Drafts, Bad Plywood, and Why the Blower Door Is the MRI of Your Home

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again. It's time for another Wise Home Energy Show on the WYSL stations with none other than-

Pure energy ... Jeff Flaherty, who's here in. studio with us. Bob, thank goodness I'm back in the hot seat today. Yes. Uh, hot seats feel good these days. They do. I love it. It's, uh... We've had some winter finally out there. Yeah. Until the, uh, year turned, there really wasn't much winter to be found, but boy, uh, it's, uh, arrived with a vengeance now. It' has. It has. I noticed, um, you know, some other people's houses, the sometimes, uh, how to operate them, uh, is a challenge. Like, uh, cars, I noticed that some people have challenges, uh, operating the cars in this weather. You gotta adjust for the, uh, conditions, I think they recommend. Especially if you have an EV.

Yikes. Yes. My heart goes out to those folks with EVs in this weather, 'cause boy, some of them are really having a time. You really have to know your, uh, your equipment, you know? It's, uh, I always say that life and houses and cars, it's a lot like the bell curve. A lot of times we're operating in that, that high point of the bell curve, and then these anomalies, when we get these super cold days, you, you've gotta change the way you operate your car, your house, and, uh, your life, the way you're driving. So yeah.

It's, uh, it's interesting out there. Uh, you know, a lot of times we, um, you know, there are really three things I wanna talk about today. is, uh, one is, uh, the utility bills, um, and then, uh, the type of calls we're getting, and then a, a recent home, uh, that we' visited.

But, you know, uh, the folks in my office said, "Oh, you know, you really ought to bring up, um, utility bills." People call up all the time and say, "I am getting... My bills are way up, way up. The... You know, December wasn't that cold."

And, and, you know, when we start breaking down these utilities, um, you know, each one's a little different. National Grid, RG&E, and NYSEG are similar companies. Um, they all are mandated by the Public Service Commission to come out and do a read once a year. So sometimes our meters are in the home, sometimes they're outside the home.

Uh, so if they're outside, they're gonna come and do typically every other month, a meter reader's gonna co- show up and do the read, and that's a actual read. So if you look at your graph, I, I'm not a fan of

RG&E and NYSEG's bill because it' only has. the graph. It doesn't show you on a month-to-month basis what you actually used in therms or kWh. It's a, it's an esti- It's a graph that you kind of have to guesstimate. Um, so that's a customer or that's an actual read every other month. Um- And that, that's physically they, they dr- like, drive in your driveway, and there's an RF unit that picks up-

Right ... right? Right. Yep, or they walk right around to it. And then the new, uh, new smart meters, that'll all kind of go past, but that's gonna take a lot of years to implement. Um, so the other thing I used to do it years ago when I had meters in my basement is I would, um, uh, call in the reads or take the reads. Uh, I don't know the system now, but you used to be able to just snap a picture and take it on these particular days. That's an excellent choice for someone w- who wants to really get accurate information on how much they're using and also be billed appropriately. So you can't fudge it and say that the usage was less than last year or last month, so you have to, you have to have accurate data. But those, um, those are called customer reads, and those are, those are great. But what a lot of times what we see is, um, the E, and we'll see an estimate all throughout the year. And the...

If your meters are in the home, the utility can't get in the home without your permission, and they're supposed to get out there once a year, but how is that coordinated with people working? And so we'll get all these estimates, and how do they estimate when the weather's cold? They just say, "Well, it's your, your bill went up." So you really can be your own best advocate by once a month taking sixty seconds or a hundred and twenty seconds and, and calling in that read, taking that picture however the utility is allowing you to do it. Um, but it's a great, uh, uh, really true, trued up measure of what you're using on a monthly basis, so. Some of those estimates can really trip you up. We've we've had some stories on the station. There has been a lot of- Yeah ...

crazy stuff. So, you know, you can... And it helps you fight back, right? You can say, "I've been taking the reads. I have all, uh, the information that I've emailed you or texted you." So they've all made it pretty simple to, to get it in. So, um, I've done it. It, it's not a bad thing to do, and it makes you, you know, um, it makes you more in tune of what you're using and what devices are, are running.

