7 Energy Lessons from Home Alone (And the Real Homes That Prove Them)

This podcast is brought to you by Open Door Mission, restoring hope and changing lives. OpenDoorMission.com. Well, I see by the clock on, the wall it's time for another wise home energy program right here on. the Voice of Liberty, WYSL and

WLEA. Pure energy. And joining me in studio as always, the incomparable Jeff Flaherty. Hello, Bob. Thank you so much for having me back in.

Always, a pleasure. Always a pleasure. We have a-- Actually, uh, we have a lot of fun here before the show starts. You guys never hear it, but We really do. It's, it's a little secret. It's my favorite day of the month when I come down.

Oh, what a nice thing to say. It is. It is. If I could do this every day, then I'd, then I'd have your job. Listen, let me tell you, w-let's talk. We should talk. We should talk. It's, uh- Have your guy call my guy. That's right. That's right. It's the holiday season. It's, uh, we, we've had a little winter already. It almost seemed like it came early, but I've been telling people, "Well, it seems like it came early 'cause the last few years have been somewhat mild." But this reminds me a little bit more of as a kid. Yeah. It got cold in

December. Yeah. We, we had one, uh, we had one, uh, year, a couple years ago, I think it was, where they had about forty-five inches of snow. Yeah. And the, the typical year is a hundred to a hundred and twenty. Yeah. So if you look at where we are right now, uh, we're pretty much on pace to get that hundred inches. So-

Yeah ... so enjoy, folks. That's right. I gotta enjoy the great outdoors. I gotta get out there. I gotta ski. I gotta skate. I gotta, you know, go, go, uh, cross country ski and enjoy this weather. Yeah.

Uh, you know, what's funny is you get the, around this season, and the lights come up, and the holiday traditions. Everybody has, uh, traditions this time of year, and, and one of them is, uh, watching Home Alone is, is a classic movie that people, uh, tend to watch. And I was watching it recently and I realized, boy, there is really, uh, seven energy efficiency lessons from Home Alone. From Home Alone. Really? And I was... Yeah,

I was watching it and I said, "You know, the average person might not see these things," but I, you know, I thought we'd just run through them quickly today because there's something to be, uh, learned from that in, in the average person in their home or watching

Home Alone may not notice these things, uh. I got one of those, uh, e-energy tips from watching A Christmas Carol, and that is that a candle,

Scrooge, is a very poor source of heat. So make a note of that. And it's bad for indoor air quality. Uh- There you go. Absolutely ... yeah, it creates some particulate matter- Uh-huh ... and you can see some, uh, ghosting on ceilings sometimes.

But, uh, you know, just looking at that movie, some of those famous scenes, like, uh, there's a scene with a pet door where, uh, Marv comes in and gets smashed, but really that pet door is an energy loss. I mean, we love our pets. I'm the same way. We do everything for them. But when we put these pet doors in that are not sealed well, the air is coming in and out, uh, especially with a little wind pressure, and this is a good example of convective loss, so. Especially in Chicago.

Yeah. And so they make some more, uh, efficient ones. It's tough to maybe train your pet, but it's something to be aware of that, uh, we, we don't want, uh, air coming in, uh, just, uh, unfiltered and any time it wants, whether we're home or not. But that's a good example of, uh, um, you know, not only do, uh, criminals and, and pests, but our pets go through these doors, but also, uh, unfiltered air that's carrying heat loss. It's carrying moisture. It's carrying contaminants that, that we don't really want in the home. So it's something to consider. Um, the other one right on that same door I think it was, or maybe another door, is the heated doorknob. When Kevin puts the electric charcoal starter on the doorknob-

... and it transfers the heat through the doorknob, it's really a lesson in conduct-conduction. Oh. And so the heat has transferred through this material that is conductive and, uh, Joe Pesci's character, uh, you know, burns his hand and creates a nice monogram on his, uh, on his hand there. And so we find that in homes there's thermal bridging. There's, uh, conduction losses through, uh, surfaces.

That's why we insulate. Uh, the f-the first example was why we air seal. Uh, conduction losses is why we insulate, uh, areas. So that's something, uh, to note in that, uh, you definitely don't, uh, you don't want to, uh, get your hand burned on, uh, uh, the hot, uh, doorknob, or you don't wanna burn on, uh, when your energy bill comes if you got a lot of conduction losses, so. Yeah, I've gotten a burn right from the envelope. You know, you pick it up and- That's right

... you don't even have to open it up. Your fingers start tingling. Yeah. We are getting a lot of calls on that. Uh, just, "Hey, my rates are, my bills are out of control," and, and we can tell the usage is pretty much the same, but the, the rate per usage is, has gone up.

