It’s freezing outside, and you just want your home to be warm, dry, and comfortable. The last thing you want to worry about is a sky-high heating bill.
But every year, that’s exactly the situation that homeowners find themselves in. How do you end the madness?
To answer that question, I called home heating efficiency expert Rob Minnick, owner of BPI Goldstar accredited home performance HVAC company Minnick’s. My hope was that Minnick’s thirty-five years of industry experience and expert certification level would give me the real answer to the million dollar question: What’s the one thing homeowners can do to cut their heating bills down without sacrificing comfort during the winter months?
One-Two-Three Punch
As it turns out, that one thing is actually three things: air sealing, insulation, and ductwork modification.
“A house works as a system,” Minnick explains. “Air sealing, insulation, and ductwork are all parts of the puzzle. When all three of them are working in unison, the house works great. But in most of the houses I look at, the system is not working as it should.” This leads to waste and sky-high heating costs, Minnick says.
When I ask Minnick which of the puzzle pieces will deliver the most bang for the buck, he laughs. “All three,” he says. “The majority of homes we find, it’s a third of each piece. You can fix one piece, but not make a noticeable change. You just spent some money, but it doesn’t matter. The whole house has got to work as a team.”
Fair enough. But if I’m going to spend my hard-earned money on the whole team, I want to know what each player’s bringing to the game. So what exactly are the pieces of the one-two-three punch that will slash my heating bills and make my home more comfortable?
1. Air sealing
If your home heating bill is through the roof, it might be because your home is leaking heated air at an alarming rate.
In a home that’s working efficiently, conditioned indoor air will exchange with cold outdoor air approximately eight times per day.
But when a house is leaking air, that means its HVAC system is working harder than it’s supposed to. “Houses that I audit are generally exchanging air as many as sixteen to eighty-four times per day, Minnick says. “So the unit is constantly running.” And a heating unit that’s constantly running means outrageous bills.
The process of air sealing locates the cracks and penetrations in a house which allow heated air to escape, and seals them using materials such as spray foam, caulking, and weather stripping. Conditioned air can no longer escape, and the HVAC unit is no longer working constantly to heat chilly indoor air over and over again.
If your home is one of those that Minnick sees exchanging air eighty-four times a day, then having your home air sealed could reduce waste by a factor of ten. However, Minnick cautions, “this component is only part of the puzzle. You’ll be able to see a difference, but your home’s still not working as well as it could be.” The next step, he says, is insulation.
2. Insulation
Many homeowners address a drafty house or a high energy bill by adding insulation. But insulation is only one part of the system that keeps your home warm.
Air sealing your home will keep it from losing heat by sealing leaks that drain heated air away. Insulation allows that heated air to stay warmer, longer. Often, Minnick says, he sees homes in which the HVAC unit is working too hard, even after air sealing–but only because the house is poorly insulated, allowing heated air to cool too fast.
Minnick also sees a lot of homes in which inexperienced contractors have installed extra insulation, and even applied air-sealing, but have not made the necessary changes to the HVAC unit and ductwork. These houses, he says, are the ones with arctic living rooms and tropical attics–or worse, with mold or asbestos being constantly circulated into the home’s indoor air. “You end up with a house where they’re pulling in all this cold air from the basements and all the hot air’s going up to the top floor. The unit’s not running like it should. The temperature should be 75 degrees and it’s 65 degrees because the basement’s like a meat locker.”
3. Ductwork modification
If your home has chilly floors, a top floor that’s hotter than the bottom floor, or a thermostat that says the temperature is warmer than it feels, it’s probably because your HVAC unit and ductwork need a change.
Modifying the HVAC unit and ductwork is the last step in the three-part process of making a home energy efficient. Even after air sealing and insulation reduces the load that an HVAC system needs to carry, the home may still have improperly sized or routed ductwork.
“Most of the time the ductwork wasn’t sized correctly from the get-go, because there weren’t standards out there, or someone just used a rule of thumb instead of a standard,” Minnick says. After a home has been air sealed and properly insulated, a knowledgeable team can make tailor its HVAC unit and ducting to finally work correctly, so that conditioned air is distributed evenly throughout the house.
“Once we get the house working right,” Minnick says, “the unit is closer to being the right size. Then, we adjust the ductwork. Now we’ve got everything working together as a team, and it’s working fantastic.” Air sealing, insulation, and ductwork modification, all handled by a knowledgeable, BPI GoldStar Contractor, is his recipe for success.
Start with a Home Energy Audit
Minnick strongly recommends addressing all three of the steps he outlines if you’re hoping to see a noticeable difference. But, he says, the best way to know for sure which one of these measures is the most important fix for your home is an energy audit from a BPI GoldStar Contractor. “A total home energy solution audit is my dashboard,” he says. “That lets me know exactly what’s going on so I can make the proper recommendations.”
However, Minnick cautions against getting an audit from just any contractor, saying that fixes from contractors without the right certifications use less precise methods that may not fix underlying issues. “When you have an inexperienced contractor go in, they’re looking at the house and recommending solutions, saying this is going to solve all your issues and concerns. But when they’re done, it’s still cold.” A team with BPI GoldStar accreditation, he says, is going to have the training to treat the whole house as a system, rather than putting expensive bandaids on one or two individual problems. In the long run, that saves homeowners a lot of money, and a lot of time.
Minnick says that making a change in people’s lives is the reason he’s in business. “When we’re done, homeowners are so happy they’re just blown away,” he says. “That’s why we do this everyday. Because it’s awesome, and it’s so gratifying.”
After speaking with Minnick and learning that a toasty home doesn’t have to cost a fortune, I’m convinced: I’m checking out getting a home energy audit from a BPI GoldStar Contractor for my own home this week. Armed with my new expert knowledge about how to knock out my heating bills with Minnick’s one-two-three punch, I’m confident that it will be an investment well worth making.
Top Image Credit: Graciela Rutkowski Interiors
What do you think? Would you try out a home energy audit with a BPI GoldStar accredited professional to lower your heating bills?