim hides a multitude of sins.”
I quickly learned that what he meant by this was that a well-placed, decorative piece of trim molding did a wonderful job of covering up any, eh…inconsistencies (mistakes) in how two surfaces came together, or failed to. For instance, a rough opening for a window or door that was cut a little too big or installing a piece of plywood sheathing that didn’t quite make it all the way to the floor.
Not that my father was sloppy or bad at measuring. Many times, “close enough” was “good enough,” and making things fit uneven space was simply unavoidable, especially in the 100+ year old home we lived in.
Built on a stone foundation, with rough cut timber framing, on the side of a hill, inside the lath and horse hair plaster walls, there was very little of the original framing of the house that had not shifted one way or another over the years. As a result, perfect right angles were almost non-existent and finding a totally level, plumb and true building surface to work from was usually out of the question. Adjustments were made, edges were shaved, corners were cut and pieces were trimmed to fit as best they could.
Remarkably, when the job was finished and the final trim boards were placed around the doors, windows or walls, as he promised, no one ever suspected a thing. I knew the truth though and also learned an important lesson – looks can be deceiving.
THE COLD, HARD TRUTH
Here in Maine, when it comes to cold winter weather, homeowners have two choices: take it or leave it. And, while there are some folks who have the means and ability to fly south for the winter, these few, fortunate snowbirds are a rare breed.
For the rest of us, the cold weather is just a fact of life. The best we can do is bundle up and get on with it. Sure, the snow may pile up to our ears around us and the cold winter winds may howl outside, but that doesn’t mean that Mainers can’t stay comfortably warm inside their homes, too.
More importantly, we shouldn’t have to go broke trying to keep our homes – and families – safe and warm either.
That’s where the concept of efficiency comes in. Keep in mind that being efficient doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing or having to do without something. Efficiency is making the most out of whatever resources you have. Here, the resource we are talking about is heat and how efficiently your home generates, uses and maintains it.
Forget solar, geothermal, electric, oil or gas…the absolute cleanest type of energy is the type that never has to be produced in the first place.
Remember, this is not about sacrificing comfort. Surprisingly, it’s just the opposite. In many cases, improving the energy efficiency of a home can also improve the overall comfort level inside the home, all year long.
The good news for Maine homeowners is that it seems that no matter what type of work you have done on your home, many contractors now also pay closer attention to things such as air sealing and insulation as part of the project.
“My clients are definitely more conscious about heat loss than ever before,” says Kyle Jorgenson, owner of Lakebrook Construction, a “frame to finish” construction company based in Scarborough, Maine. “The new replacement door or window may look great, but if a homeowner can still feel a draft around the frame, they know they’re probably still losing heat. Anytime we have to open up a wall [for a kitchen or bath remodel] my team has been trained to always leave it better insulated than when they found it.”
HOME ENERGY AUDITS – GET THE FACTS
Unfortunately for Maine homeowners, there is really no “quick fix” for improving the overall comfort, performance and energy efficiency of their homes.
“I tell my clients that weatherization and improving the energy efficiency of their homes should be thought of as a marathon and not a sprint,” says DeWitt Kimball, owner of Complete Home Evaluation Services, an independent home inspection and energy auditing company based in Brunswick. “In most Maine homes there are literally hundreds of small – and sometimes not so small – openings that allow conditioned inside air to escape. Believe it or not, I’ve been to a few homes that still have an opening in their front door for the mail to be delivered.”
It’s no secret that Maine has some of the oldest housing stock in the country. In 2011, the Department of Housing and Urban Development American Housing Survey (AHS) determined that the average age of a private home in Maine was nearly 50 years old. This means that the vast majority of Maine homes were built prior to the use of many of the types of insulation materials available today.
Still, improvements can be made, regardless of the age of your home. While older homes tend to be more drafty than newer ones, the ways in which every home performs are basically the same. The only major differences depend on its location – and the type of weather (temperature and moisture) it is exposed to. Whether it’s a home in Arizona or here in Maine, the science behind how air flow moves through the house remains the same. The only difference is whether the priority is keeping heat out (in warmer climates) or keeping heat in.
THE CHIMNEY EFFECT
Most people at one time or another have learned, and would still agree with, the notion that “heat rises.” Unfortunately, most people are wrong.
