Sealing your home's attic, outer walls, doors, windows, and floors is often the most cost effective way to improve energy efficiency and your family's comfort. With careful attention to drafts and under insulated area of your home, can save up to 20% on heating and cooling costs by sealing and insulating.

Follow These Three Energy Saving Improvements:

• Seal air leaks throughout the home to stop drafts
• Add insulation to block heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer
• Choose an ENERGY STAR® qualified furnace, water heater and air conditioner

Some air leaks are easy to find because they can be felt — like those around windows and doors. But holes hidden in your attic, crawlspace, and basement are often a bigger source of energy loss. Sealing these leaks with caulk, expanding spray foam, or weather strip will have a significant impact on your family's comfort and reduce your utility bills.

Will Sealing My Home Affect Indoor Air Quality?

There is often a concern about sealing a house too tightly; however, this is very unlikely in most older homes in the Chicago area. Some fresh air is needed for good indoor air quality and there are specifications that set the minimum amount of fresh air needed for a house.

To be safe, after any home insulating and sealing project, have an ABC home comfort specialist check to make sure that your home's combustion appliances (gas- or oil-fired furnace, water heater, and dryer) are venting properly.

Choosing the Right Insulation For Your Home

Insulation will keep your home warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. There are several common types of insulation — fiberglass (in both batt and blown forms), cellulose, rigid foam board, and spray foam. Reflective insulation (or radiant barrier) is another insulating product which can help save energy.

When correctly installed with air sealing, each type of insulation can deliver comfort and lower energy bills during the hottest and coldest times of the year.

Insulation performance is measured by R-value — its ability to resist heat flow. Higher R-values mean more insulating power. Different R-values are recommended for walls, attics, basements and crawlspaces, depending on your area of the country. Insulation works best when air is not moving through or around it. So it is very important to seal air leaks before installing insulation to ensure that you get the best performance from the insulation.

To get the biggest savings, the easiest place to add insulation is usually in the attic. A quick way to see if you need more insulation is to look across your uncovered attic floor. If your insulation is level with or below the attic floor joists, you probably need to add more insulation. The recommended insulation level for most attics is R-38 (or about 12–15 inches, depending on the insulation type).

Seal Air Ducts

In houses with forced-air heating and cooling systems, air ducts distribute heated and cooled air throughout the house. In a typical house, about 20 percent of the air that moves through the duct system is lost due to leaks and poorly sealed connections. The result is higher utility bills and an uncomfortable home, no matter how the thermostat is set.

Because some ducts are concealed in walls and between floors, repairing them can be difficult. However, exposed ducts in attics, basements, crawlspaces, and garages can be repaired by sealing the leaks with duct sealant. In addition, insulating ducts that run through spaces that get hot in summer or cold in winter – like attics, garages, or crawlspaces – can save energy.

Choose ENERGY STAR® Heating & Air Conditioning Systems

If you are replacing your furnace and air conditioning equipment,ABC will installs your new system according to ENERGY STAR quality installation guidelines. This includes a thorough inspection of your duct system, including proper sealing and balancing of ductwork, to help ensure that your new system delivers the most comfort and efficiency.

Energy Savers Series : Tip 4 Cooling

There are a variety of changes you can make to improve the energy efficiency of your home's cooling system, from simple maintenance to system replacement. Some of these you can do on your own; for others, you may need to hire an HVAC contractor.

Here are some areas where you can make improvements to increase the energy efficiency and lifespan of your heating and cooling equipment.

Have an Annual Air Conditioner Tune-Up

Having an annual air conditioner tune-up will keep your cooling system running at peak efficiency while also identifying any malfunctions that can cause costly breakdowns during peak use. You'll have the peace of mind knowing your air conditioner is operating safely and efficiently all summer long.

Change Your Air Filter

This simply act makes a big difference. Changing your air filter frequently will not only keep the air in your home cleaner, it will extend the life of your HVAC system by making it run more efficiently and under less load. If the filter looks dirty after a month, change it. At a minimum, change the filter every 3 months.

Keep Your Air Ducts Properly Sealed

Forced-air heating and cooling systems rely on ducts to efficiently distribute air throughout the home. Unfortunately, we often see that homes are losing an average of 20% of the air that moves through the duct system due to holes and poorly attached ducts. This leads to higher utility bills and a forced air system that just can keep the temperature comfortable, no matter how the thermostat is set.

Sealing leaks and insulating ducts will not only make your heating and cooling equipment more efficiently it will reduce the risk of CO poisoning.  Leaky ductwork in your heating and cooling system can cause “backdrafting” where exhaust gases from water heaters, gas dryers and other appliances are drawn back into the living space, rather than expelled to the outdoors. Sealing leaks can minimize this risk. A qualified HVAC contractor can evaluate your home's air delivery system and make necessary improvements.

Clean Your Air Ducts

Over time, your home's air ducts will accumulate dust and debris. This will not only make the air your family breathes less healthy, it can also reduce the efficiency of your furnace and air conditioner. A professional duct cleaning will remove this debris, allowing your HVAC system, and your family, to breathe easier.

Install a Ceiling Fan

Installing a ceiling fan will not only help your home feel cooler, allowing you to run your AC less frequently, but will help your air conditioner do its job by circulating the cool air to the warmer areas of your home. Newer ceiling fans are highly efficient and include conveniences like a remote control with speed selector.

Upgrade to an ENERGY STAR Air Conditioner

If you are planning to replace your current air conditioner, there are a variety of cooling systems that you can choose from, and many are ENERGY STAR® qualified units specifically designed for energy efficiency. When making your choice, you should take into account your current system and the size of your home.

While replacing your current cooling system will cost more than the maintenance options listed above, depending on the age of your current system, lower long-term energy bills can make up the difference―saving you money in the long run.

Learn more about ENERGY STAR at: http://www.energystar.gov/

If you’re a typical Chicago area homeowner, you spend about $2,000 each year on energy bills—and more than half of that amount goes to heating and cooling your home. It makes sense to look carefully at your home's heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to see whether there are changes you could make to reduce your energy bill and improve your comfort.

Automatic Energy Savings

One of the easiest ways to increase the efficiency of your furnace and air conditioner is to use a programmable thermostat. You can save around 10% a year on your heating and cooling bills by simply turning your thermostat back around 10°–15° for eight hours a day. A programmable thermostat makes it easy to set this up automatically, so that your home heating or cooling system uses less energy while you are sleeping or not at home. You could save nearly $200 annually with an optimally programmed thermostat.

But doesn't reheating my house use more energy?

A common misconception is the belief that turning your thermostat down at night in the winter will end up using more energy because you'll have to heat the house back up in the morning.
Not true! The reality is you are "losing" less heat to the environment when you don't keep your home as warm and thus have to spend less money heating your home...especially when you are sleeping, you won't even notice the difference!

Other Advantages to Programmable Thermostats

• Can automatically monitor and adjust your humidity levels
• Can tell you the temperature outside
• Can be larger and backlit for ease of reading
• Can automatically cycle the air in the home to create even temperatures throughout.