Our Suggested Links

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Heating Bills This Winter

Your Heating Bills This Winter
Overlooked Sources of Heat Loss in the Home


Imagine start off a window open all winter enlarged – the heat loss, cold drafts, and wasted energy! Well if your home has a folding attic stair, a fireplace, and / or a clothes dryer, that may be dispassionate what is occurring in your home!





These often overlooked sources of heat loss and air leakage can cause your heat pour out and the cold outside air shower in – highly same onset a window unbarred, costing you higher heating bills, causing cold drafts, and wasting energy.

Air leaks are the major source of heating and cooling loss in all the home. Air leaks happen terminated the diminutive cracks around doors, windows, pipes, etc. We apply caulk and weatherstripping to these areas to minimize heat loss and algid drafts.

But what can you perform about the three largest “holes” in your home – the folding attic stair, the fireplace, and the garments dryer? Here are some tips and techniques that can easily, quickly and inexpensively sign and insulate these holes that you may not have declared you even had.

Attic Stairs

Do you retain a folding attic stairway in your house? When the attic stairs are installed, a large hole ( more or less 10 square feet! ) is formed in your ceiling. The ceiling and insulation that were there have to be uninterested. And what is installed, covering this opening? A thin and unsealed, un - insulated sheet of the plywood!

Did you know that your upper floor space is ventilated openly to the outdoors? In the winter, the attic space can be very cold, and in the summer it restraint be authentic hot. And what is separating your conditioned crib from your unconditioned attic? That thin sheet piece of plywood!

Usually a gap can be observed around the perimeter of the door. Try this yourself: at night when it is dark, turn on the attic lustrous and shut the attic stairway door - do you see any light avenue complete? These are gaps - which add up to a large opening where your heated / cooled air leaks out 24 hours a while, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a season! This is congenerous leaving a window open all date ruckus!

An easy, low - price solution to this problem is to add an attic stair cover. An attic stair cover will provide an air seal, reducing the air leaks. Add the convenient equivalent of insulation now the protect to restore the insulation removed from the ceiling.

Fireplaces

65 % or approximately 100 million homes in North America are constructed with wood or whimsical burning fireplaces. Unfortunately there are negative side effects that the fireplace brings to a home especially during the winter home - heating deal in. Fireplaces are mostly energy losers!

Researchers have studied this to move the monetary worth of heat loss through a fireplace, and the impression are astonishing! One significant research study showed that an open constraint on an unused fireplace in a well and insulated house can raise generally heating energy consumption by 30 %!

A recent study showed that for many consumers, their heating bills may be more than $500 higher per winter just due to the air leakage and veteran energy caused by fireplaces!

Why does a home adumbrate a fireplace have also heating bills? Hot air rises! Your scorching air leaks out parcel exit it can find, and when your warm heated air is drawn outermost of your home, cold outside air is drawn in to make up thanks to unaffected. The fireplace is corresponding a giant straw - sucking the heated air from your house. This is like leaving a window unbolted all trick round!

An easy, low cost solution for this problem is to add the fireplace draft stopper. A fireplace draftstopper is an helium balloon pillow that seals the damper, abolishing any air leaks. The pillow is impugning whenever the fireplace is used, then reinserted after.

Clothes Dryer Exhaust Ducts

Have you exceedingly noticed that the room containing your clothes dryer is the coldest room in your house? Ever wonder why? Your clothes dryer is connected to an exhaust duct that is unlocked to the outdoors. In the winter, cold air leaks in through the duct, wrapped up your dryer and preoccupation your house, while your piping air just pours right out!

Dryer escape uses a sheet metal flapper to more try to reduce this air leakage. This is very premier technology that does not hand over a positive seal to stop the air leakage. Compounding the problem is that over lastingness, lint can clog the flapper causing intrinsic to continue open. This is like leaving a window open all month round!

An easy, low - cost solution to this disagreement is to add a dryer vent perfect! A dryer eruct seal will shorten unwanted air infiltration, and keep peripheral pests, bees and rodents as well. The vent will remain closed unless the dryer is in serviceability. When the dryer is in use, a floating shuttle rises to allow pleasant air, lint, and moisture to escape.

If your home has a folding attic stair, a fireplace, and / or a costume dryer, you can easily, quickly and inexpensively seal and insulate these holes. At Battic Door, we have developed solutions to these and other energy - conservation equal issues.