So it's a big deal. Proactive is the, is the word here. Absolutely. Like anything in life, whether it's your 401 or your job and you're, you're looking to get a raise, you kind of, you gotta kind of analyze it, look at it, make your best case, and, um, um, make the decision from there. So that, that's a big deal, and those are the types of calls we're getting.

Um, some of the emails we get when we get, uh, wintertime, uh, here's just a, you know, t- a typical list of what we've gotten over the, the last month, uh, uh, email messages. "Attic insulation issues with condensation.

We had our roof replaced, and we put two gable vents in to increase circulation, but there's still an issue with too little airflow or too little insulation." So that's, uh, that's kind of the old Band-Aid. We had the roofer out, and they said, "Well, it's probably, uh, it's probably ventilation," or the homeowner self-diagnosed.

Um, that's why we say, uh, you know, "Don't be cold in your home. Pick up the phone and call-" Right ... Wise Home Energy- Yes. ... because we can come out and access these, uh, state, uh, no-cost assessments and give you a more professional science-based opinion on why that is. So maybe the gable vents were a bad investment. Um, that's, that's very possible.

Uh, we, we get, uh... Another one, "I got a new roof a few months ago. Went up in my attic and noticed condensation around the bathroom vent out of the roof. I added more insulation around it. Uh, went to see how it looked a week later and noticed, uh, the whole north side of the roof's-" Plywood is, is coated in frost

Oh, geez. Uh, so yeah, not sure if my soffit vents are blocked. Um, I added blown-in insulation two years ago and added soffit vents. So what does that mean? I, I don't know how that attic performs. We talk about the blower door test.

Uh, did, did this person have a blower door, or did they just hire somebody off the street? Or worse, did they go to a big box store and get the free machine and blow it in? Oh my gosh.

Well, before we move on to that, uh, let's go, let's go back to the new roof. Uh, just touch on that a little bit more. W- would it be a wise thing... See, see what I did there? Absolutely. A, a wise thing for you to do, uh, if you're contemplating getting a new roof, to call you in and, and work on this project with them? There are times when we have coordinated. There are times that there's certain areas we can't get to, and we have coordinated, um, with a roofing contractor to, to a- address some of the issues that you can't get unless, um, you're, you're coordinating the job. And, and really the big thing is, if you have delaminated plywood, it's, typically down at the lower part of the roof where there's less insulation and less room to work.

So if you're replacing that wood, that's an insulation air sealing ventilation problem. That's not a roofing problem typically. It's, it's not bulk moisture coming through the roof. It's moisture, uh, that is transferred as water vapor through the air of the living space. Forming on the inside surface of that plywood.

So you're gonna start the process all over again the minute the new roof goes down if you don't solve the root cause of the problem, which is the air leakage. Then add the insulation, then make sure the ventilation's working properly. So before you do, before you do the tear-off or the, you add the new roof or whatever, bring in Wise

Home Energy. Pick up the phone, and you call... 585-270-5836. And, uh, you consult with them, with the homeowner and with the roofer and try to be proactive about this. 'Cause you would look at the, uh, uh, presumably you look at the old roof surface and you diagnose what's going on there, right? And then that would probably involve the blower door, right? Right.

We' would be able to tell how much air is leaking, uh, out of the house, but also we can actually kinda quantify how much is leaking to that, attic. And it's interesting. The roofers, um, have to co- have to vent by code. I would say, uh, we're, we're gonna be better suited to design the roof ventilation, um, 'cause the roof ventilation is coincides more with the air sealing and insulation than it really does with the roof.

The roofer m- might not know what your, uh, attic insulation air sealing, how it's performing. If this home is a f- what we call, um, a hot roof or, um, um, a, a foamed attic roof, you, don't wanna add ventilation. That's an unvented roof assembly.

