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/

Welcome to ABC's new series of tips to help you save energy and money. To get started with the series we'll be talking about energy audits.

What is an Energy Audit?

An energy audit is a series of tests designed to help to identify where your home is leaking energy and how well your heating & cooling system are working.  When performing an energy audit our heating experts will ask you some comfort questions about your home, perform a heat loss calculation, inspect and measure the homes duct work system.  By performing an accurate energy audit, we can help determine the right heating and cooling equipment for your home, how to maximize your homes energy efficiency and help even out the temperatures in your home.

According to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), energy star, and consumer reports, a good heating and air contractor should perform these tests on your home before replacing your heating and cooling system.  In fact, the EPA notes “be leery” of any contract not willing to perform an accurate heat loss calculation on your home.

How do I get an energy audit for my home and what does it cost?

There are companies in the Chicago Illinois area that you can hire to perform an energy audit. The cost of an energy audit will depend on the company but we include them as complementary service when you request a quote to replace your heating and cooling equipment.

Can I do an energy audit myself?

Some Chicago are homeowners choose to do their own home energy audit.  From our experience it is very difficult to perform these tests on your own.  The software to perform an accurate test can be very expensive and tools aren’t readily available.  However, there are free basic versions available that can be used to double check your contractors work.

For information on do-it-yourself home energy audits, visit the The Home Energy Saver. The Home Energy Saver will help you compute your home's energy use with online based on methods developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. By changing features on a model home, users can estimate how much energy and money can be saved and how much pollution prevented by implementing energy-efficiency improvements. All end uses (home heating, cooling, major appliances, lighting, and miscellaneous uses) are included. A detailed description of underlaying calculation methodsand data is provided in a special report.

I've had an Energy Audit, what's next?

Once you know where your home is losing energy there are many techniques you can use to prevent energy loss and save money. The rest of our Energy Savers Series will be a collection of tips and techniques that expert energy auditors use to help homeowners save energy and money.

Next up, saving energy with Programmable Thermostats

Illinois energy efficiency incentives are available to help you keep your home's air conditioner running efficiently

Last month we talked about the impact of your air conditioning tune up (Part I), this month we will focus on the local impact of energy savings.

Two years ago, the State of Illinois commissioned the Smart Ideas program to help Illinois become one of the “greenest” states.  

Smart Ideas is a cooperative program between the state of Illinois, Comed and local heating & cooling contractors, to improve the value Chicago homeowner receive from their electric energy dollars.    

What does this mean for me?

Last week we talked about saving over $32 per month on your energy bills by having your air conditioning tune up.  The Smart Ideas program is a champion of this idea.  By educating homeowners on the importance of testing, cleaning & repairing a home's air conditioning systems – the Smart Ideas program, saves money, and just as important, reduces the energy use demands from Illinois residence.   

How does it work?

The program is easy.  Just contact a participating Smart Ideas contractor to tune up your air conditioning system.  The participating dealer will arrive at your home with a special tool to measure the performance of you air conditioning system.  After measuring your systems performance, they will perform a tune up on your air conditioning system.  Finally, the heating & cooling expert will re-measure your ac systems performance to determine your annual electrical savings.  

For more information about the Smart Ideas program call Erik at 847-419-1000.