So, uh, you know, one of the things I saw, uh, in the movie, number three, is all of a sudden there's this picture and the, the roof is just beautiful, even snow all along the roof. And I thought, "That's great. That's what we like to see." But when Kevin gets in trouble, and he gets put up to the, banished to the attic for the evening, you sort of see the attic, and it's really... It would probably fall in the unconditioned zone.

We, we probably would wanna just use that attic for storage. We don't really clearly see if there's any heat, uh, capabilities, but we also don't see any insulation on the roof deck. So- The, the even snow melt, uh, it could be a sign of, uh, fresh snow. It hasn't had a time to melt. It could be a sign of really a large volume attic, and there's some over-ventilation, so the heat is going out through the ventilation. Or more than likely, it's probably just some cinematatic or cinematic, uh, error, uh, you know, where we just have some creativity and just show the snow on the roof. Shot in July or something perhaps.

Yeah. At least the interior. That's more than likely. And, and so we wanna say to folks, if you see s- melt on your roof, uh, take pictures of that pattern. That can be very helpful when it's not in the, uh, winter season for an expert to look at. But it also shows that a good, uh, covering of snow may not indicate that things are still operating properly in the home and, and there's tests that you can do to, to look at that and see if there's heat loss. So, uh, sometimes all that glitters is not gold, as they say. But, uh, but you wanna see a nice snow covering. Or if you're waiting for summer, you don't wanna see any snow. It depends on your-

Yeah ... your perspective. Um, number four, uh, there's a scene, there's a few scenes where Kevin's, uh, shooting some things, and it's falling down the laundry chute, and then there's also the, uh, the iron that falls down and, and smacks the criminal in the face. And, and but that laundry chute, when we see laundry chutes in homes, that's really an example of how air moves through a home, and it has, uh, some potential problems of stack effect. So a lot of times we don't see those or sealed around them on the top, or at the, at the very top of the chute or around the chute. And so what that becomes is a big stack effect there. Sometimes you can go into homes, and you can drop a penny up in the attic, and it'll go straight through to the basement. So those, uh, areas of, uh, pathways are just heat loss and air leakage. We wanna, we wanna stop those. So they're great for, uh, getting your laundry down to the basement, but- Oh, I,

I, I, I had a 1930 house in Pittsburgh, and I loved that laundry chute. They're great. That little, that little collection thing down in the- Yeah ... that hangs from the rafters down in the basement- Mm-hmm ... right next to the washing machine. And it, there was a door in the kitchen, and there was a door right over the kitchen and the bathroom on the second floor. Yeah. It was great. It is. I love them. And we don't say, we don't say you have to get rid of them, but we just say we, we might want to investigate and make sure. it's, sealed at the top because that thing can be leaking a lot of air. Uh, your home acts like a chimney, and l- air comes in low and leaves high. So anytime you help that path, you're, you're helping, uh, uh, energy loss and, and, uh, uh, uncomfortable traits in your home. So but while we're mentioning that, uh, number five is. Kevin's scary basement. He doesn't wanna go in the basement. He says it's, nasty down there. It's dark, and he says it' smells terrible. So usually when we, hear that, uh, is it because of the lighting that it's dark? Yes. Is it because of the, uh, a home performance issue, like moisture in the basement, uh, water drainage problems? And so that musty smell, uh, usually our soft, uh, goods like, uh, wood or drywall or things we' store down there, if there's too much bulk moisture on the floor, we would want you to store nothing on the floor. But if there's ambient moisture, relative humidity in the air, it's colder, so that'll condense, or that'll absorb into these soft materials. And that'll create that kinda musty smell, which is usually indicative of, uh, you know, a bigger issue and possible mold issues or... Uh, so it's something to consider if you have those issues in your basement. So Kevin, uh, he had the, uh, insight at a very young age that, uh, basements, uh, can be problematic.

The other thing that Kevin, um, you know, th- was feared in the basement, or at least they implied that he feared in the basement, was that old furnace. That, that caricature furnace almost kinda growled at him when he was down there. Um, you know, I think that was, uh, you know, some creative, uh, uh, luxury of the director because I, I've never s- quite seen a furnace like that. I don't know if it was coal, but it had some, like, grills. It looked like the grills of an old '50s car. But, uh, it, it implies that, you know, maybe that thing was oversized. I can see the duct work. There was only, like, three pieces of duct coming out of it, so maybe an undersized duct work. I would, uh, presume there'd be some static pressure and some flow problems there. Uh, but it, it, it would appear that it was maybe a natural draft device, so those are, those are older technologies and unsafe, so we don't want those.