There's nothing wrong with that in code. It' works when done right. Uh, we, don't wanna... We've gone to homes where we've seen them foamed, and the foamers maybe were inexperienced and left the gable vent. So it's kinda like just driving down the road on a nice 20-degree day with your back window open. The rest of the ho- the rest of the car is, you know, air sealed- ... but, that back window is really causing some issues in, in the car for comfort. Uh, so same thing there. B- we are, um, uh, skilled at designing ventilation systems.

Uh, there's, there's ventilation companies that, uh, manufacture the product and put out, uh, seminars. In their great seminars, they never mention air sealing and insulation. They never say, "You should look at that and improve that." You know, I'm somewhat of a skeptical. I wonder if that's because you would need less ventilation, so they might not sell as much ventilation products if you properly air sealed and insulated your attic. So, um, yeah, you're better suited having a, a, a Wise Home Energy come out and assess the insulation and, uh, and, and design the, the ventilation because sometimes there's ventilation that is, um... If you have limited or no soffit overhangs on your roof, you can use a, what's called a roof or an edge vent, uh, where it sits right on the roof and has an intake. You only wanna do that in perfect situations where the baffle's been installed properly, and it works in conjunction with the exhaust. So ventilation has intake and exhaust.

So... And it's tough to do after the fact. It's nothing we would say, "Oh, let's ti- Let's put this on the roof." You want the roofer to do it at the time of the install, but it has to be part of the design of the attic insulation.

Um, and that, that, that coincides... I think I have another one of these emails where, uh, "We were told by the contractor that recently installed a new roof that we needed more insulation in the attic over our bedrooms.

I'd like to understand if that's true." Like, I w- I need to call that roofer or that customer and say, "Who was that roofer?" 'Cause kudos to that roofer. That is, that is opening up, a roof, probably delaminated plywood, that they looked into the attic and said,

"You don't have enough here." Um, and they visually wouldn't be able to see the air leakage if there was a lot of insulation. They wouldn't even be able to tell if it was insulated. But almost every roofer, uh, that is replacing delaminated plywood would do themselves a huge service by recommending an energy assessment, uh, attic insulation inspection, 'cause that is where the w- the Delamination of the plywood is happening. It's amazing Listen- listening to the Wise Home Energy Show on the WYSL stations 92.1 FM, 95.5 FM West, and AM 1040. Jeff Flaherty from Wise Home Energy is here with us. You know, uh, the, the old, uh, uh, uh, conventional wisdom when it comes to, uh, being comfortable in your home and making sure that there's no damage taking place, uh, there... We had these old. rules of, you know, "Well, you know, you need more insulation," or, "Maybe you need a different. furnace 'cause the furnace is 20 years old," or, "Different air, uh, uh, conditioning and, uh, different windows. We need- Yes ... new windows." You know, all these, these, uh, old, uh, remedies.

Uh, what we really have to do these days, is it safe to say this, Jeff, that you have to look at your home, or your building like it's a system, and everything is interrelated, and you have to do this in a scientific way so that' you don't wind up going back and redoing it or parts of it over and over and over again, and the departure point is almost always that blower door test. Is that fair to- say? That is... Yeah. It, it... There is so many things that can come out of that blower door test, uh, certainly starting with what the concerns are in the home. We wanna start with those concerns to be able to properly focus our eyes and our equipment, uh, on the right areas. And that, um, you know, many times that's, you know, that can be a home... Can a home be too tight? No, not really, but it' can be very tight and we don't have a, ventilation plan inside, and that's where the industry struggles. We talked a lot about attic ventilation, which is static ventilation up in an unconditioned area of the home. Then we talk about interior ventilation. So the home is, is leaking air. It' has natural ventilation.

On colder days and hotter days, due to stack effect pressures, that leakage will be more, um, than on a day where the inside and outside temperature are very similar and there's n- no wind.

