|
Air Sealing a Leaky House
By Jessica A. Baris
If a homeowner is considering weatherization, what are the critical parts of the house that should be looked at? Dan Payne, owner of Environmental Energy Consultants, says right off the bat that the attic is the first place to look for an energy-saving home retrofit.
“Air sealing in the attic is the biggest issue,” he says. “That’s where [spray polyurethane] foam sets itself apart.”
Payne’s mission is to provide people with the training and certification they need to work in the “green” industry. He does this in two ways: He provides Building Performance Institute (BPI) certification courses through his company, and he reaches out to students at East Central College (ECC) in Missouri by providing classes through the college. The students strive to become BPI certified professionals and secure jobs as energy auditors and weatherization professionals.
With a background in indoor air quality, home inspection, mold certifications, and building construction, Payne has the know-how for getting students down their future career paths. Recently, Payne had 11 students at ECC take his course, which includes five days of classroom work and two field days. The field days are when students can work on real homes with real energy problems.
Tackle This: Energy Waste
 Homeowners Linda and Charlie Johnson bought their circa 1906 balloon-frame home in 2003. The charming 100-year-old farmhouse sits on 20 acres of land in Missouri. To the Johnson’s dismay, the house was poorly insulated and had a leaky envelope. Linda Johnson was perplexed by her heating and cooling costs.
“Our utilities were very high,” she says.
The house was a perfect opportunity for Dan Payne to teach his students about air sealing techniques. Over two days, Payne and the student crew retrofitted the attic, basement, and crawlspace with the help of Michael Sites, marketing manager for industrial building materials at Touch ‘n Seal, a manufacturer of foam insulation products.
The Culprit
Sites knows the power of the air seal retrofit. He partnered with Payne to donate materials to the student field project. Both professionals see eye-to-eye when it comes to the concept of the “whole house system.” Payne explains that this is the belief that every system in a house is interconnected.
 “I’ve got to be cognizant of what’s happening in the interior walls and HVAC, the ducts that are located outside the thermal envelope,” says Payne. He adds, “Duct leakage can cause positive or negative pressures outside of a house.”
In the Johnson home, all fingers pointed to the culprit of most of the home’s energy loss—the original tongue-in-groove beadboard in the farmhouse’s attic.
“[The beadboards] were 3 inches wide,” says Payne. “So every 3 inches, you had an air leak between the attic space and the house.”
These gaps were causing about 1.25 air changes per hour. “It should be 0.35 air changes per hour,” he says. Payne said that the HVAC was contributing to the problem as well.
“The HVAC contractor’s idea was to install the HVAC in the attic and put it with flex ducts as duct work that isn’t adequately insulated for use in attics,” he explains. “The home’s energy cost went up, and the comfort issues were still the same. They also installed 6 inches of cellulose in the attic.”
The student crew’s mission was to go in the attic space, vacuum out the old cellulose, and air seal the attic’s cracks and crevices with Touch ‘n Seal’s 1.75 pcf closed-cell spray polyurethane foam. As they worked, the students wore NIOSH-approved organic vapor respirators with a particle filter, which is adequate respiratory protection for an SPF application of 200 psi or less.
Payne adds, “We applied 1 inch on the attic floor and sprayed the flex ducts to the correct level, and then we installed 15 inches of cellulose on top of that.”
 The student crew also air sealed the crawlspace under the porch and the rim joists and band boards in the concrete basement. “It was a hodgepodge of things,” says Sites of the basement, with its many protrusions, electrical, pipes, gas lines, old ducting, and single-paned windows.
In the basement, the students learned a trick of the trade—they were introduced to a device called a “puffer,” which is used to find air leaks.
“The puffer creates smoke, like an incense stick, and you move it along areas you suspect are leaking,” explains Sites of the handy tool. “After activating an installed blower door, you walk around the perimeter of a basement or room, and you may not feel air movement, but the smoke moves into or away from an air leak.”
 The students were also taught to seal the perimeters of light switches and electrical outlets. “That’s where you get a vast majority of energy loss,” says Sites.
Soon after the students wrapped up the project, the Johnsons saw an immediate improvement. “The house is cleaner,” says Johnson. “We’re not having to change our furnace filter quite as often because the dust was coming in [before the attic retrofit]. The temperature is more comfortable.”
To learn more about the Building Performance Institute, readers can visit www.bpi.org or Payne’s website at www.environmentalenergyconsultants.com to learn more about BPI certification and hands-on training.
Articles | Home
|