But it really indicated that, um, you, uh, you wanna look at, uh, devices like that, and they, they can be scary when you're unfamiliar with, with furnaces and things like that. You wanna have a professional check them all out, make sure they're operating safely and, uh, efficiently. So it's a good idea when you do go to, uh, upgrade that system. You wanna make sure it's, uh, the right size, and that's not just by a sales rep coming down and looking at the tag going, "Let's replace it with the exact same size unit." We wanna do a load calculation, and we wanna look at all these features of the home. How much conductive loss is through the doorknobs? How much convection loss is through the pet doors? And how much, uh, heat loss that is not melting the snow on that particular house? We look at all that and calculate that, uh, heat loss, uh, for that particular home. And, and we don't guess. We test. So that's a good lesson right there. Uh, but number seven to me almost had the epiphany when I saw it, was the unexpected trusted advisor, and that was John Candy. And, and such a legendary actor. Uh, really loved all his work and very funny person and by all accounts just a great, great person,

John Candy. And so that little cameo in there, but you think about what he, what role he played And Kevin's mom, uh, was really looking for solutions, and she was making all the calls that you would make, similar to maybe a homeowner would make.

They're gonna call an HVAC contractor, which means you're gonna get a heating salesman. You're gonna call an insulation contractor, you're gonna get a insulation salesman. Or you, you might call a window company, uh, and you'll get a window salesman. And none of these people, that she was contacting... She called the police, she called the neighbors.

She's sitting in front of the, uh, airline, uh, personnel trying to get a flight. No one, can offer solutions. And suddenly, the person, uh, who is the polka-playing legend, uh, from, uh- ... Milwaukee says he's listened to her concerns, he identifies the problem, and he offers a solution that may seem unconventional, but he says, "Hey, we're going that way. We're renting a box truck. We would gladly drop you off. We're going right by there. We could do that." And that just kind of resonated with me that you want a trusted advisor to meander these decisions in homes. We don't make these decisions very often when we, uh, purchase a, a heating system. These systems should last, uh, 15, 20,

25 years. Uh, but if they're, uh, designed wrong, installed wrong, um, that's not gonna be the case, and then you're gonna have all those years of high bills and, uh, uncomfortable home. So John Candy, for me, was, was, the hero from the energy efficiency. Uh, we, we always recommend people get a, a trusted advisor when- Yeah, a trusted advisor doesn't necessarily have to sing polkas though, right? Not all, not all the time. They wanna make... They should be able to, uh, be the, uh, what's that, uh, what's the person in front of the orchestra? The maestro. Conductor. Yeah. Makes all those parts and pieces come together. Harmoniously. Yes. Yeah. And that's kind of the same thing in the home. That's what we wanna do. So that was, uh, you know, watching that movie, it was a, a great experience, uh, to just kind of have the joys and laughter that come with that film.

Uh, some of the, the great moments of, uh, you know, reconciliation with the, the neighbor and his son. It's a, it's a neat movie. Uh, but to see those, uh, little seven energy efficiency traits, it just reminded me there's little lessons there of, uh, uh... It, it is called, uh, Home Alone, but we want, we want a comfortable home. Whether you're home alone or you got the whole family, a comfortable, safe, uh, efficient home, that's what we're looking for. So, and, and that reminds me of what we see when we go out to the homes, Bob. We, we just see, uh, these stories of, of, hmm, they didn't find John Candy. They found someone else.

Uh, I had this client call recently, and she wanted to get her home checked out because it was cold. She had just had some heat pumps put in and, um,

I said, "Well, what kind? What, what do you have?" Uh, and she, she said, "Well, they're on the wall." I said, "All right. They're ductless. What did you previously use?" And she said, "Well, I had a furnace." And I said, "Well, that's, that's disappointing because there was ductwork there." And ducted systems, uh, in our opinion and in a lot of other professionals' opinions, are better systems than ductless. Ductless have a place, but if you have an opportunity to use the ductwork, there has a lot of advantages. You can filter the air better. You can distribute the air to more areas of the house with a ducted system. And so they abandoned that path. Um, she told me that they first put in a system and then they changed it out 'cause it didn't work, but they didn't only change the outdoor part and they didn't do the indoor. And, uh, I would say to the best of my knowledge, these-- you do not mix manufacturers. These things are designed to work. Uh, the indoor and outdoor unit are a, a, a matching system that you have to match up and based off the manufacturer's specifications.

So I said, "Well, you did a, you know, it sounds like you put this heating system in. Did you get the, the utility rebate?" "No. What rebate are you talking about?" Uh-oh.