There's not a lot of air transfer, uh, so there's not a lot of natural ventilation. So the- from there we can, we can assess the indoor air quality.

We can then, uh, recommend ventilation products as simple as a bath fan running, um, either continuously or intermittent to get enough fresh air in. Uh, there's... If you have a furnace, we can add air intakes to your, uh, return system to add ventilation that way. And so that's on the tight side.

When we're on the loose side, we're getting lots of ventilation. Lots of ventilation in the wintertime up here can be very dry, so we can notice those quickly with static shocks. Uh, we've all been to homes where you touch somebody and, uh, uh, you can see the shock at nighttime, right? Um, bloody noses, dry throats in the morning, I- would always, uh, you know, feel that symptom of a, of a dry home. So the snap, uh, Band-Aid approach is, oh, put, throw in a humidifier, uh, and that'll add moisture. But if you have a uninsulated, poorly insulated, poorly air-sealed home, adding a humidifier can alleviate those problems that we saw with static, uh, bloody noses, dry throats, but it' can now add, uh, some mold concerns 'cause there's a lot of cold areas in the home- Wow ... and the moisture will go to it. Never thought of that. Wow. So that blower door is really that huge, um, to really size it up for where your home is and then figure out what, uh, what we wanna change, what we're trying to correct, and, and develop that plan from there. Um, it really does... It does make a, a huge difference. Um, you know, another, uh, email I got, uh, said, uh, "My daughter lives, uh, in this town and her basement is cold. It's a walkout and finished drop ceiling.

I know there's not enough heat runs and cold air returns, and the furnace is 60,000 BTUs. Probably needs to be increased in size. And to add insult to injury, there's an AC leak somewhere, so I think it should be replaced. Their home is foam insulated and was built maybe 12 years ago."

So that, there's a lot of information there. These are just all in the past week that we received these, so we haven't been out to the home, but foam insulated, 12 years old. Uh, I... Depending on the size of the home, I doubt it needs to be a bigger furnace.

Um, so that's- Yeah, 60,000 sounds big. Yeah. So we probably wanna get that blower door out, figure out what their complaints are. Um, so it's probably reaching temperature up on the second floor, but the basement was never conditioned, so it's inadvertently getting heat. It might be a simple twist and the existing furnace, um, might be fine for a few more years. Uh, so it's sometimes we all have the tendency to do it, you know, self-diagnose. I, I went to the doctor some years ago and I had a heel problem, and I kept saying to the doctor, "Yeah, I got this heel prob- " "I think it's in your back," you know? Mm. "Get your wallet out of your back pocket." Ha. And I thought, "This is crazy." No.

No, I've, I've heard that before. And, uh, you know, they, used to call me George Costanza 'cause I had all the receipts in there. And, uh, so

I moved that, moved that wallet to the front, uh, pocket, but lo and behold, within a week it was my back that was the problem. The doctor was right. I was wrong. Go figure. Uh, so sometimes the symptoms show up- and it. might not be what the cause is that' we're thinking, and we... then we start throwing money at' it, and, and who wants to waste money? I... If you do, I would, uh, you know, email me or I'll get you our address. You can waste it with me. Email. You know, you can mail me checks-

... and we won't do anything. But we think it's a bad idea to waste money. Um, we don't wanna see our clients waste money. Um, it, it, it's no fun. We work hard for our money. We don't wanna see that happen. Um, you know, another, um, you know, kind of example of that is I went out to a home recently, uh, 2010-built home, uh, ranch, uh, over a full basement, and they Had said that, you know, they had some comfort issues and they had just replaced a window and a door and wanted to get an assessment to reduce the drafts and utility bills. And that said to me, 14-year-old home, why'd you replace the door and the window? So our rep went out and, um, you know, they, they said, "Oh, those had to be... That had to be changed. Those were uncomfortable rooms."

