Home Energy Champions: AlabamaWISE Home Performance Success Story

AlabamaWISE success story: The Streets

Kevin and Judy Street of Huntsville took the whole-house approach to saving energy and improving comfort for a 2200 square foot brick ranch with a projected energy savings of 22%.

Kevin and Judy Street are saving money with energy efficient home remodel by certified AlabamaWISE contractor, Synergy Airflow and Ventilation.

She consulted with AlabamaWISE participating contractor, Synergy Home Performance to identify a set of improvements. “Gary from Synergy taught me about energy consumption during a comprehensive inspection”, Ms. Street said.

The comprehensive assessment of the home included visual inspection and diagnostic testing of the home’s energy related components. Gary from Synergy checked the walls, attic and under-floor insulation levels. Then he set up a “blower door” to identify air leaks in the walls, floors and ceilings.

Synergy sealed air leaks through the ceiling and attic before adding additional insulation because insulation is not effective unless there is an air-barrier to prevent uncontrolled air movement between indoors and outdoors.

Air sealing with insulation is an essential skill of home performance contractors. All participating AlabamaWISE contractors test home air leaking and seal air leaks before adding additional insulation. After sealing the Street home, Synergy brought the attic insulation level up to R-38.

They also performed diagnostic tests on the home duct system and found holes where conditioned air was escaping before reaching the rooms. Other leaks in the duct system were sucking outside air into the home. Installers used duct mastic, not tape, to permanently seal the holes before wrapping ducts with insulation to prevent heat loss and condensation.

After air sealing, duct sealing and adding insulation, Synergy upgraded the heating and cooling system with a new Energy Star rated heat pump. They used an energy-modeling program called Manual J to properly size the new heat pump. For years, heating and cooling contractors have sized new equipment using “rules of thumb” or just swapping out with equipment sized the same as the existing unit.

Home performance contractors, as their name implies, care about “right sizing” heating and cooling equipment so it matches the home size and thermal loads. Now that the Street home has more insulation and less air leakage through ceiling and ducts, Synergy used the energy model to match the new heat pump to the improved building thermal enclosure to saves energy and improve performance, which means better comfort indoors.

Homeowner Judy Street summed up Synergy’s skills by saying, “The important information he shared with me that day had given me the suggestions I needed to help save money and conserve energy.”