Oh dear. And so that kind of scares me. Um, you know, price-wise, she probably paid, it sounds like... I think my rep had found out the price, and that sounded pretty cheap. And you know, then we run... When you run, um, uh, these units, there's, uh, cons or, um, um, refrigerant lines that run through, so we put what's called line hide. It protects it and kind of looks... It's a PVC. It looks like a gutter. These folks had actually used gutter. They had used metal, metal downspouts.

And, uh, so it didn't look maybe as aesthetically pleasing as maybe the homeowner had liked. I, I don't know if it was just what parts were on hand or, or what have you. So it sort of, uh, took-- she took it upfront. Maybe she ma- saved a little money, but these things aren't working properly and now. she, we have to look at, you know, heavily insulating these homes. And it was one of these kind of older farmhouse-type homes where some of the, crawl spaces are just hand dug, uh, as we were talking before the show.

They're just, they're... You can't really climb in those. Those were hand dug and they throw a duct and that's it, so. Uh, so we hope we can kind of tighten that up and we hope that HVAC company who, you know, looked them up, they're a little smaller company, you know, maybe, uh, five trucks. But, uh, when you don't participate in these rebate programs, now, you're not mandated-

To properly size it. To, it, y-y-you can, you can fabricate a l- a load calculation, but we' have to supply it to get the rebate. So- it means we, we have to do the due diligence to, to properly size these units. It's subject to review, so it's gotta work.

Yeah. So, uh, that' was... And, and then, you know, shortly thereafter, this is all within a week or two, uh, a client bought a house and he, he-- the home already had a geothermal system. And he's like, "Boy, it seems like it's really, you know, uncomfortable, and I don't know, if the previous owner lived here a lot.

They might've been in Florida." And, um, the, I think the geo system was as big as they could get. It was a very big home. We, we haven't been out to the home yet, but sounds like it's running an electric backup. So most of these g-geothermal or air source heat pumps, they'll have a little electric backup just in case on, your coldest day we can supplement. So at five degrees, we wanna maybe see that come on. We don't wanna see that come on at 20 degrees. That's, that's not how it's designed to work. And, um, this gentleman, you know, new to the home and, and most people, don't understand homes and how they work, and he was, "You know, I've replaced the windows, and I've done some weather stripping. I've done some good stuff." And I'm thinking, with all the money he spent on the windows, uh, you know, considerably less than that I can go and fix that home in doing the top and the bottom. It's not aesthetically pleasing. Your neighbor's not gonna see anything special but some box trucks in the driveway. But you're gonna see a blower door air leakage rate come way down. You're gonna see the air retain in the home, which will allow the system to properly cool it and heat it without using electric, uh, resistance backup. So again- So that's, that's expensive. Yeah. It sounds like the design and, and... So I don't know if we come in as the hero or are viewed as the zero.

Uh, you know, some people, if we do the work, we-we're the heroes. If they, they s-see the price and they think, "Well, I got the geothermal, I got my windows, you know, that... What do I wanna buy this stuff for?" And, you know, all we can do is show them the data. Uh, but it's-- those are some of the things we're seeing and, and we had another one. very similar to that. This was. a big, uh, private equity company that, you know, runs in the name of what you'd think is a, a family-owned place. And they installed... This guy called us up for attic insulation and, um, high energy bills. And we' went out to the home, and he's got a, a two-ton heat pump. And, you know, we don't know if there' was a rebate. We don't think there was a load calculation. We know there was no blower door test done, which is a critical component, and we think that's, um, running on electric backup also.

Uh, so it was a two-ton system. We haven't done the calculation yet, but two tons in heat pump is, is based off of old, uh, linguistics. So air conditioning is the... A traditional air conditioning is a one ton, one and a half ton, two ton, which is 12,000 BTUs per ton. Well, heat pumps fluctuate, so they just have to throw a name on them somewhere, um, that's similar to what they might put out at, uh, 30 degrees. But what we really wanna look at is what is the output at five degrees?

And so we looked up this particular unit, and the output at five degrees was just under 12,000 BTUs. Uh, the system we use, different manufacturer that we would call the two ton in our price book, puts out 22,000 BTUs, so it's almost twice as much at five degrees.

So it doesn't sound like there's a lot of design going on at these, uh, at, at some of these homes and, and that's really where you want the John Candy in your home and, and- So, yeah, the, the, the polka singer. And it-- So two tons is not-- I mean, there's two tons and then there's two tons. Is that what I'm gathering?