And we went through and the attic was not air sealed. It had blown fluffy f- fiberglass, which as the air transfers through, it turns brown, so we can see it's not air sealed. The basement, he had, uh, or the couple had, uh, decided to have somebody come in and spray foam on the rim joists.

Great measure. Wasn't done thoroughly, so there's the rim, which is the wood that faces the outdoors right above the block or foundation, but the sill is the wood that lays on top of the block or foundation. That was not sealed, and then the open block was all visible. So this is where your pests come in. This is where your cold drafts come in.

So we, we're looking and, and so now we've se- now we see they've changed the window, changed the door, spray foam the rim joists. It'll cost us pretty much the same to go over and do it properly.

They didn't save any money. You don't get it at half price for us to come back and do it right. And we start explaining what needs to be done. And by the way, the furnace is probably oversized 'cause it's the original and the builder just, you know, threw in whatever somebody suggested. Uh, so that's gonna lead to some comfort issues, and they kind of were really hesitant. We don't really know which way they're gonna go, but I think they're gonna not take our scientific approach- Oh, boy ... and maybe go throw some other Band-Aids at it.

And so we can't... We c- we don't charge based on how much pain you have. We only, we only look at what the solution is- Right ... and then we charge. So if there's two houses right next to each other and one's comfortable and one's uncomfortable, it's the same fix to treat the attic and the basement rim joists and change out the furnace. Um, we don't, we don't mark it up because you have a higher pain. We, we're excited because you're gonna get m- more benefit and feel more value out of, out of making these improvements.

So it all depends on if you wanna improve your home and, uh, want it done right and want a company to stick by you, then, then the phone call to call is Wise

Home Energy at 585-270-5836. And the beautiful thing about the blower door too, uh, which we've described on multiple occasions, uh, here on the Wise Home

Energy Show, is that through NYSERDA, lots of times there's grant money available, right? Yes. And, and you, and you do... They don't have to figure that out for themselves.

You do that for them. Right. Yeah. We, uh, we take that initial phone call and we're, we ch- typically are, we're gonna guide them into w- really three different programs the, uh, NYSERDA has. So NYSERDA is New York State Energy Research and

Development. All public utilities, uh, there's a little fee on our utility bill that goes into that fund, and you're able to get a, a no-cost assessment, and that's the way it starts. You can, um... There's a low-income program, a medium-income program, and then a market rate program. And so everybody gets, uh, to take advantage of that assessment.

Um, you're pretty much gonna get a blower door with every one of those. With Wise Home Energy, we're gonna, uh, even if the state isn't gonna reimburse us, we're typically gonna do that blower door if the conditions allow to show people this is not, this is not smoke and mirrors. Which is ironic because we actually use smoke and mirrors when we're in the home. Very funny. Sometimes we use mirrors to see if a hot water tank is backdrafting, and we use diagnostic smoke to see where air is leaking. So it is kind of funny.

But the test, um, a lot of people don't think it, it does anything, and it is, it is a magical test. It's really like the MRI. If you have a problem, uh, in your body that you, the doctor can't figure out, the X-ray shows the bones, but the next thing they do is usually send you for an MRI so we can see the soft tissue, right? And that's, that's what that blower door is doing, is really starting to get into the, the soft tissue of the home, figuring out what the problems are. And like you said before, it's very interrelated.

Um, you know, if your car is, uh, you know, a very small car, w- it's unlikely that the, the auto mechanic's gonna go put in a, a 350. Uh, uh, uh, it's not gonna perform properly in that car even though that's a great engine.

So, uh, we wanna look at that whole system, anticipate with our knowledge and our diagnostics and our modeling how the home's gonna perform after we make the improvements and how you're gonna use the home. We, we... Every home is a little different. That was really one of the calls we get on these cold stretches, is people call, "I have no heat." "What's, how's your furnace filter? When was the last time you changed it?" When we say change it every three months or on a media filter, change it every year, that's on an average home with average dusts, average pets. You start getting a lot more dust, a lot more windows open, uh, a lot more pets that have a lot of hair, um, that can, that can really speed that thing up. So now your filter, uh, can start wreaking havoc on your, your HVAC system and shut it down as a safety feature. Wow. Okay. Well, that's good to know. And it's, uh, also important to observe here that the obvious is not invariably the accurate.