Ask any physics teacher (or meteorologist) and they will explain that the reason hot air rises is not because it necessarily wants to; it has no choice in the matter. The truth is, due to differences in air pressure and air density, warm air doesn’t simply rise on its own, it’s pushed by—and floats on top of—cold air.
In an enclosed space, such as a house, temperature differences between the inside and outside also cause differences in air pressure. The greater the temperature difference, the greater the difference in air pressure will be, and the greater the force will be for one to want to displace the other.
That’s why smoke (and most of the heat) created in a fireplace goes up a chimney and why you can sometimes feel a breeze in the room at the opposite end of the house. Heat from the fire is literally sucking air from every part of the house to use as fuel. The problem is that you’ve likely already paid to heat that air some other way – using either electricity, oil or gas.
Even if your home doesn’t have a fireplace, the same forces are still at work. Trouble is, unlike a fireplace, the chimney isn’t a single, easily identifiable chute. Instead, there are likely dozens of small, individual passages that are constantly pulling air through your house—from the basement to the attic – and back outside.
Related article: Act now, or those ice dams will be back.
TREAT THE CAUSE, NOT THE SYMPTOM
What this means for Maine homeowners is that sometimes the most effective way to fix a problem in one part of your house (i.e. too hot, too cold, etc.) is to shift your attention somewhere else – often the basement or the attic. Because air is constantly being pulled through the house, the effect that you feel in one room can be caused by conditions somewhere else.
“When we do home inspections and energy audits, we often tell the homeowner that what we’re really doing is a ‘comfort audit’,” says Kathleen Meil, marketing & customer relations manager of Evergreen Home Performance of Rockland and Portland. “We generally have a pretty good idea of how a house is going to behave based on how it was built and its location. Our main goal is to then find out what the issue is that made them contact us in the first place. Once we understand what the homeowner is feeling—and where they are feeling it – we can then work together to create a plan to address it, based on how the particular space in the house is used.”
Loose-fill cellulose provides a uniform R-60 insulation in this attic, and a dam around the attic hatch keeps cellulose where it belongs. Note how well the attic hatch is insulated. PHOTO: COURTESY EVERGREEN HOME PERFORMANCE
WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE, CAN HURT … YOUR WALLET
With the average age of a Maine home near 50 years old, it’s quite likely that what lies beneath most of the decorative trim, baseboards and door frames isn’t pretty – and it’s costing you money. At best, the contractor (in 1965, 1975, 1985) might have stuffed some pieces of “extra” fiberglass insulation they had left over into these cracks and crevices.
In most cases, instead of having a total of 5”- 6” of external siding, house wrap, plywood sheathing, insulation and drywall separating Maine homeowners from outdoor temperatures, the only thing stopping the cold from seeping into your house is less than 1” of wood trim.
Put another way, a 1⁄4” wide gap of uninsulated space surrounding a typical sized window (44”x32”) is roughly equivalent to having a hole the size of a cantaloupe (+/- 7”) next to each window.
Now take the total number of doors and windows in your house and you can start to understand just how much cold air is radiating into your living space, and how much force there is driving warm air up and out of your house. Simply caulking around windows and doors is a good start. It will reduce any drafts you may be able to feel, but cold air will still be able to work its way right through the wood.
Yes, adding more insulation into your attic will also help slow down the amount of warm air escaping. But to really address the “chimney effect” that causes heat (and money) to fly out of your house, insulation alone won’t be enough.
Slowing down the flow of warm air out of your house requires paying more attention to where the cold air is coming into your house. By slowing down how much cold air forces its way inside, either by radiating through uninsulated wood, glass or concrete or around unsealed gaps, homeowners can reduce the amount of force pushing warm air up and out.
A LITTLE SEPARATION ANXIETY IS A GOOD THING
The most effective method of slowing down the chimney effect is by strengthening – or creating – barriers that separate the conditioned and unconditioned spaces in your home. Conditioned areas are those that we spend the vast majority of time in. Rooms that are heated or cooled artificially by the homeowner are conditioned areas, while unconditioned areas, such as attics and unfinished basements, generally reflect changes in outside temperatures. So, the key battleground areas for homeowners to pay the closest attention to are where conditioned and unconditioned air could meet. In most cases, this includes the basement ceiling and attic floor.
A 1/4” gap of uninsulated space, is roughly equivalent to having a hole the size of a cantaloupe next to the door or window. Sealing cracks and gaps that lead to uninsulated space will make a significant difference in the comfort of your home.