Yeah. Yeah. You have to dig deeper into the manufacturing data, and they're gonna print out what it, what it produces at 5 degrees, 15 degrees, 25 degrees. So we want these variable units, but it's really important to look at what that, um, low temp design... So I, I presume he did not get a rebate for this job either, so he, he got gypped out of a, a $3,000 or $4,000 rebate on that one too, so. Um, but ignorance is bliss. I mean- Oh. It's, uh, you know, these people... I, the, the worst problem for me is when we come to the home and then we give them the bad news that you know, we seem to be, the people that are, uh, you know, uh, the people that are, uh, out of their minds or, you know, we're, they're, we're shooting, they're shooting the messenger because we're the ones who gave them the bad news. And we try not to tell them too much that, you know, the company they chose didn't really act in, their best interest, but w- So maybe a, a danger signal here would be if, if you look at the, the status on the thermostat and you see a readout that says emergency heat or supplemental heat. Yeah. If that's happening, that heat pump's not working for you. Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause n-now what you're doing is you're just, it's just basically like an electric heater. It's an electric heater, yeah. And so there's a time and a place for it, but you only want these operating a few hours a year on these cold temperatures. If you're in the 20s, um, you don't, you don't want this, uh, electric backup running. It was, it was not designed and sized properly to your home. So, um, that's why we, uh, you know, are so, um, a, a big proponent of doing that whole home, uh, assessment. We wanna do that blower door test. Uh, many people don't understand that blower door test, and it's, and it's related to your home, what your current conditions are. So th-that blower door test can be 1,600.

Uh, it can be 4,500. I can't tell if that's leaky or tight until I get into deeper d- ... data of how many, how much volume is in the home, um, calculate it to an air changes per hour, compare it to a new-built home.

And those, are the, the things that, uh, w- we're a little different when you call us. We're, we're sorta like the polka player, you know? We might look a little funny, and we might wanna tell you about our, you know, polka hits that, you know, we've sold 27 records and, uh, you know. But, but we do wanna give you that solution that, that provides, you know, comfort, energy efficiency, uh, and durability. And it' may not be with us. You know, we might, we might look at the home and say, "Hey, this isn't... You know, we don't have a solution for you. We think this is the problem. You know, maybe here's a couple viable options for you."

Um, but, that- that's the type of trusted advisor that we're looking to be, uh, partners with. We, uh, we want to, you know, be the people that people, you know, call, uh, for 10, 20 years down the road and refer their friends to and, and offer them that, that sage wisdom that, uh, you know, we'll, we'll... It's our home. We spend a lot of time in these homes, especially with the working at home these days. You know, we're spending a lot more time in our home, so it can be the comfortable, uh, durable, efficient home that, uh, you desire.

So. Let's, uh, before we wrap up the show, let's, uh, tell everybody that you're listening to the Wise Home Energy Show, uh, brought to you by Wise Home Energy. And that phone number is... It's 585-270-5836.

Uh, we have, uh, access to, uh, rebates. We have access to, uh, no-cost energy assessments, so it takes a little time. We're going into attics. People have, uh, many times never been in their attics. "I've never been up there," they tell me, "in

20 years." Um, you know, I went to a home the other day and I said to the gentleman, "I'm taking a picture of this floor." You know, we say, "We're coming to look in your attic. Please have it ready for us." And these tend to be in closets.

Well, removing two hangers from a 75 hanger closet ... is, is, is not prepping. And this gentleman had the whole closet cleaned out, a tarp on the floor, because when you remove this hatch from a improperly or poorly or non-air-sealed attic hatch with no dam, inevitably stuff can fall out.

Yep. So this, this was my, uh, champion of the, of the week. Uh, he was just prepared, so. He was heroic. Yeah. So I don't wanna drop stuff all over your clothes or, and I don't wanna climb over your toys. Um, that's not something I want. How am I gonna get the ladder up there? So if you want us to come take a look, you know, please be ready for us. But that's... You know, we're better suited to analyze your attic than to clean out your closet really, so. Uh, but these, uh, these, uh, energy assessments are no cost. Uh, these rebates, they fluctuate a little bit. They can change at a moment's notice.

Um, we have to go and get the data and secure the, the rebates for you. But, uh, the... it's a great time to do it, and it's... You know, we, we find that these, you know, we... people are buying houses and calling up, and they're in their first month in their house, and they're telling us, "We're cold. We're cold." Yeah. Well, the, the previous owner didn't list that on the multiple listing service. Uh, this home is really cold in the winter, so. Yeah. Probably not a, not a big selling issue, I wouldn't think. No. Right. They try to hide that. Well, uh, in our final moments here, once again, give them the contact information and, uh, what you're all about. Yeah. Check out our new website, wisehomeenergy.com, and the, uh, phone number's 585-270-5836.

And merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and yours from Wise Home Energy and of course the Voice of Liberty. This is a paid program from Wise Home Energy. Have a great one, and we'll see you in the new year.