You know, when you've got the draft problems, that doesn't immediately need, "Well, we gotta, I mean, we've got to, uh, change out the, the, you know, the doors and the windows." It doesn't mean necessarily that you need more insulation.

It, uh, it... Again, you have to take a systemic approach to these things. Yes. If you're gonna get... Energy costs are just going through the roof, and you're just gonna keep on paying and p- keep on paying unless you do a systemic approach, uh, to what the ailment is. And the old, you know, conventional wisdom,

"Well, you know, maybe the furnace is old and it needs to be replaced," or, "Maybe we need some more heat runs." Uh, those, all that's gonna do is stack up more expense. Yeah, it's a, it's a guesstimate, right?

It's, um, when I hop in my car and, and, and go on a, a six-hour road trip, um, I sorta know I wanna go east. That's a guesstimate. When I, when I type up the map in my, uh, my handy-dandy phone, now I've got a game plan of how I get to that end, end spot.

And it's really interesting. You know, we had some power outages in some recent windstorms. When you have properly tightened up your home, uh, a- and air sealed it, that blower door shows that reduction, it'll retain its heat much longer when you lose power. So you can go... Typically, power's not out that long, so you can go six hours and you won't get down and, and risk freezing of pipes and, and things like that. So it, it's, it, there's such a benefit to it, uh, even from an emergency standpoint. Not everybody wants to go, uh, buy a whole house generator, but if you can withstand six hours, uh, and your home only cools off th- 10 degrees, that's great, you know? You'll recover very quickly once you re- resume power. And, uh, you know, really, you know, we, these have, programs have been around for a long time, but the rules can change very quickly.

Um, th- so it's important to, to grab that information while you can. Maybe, maybe you only wanna have the assessment now to stage what you wanna do in the next three years. Um, that's okay. You know, as long as you have a list of concerns in your home, we can come out and do that assessment and show you what's going on and where you are, are best suited to spend your money. And if you wanna stage your upgrades, um, we can show you that. But if you just start doing remodels and start throwing money here and money there, you might end up with, with an uncomfortable home and have to undo things you've already spent money on, and nobody likes to, to waste money that I've ever met, so. So pardon my pointing out the, you know, being Captain

Obvious here for a minute. If you call an HVAC contractor because you're feeling uncomfortable, and, uh, they, they come into your house, what do you think they're gonna recommend? I would, think they'd probably recommend a new unit. Because you can always say, "Well, the new stuff is much more efficient and it's much better," because that' would be true. Or if you call a, you know, an insulation company or a roofer or whatever, what are they' gonna recommend? They're probably gonna recommend a new roof or, uh, new in- uh, insulation. Yeah. This, this does not mean that they're unethical or that they're doing something that's, you know, uh, that's crooked or they're just trying to, you know, make a, a, an unnecessary sale. It's just what they do. Right. I mean, this is, this is the way they make a living.

And so what... If the objective here is to, buy a new roof, then you call in a roofer. Right. If you wanna feel more comfortable in your home, you wanna have somebody to bring in, which would be Wise Home Energy, that takes a scientific, systemic approach and, uh, and, and also helps pay for the testing at the state level for you as well. Yeah, we get the assessment, and from there we s- we find out what grants and rebates are available. So it's, it's really a no-brainer.

Oh, excellent. Let's have some more contact information there, Jeff Flaherty. Sure. It's wisehomeenergy.com. You can call or text at 585-270-5836.

All righty. Thanks for listening to Wise Home Energy, a program on the WYSL stations, available as a podcast at wysl1040.com. See you next time.