Save Energy this Spring by Inspecting Your Insulation

Whether you have a drafty room everyone avoids or find drafts all around your home, it can be frustrating, to say the least. Not only does it mean you have a hard time keeping it warm in the winter and cool in the summer, but it can also cause major spikes in your energy bills. Since you’re constantly replacing the conditioned air that is escaping, it can be difficult to save energy.

Air leaks may also prove difficult to pinpoint too. Tiny cracks around windows or little gaps around door frames may be hard to find with the naked eye but show up in full force by creating a large weakness in your home’s performance.

Why is My Home So Drafty?

Contrary to popular belief, most draft problems don’t come from holes and gaps around your home’s windows and doors. In fact, drafts are more related to:

• Home insulation. The status of your home’s insulation makes all the difference in how well it can retain heat or cool air. Poor or old insulation is one of the most common causes we find for drafty rooms.
• Outdoor winds. When strong winds blow against your house, they create a pressure difference between the air inside and outside of the home. This pressure difference creates a suction effect that can draw conditioned air through the gaps in your walls and then outside of your house.
• Roof damage. Depending on the age of your roof and whether it’s experienced severe weather over the years, roof damage could cause outdoor air to seep into your home.
• Siding damage. Just like your roof, your home’s siding is an important factor in keeping the outdoor elements outside. If there’s significant siding damage, cool and warm air can seep into your rooms and cause drafts.
• Warped frames. While old and damaged windows and doors can cause drafts, it’s more likely the fault of the framing around them. It’s important to also keep an eye on wooden frames and have them repaired if they’ve warped significantly.

How Can I Fix Drafts?

To understand where the draft is coming from and how to fix it to save energy, home performance tests can help to uncover the problem in a short timeframe. Bradley Mechanical offers a comprehensive list of home performance testing that can evaluate your HVAC equipment, visually inspect your insulation and measure how airtight your home is. It can also help determine what kind of airflow problems your home has and where they are located.

Infiltrometer™ “Blower Door” Test

For a home to have healthy indoor air, there needs to be a certain amount of ventilation and air leakage. Air needs to be able to circulate throughout the home evenly. The problem with a drafty house is that there is too much air leakage occurring, resulting in energy bills and rooms that are hard to regulate the temperatures in. The infiltrometer is a device created by the Department of Energy to measure how airtight your home is. Even if you have a newer home, there’s still a chance your insulation could have been installed improperly or experienced damage. Using this test, our technicians can find and fix the largest holes causing your home to be drafty.

Air Leakage Evaluation

To find installation problems inside your home’s ductwork that could be affecting the airflow in your home, a static pressure test needs to be done. What is static pressure? It involves the measurement of three things within your duct system: the outward force of air, the pressure of air against the walls, and the resistance air encountered through a duct system. Our team will inspect your insulation for damages or other issues that could be impacting your airflow.

If your home is too drafty or is having airflow issues that are costing you money and comfort, then give Bradley Mechanical a call today. Our HVAC technicians can perform complete and comprehensive testing to determine where your problem areas are. After these tests are complete, our certified technicians will go over the results with you and explain where the issue stems from. From there, we’ll provide our best recommendations with your budget in mind. Sometimes fixing a drafty room can be as simple as upgrading your insulation.

We can also help you increase the comfort of your home while reducing the amount of your energy costs. After all, better insulated and functioning homes require less energy to stay comfortable. We are Central Virginia’s HVAC experts, and we have been helping families with drafty, energy-wasting homes for over 50 years.