Insulating a house

[bsheffer]

Hello, has anyone ever dealt this companies who go around with technology and try to sell you on the idea of air leakage and profess to fix it. In a cold weather mountain location, my neighbor was approached by a company that did some analysis and is saying his house has a leakage that is 3.4 times what is required for healthy air exchange. His house and my house were built by the same people so I would imagine my house might perform the same from a thermal insulation perspective.

I assume these guys run around with weatherstripping and possibly drills and cans of insulation but not really sure what tools are in their tool Belt!! They charge $45/hr and they estimated cost to be $2500-$4000 for my neighbors house. This sounds a bit like the basement waterproofing guys/scammers that often appear to be less than ethical in our area.

I do wonder how the guy comes up with the 3.4 number if he was just doing a quick look at the house. I have seen their thermal imaging videos on their website and am not questioning their technology but coming up with this 3.4 number does make me wonder if in fact the number is alarming even if it is correct?. I realize there are many variables such as... if they ran this test when the ducted heating system was running, thereby creating a negative pressure, leakage would be higher. Vs. in my house where I have no ductwork.

[Cub_Cadet_GT]

I had it done once at one of my old house's and it was beneficial as we found some areas of very bad leakage. He opened the front door and placed a large fan in an insert that filled the door opening that created a large vacuum. He could then tell how much leakage there was. Then we walked around the house and you could hear and feel where there were large drafts. I was surprised how much leakage there was around the can lights and ceiling ducts on the second story. We sealed them up with a can of foam and the house was much more energy efficient. We identified a couple windows that had excessive leakage as well and fixed them.

Not sure if this is what the guys you are referring to do, but I found it worthwhile. But in my case the remedy was no where near what you quoted. I was only out a couple cans of spray foam and a few hours of my time. 

I think we paid $150-200 for him to do the test, but its been at least 12-13 years.

[EricU]

I would never have anything done by someone that hires door-to-door salesmen, which is the way I read the OP.  Your utility probably has companies they would recommend to do an air door test, infrared camera work, and air sealing. It's quite possible you can have the work subsidized by either the electric company or state. I'm doing the air sealing myself. I might pay someone to do the survey.

[Robert Adams]

Yup don't do business with a door to door salesman or those salesman at costco(same guys they just pay to be inside costco). 

    A blower door test is a good thing to do after you have done as much air sealing as you can and then the test can show what you missed. 

       If you are paying 4k for that service then just don't as gas and electricity are cheaper than that.

[JGrout]

I agree that a blower door test should be done _after_ you work on all the potential sealing issues 

there are books written about what to do to get there 

I will caution however that sealing a home can be done so well that you end up adding an air exchange unit  is required 

We did this in some HfH homes trying to bring utility bills down the the minimum. It worked and we got some great numbers but the issue of maintaining the HEPA filters by the homeowner was not routine. 

This caused other problems that the HO had to learn the hard way and it was in a few cases expensive( health care issues), many times more so than the maintenance of the unit

https://energy.gov/energysaver/whole-house-ventilation

The link is a good place to start for information 

Joe

[vernonator]

I had it done once at one of my old house's and it was beneficial as we found some areas of very bad leakage. He opened the front door and placed a large fan in an insert that filled the door opening that created a large vacuum. He could then tell how much leakage there was. Then we walked around the house and you could hear and feel where there were large drafts. I was surprised how much leakage there was around the can lights and ceiling ducts on the second story. We sealed them up with a can of foam and the house was much more energy efficient. We identified a couple windows that had excessive leakage as well and fixed them.

Not sure if this is what the guys you are referring to do, but I found it worthwhile. But in my case the remedy was no where near what you quoted. I was only out a couple cans of spray foam and a few hours of my time. 

I think we paid $150-200 for him to do the test, but its been at least 12-13 years.

Did the same when our new house had WAY higher energy bills than expected. Did an "energy audit" the ran the gamut of the pressure test (before and after) AC/Heat efficiency, duct loss, IR camera the works. They produced a recommended fix list - but did not do the work. I arranged the fixes (some I did some I hired out) and then they came out and did "after" test (all included in the price) multiple times. Ran $1,500 or so ten years ago - my utility company will now do those for a much reduced price(but not sure of the quality).

[meackerman]

I would never hire a contractor for something like that on an hourly basis.  Give me a quote for the entire job, if you run over that's your problem, if you run under you make more money.  

If I don't like your quote, I won't hire you.  Certainly not going to hire someone going door-to-door.

Air sealing can certainly help, but you have to know where to seal....as already said you need a blower door test.

But you can do some simple things to help seal things up....seal outlets and switches on outside walls.  seal around the plumbing pipes where they penetrate walls under sinks.  make sure door and window weather stripping is good. seal around can lights (might need to replace them with IC/Airtight cans first) etc before you hire anyone to do anything. If you have a fireplace you don't use, get a removable plug for it.

[Cooler]

Thermal imaging cameras can be quite costly but you can get spot thermal imagers for about $200.00, and Black and Decker has one for under $30.00.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_...4XAVZDVT3Z

They will work if you use them intelligently.

The HGTV personality Nicole Curtis is a big believer in reconditioning old windows.  But I read a while back that a house with counter-weighted windows in good condition will leak enough cold air into a house that it is the equivalent of leaving your front door open all the time.  (The area where the counter-weight is located is not insulated).  A thermal imager would point that out quickly.

[Patsfan]

some utility companies offer the efficiency tests and weatherproofing at a reduced cost.

Typically they will do a "blower door test" and come back to you with recommendations.

[chips ahoy]

Our power Company offer a program that if you are under a certain a certain income,they will examine your house and decide what has to be done.They did mine,12" of blown in insulation in the attic,6"foam attic hatch and spray foam and fire retardant sprayed in the basement on the concrete.I qualified so no charge.They also did the door fan test.I notice a big difference.

Mel