The goal is to keep unconditioned spaces completely isolated from the rest of the house. This is best accomplished by air sealing any visible penetrations between the two spaces and then by adding insulation to prevent the unconditioned air from permeating through porous building materials such as wood and plaster.
Although some heat loss also occurs through windows and doors, the total area that these make up is relatively small compared with the entire square footage of the home’s floors and ceilings.
“Many homeowners immediately think that replacing all their windows will be the best way to improve their home’s energy efficiency,” says Evergreen’s Weil. “That’s because windows are the most visible piece of the building envelope and the part that homeowners interact with the most. In general, unless a window is completely rotted or not functioning as it should, we typically inform our clients that they can get more ‘bang for their buck’ by investing in insulation and air sealing instead.”
TO STAY AFLOAT, THINK LIKE A BOAT
A good analogy for homeowners to keep in mind is to think of your (conditioned) living space as the inside of a ship and the outside air as water. Then, carefully and methodically inspect every inch that separates the two as you would a boat before setting out on the ocean.
It’s easy to see that if a boat is not built of strong materials or has any leaks, differences in air pressure and the density of water will cause water to rush in, displace the air inside the boat and sink it. Although much less visible (and dramatic) the same principle applies when cold (dense) air is constantly working to displace the warm air inside your home.
The good news for homeowners is that air sealing is a relatively inexpensive and simple job to tackle, and while the end result may not be as visible as, say, installing a new front door, the overall impact that air sealing can have on your comfort and energy use this winter makes it a smart investment that will payoff (in lower energy bills) for years to come.
CLEARLY, WINDOW INSERTS MAKE SENSE FOR MAINERS
After minimizing the chimney effect by air sealing and adding insulation, another inexpensive way to keep the cold out is to add a layer of protection to your existing windows by installing interior storm windows.
These clear, lightweight inserts are built to fit snuggly inside the frame of existing windows (no tools required) and can easily double the insulated R-value of existing windows at a fraction of the cost of replacing the entire window. Here in Maine, homeowners have the option to go online and learn how to build their own inserts or purchase them from either a private contractor or a non-profit organization.
For example, WindowDressers is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization operating in Rockland that is dedicated to helping Maine residents reduce heating costs, fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by lowering the amount of heat loss through windows.
The organization builds and sells custom fit insulated window inserts that provide Maine homeowners with an inexpensive alternative to replacing their old, yet functional windows. Since nearly a quarter of all heat loss in a home can occur through windows, insulated window inserts can reduce the amount of fuel oil needed for heat.
After minimizing the chimney effect by air sealing and adding insulation, another inexpensive way to keep the cold out is to add a layer of protection to your existing windows by installing interior storm windows.
These clear, lightweight inserts are built to fit snuggly inside the frame of existing windows (no tools required) and can easily double the insulated R-value of existing windows at a fraction of the cost of replacing the entire window. Here in Maine, homeowners have the option to go online and learn how to build their own inserts or purchase them from either a private contractor or a non-profit organization.
A step above installing plastic sheets in the fall and then tearing them down in the spring, interior storm windows are reusable year after year and are usually constructed with two layers of heavier grade sheets. The edges of the wood frames also have a foam gasket around the insert to provide a tight seal around the window frame.
According to the WindowDressers website, customers “save, on average, ten to twenty percent on their fuel consumption, generally returning their investment within the first heating season.” Part of WindowDresser’s mission is to donate 25% of their inserts to low income families, typically heavily burdened by the cost of energy, for a minimal contribution.
Additional Maine resources for purchasing or volunteering to build interior storm windows include the Midcoast Green Collaborative in Damariscotta and the United Way/Habitat for Humanity York County. The United Way of York County website also provides Maine homeowners with a free, downloadable Guide to Weatherization & Volunteering handbook that provides simple, step-by-step weatherization instructions.
Whether you decide to tackle some of these weatherization projects on your own or hire a specialist, it seems the only mistake that a homeowner can make is to do nothing at all.
Tim King is a sustainability and energy efficiency writer based in Scarborough, Maine. “Keep the Heat” ran in the Fall 2015/Winter 2016 issue of Green & Healthy Homes magazine.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you thought about the article and I’m always on the lookout for the next sustainability / energy efficiency project to write about. Contact me at sylvan.sauntering(AT)Gmail.com with your comments and ideas!