Talking with our Customer, Comfenergy, LLC of Sterling, VA on Climate Change and Home Performance
August 7, 2019
C.D. Guillaudeu, Your Business Our World
Crystal Mullins, Comfenergy Marketing Director
Madison Parse, Comfenergy Marketing Intern
Climate Change Impacts the Comfort and Energy Efficiency of a Home:
Our climate is warming at a fast pace and every year brings hotter summers, higher pollen counts, more intense storms, and more extreme temperatures. As temperatures reach new extreme heights, so does your tolerance for living uncomfortably. To live uncomfortably is to live with unnecessary allergens in your home, lose sleep due to the temperature of your bedroom, or spend too much on your fuel and electric bills. Lighten the load of your allergy medication, HVAC systems, and your wallet by learning about why your home functions the way it does and how that impacts your health and the planet.
Any building, whether it’s commercial or residential, is a network of lighting, plumbing, heating, cooling, and airflow systems in combination with how a person lives in a space, how a person moves through the space, as well as a system of airflows. Most buildings are not airtight and air flows into the building, bringing with it some of the dust and pollen from the outside world.
In our homes we pay for desirable air quality conditions and sometimes there are variables that we cannot see that also have control over these conditions. Inside the home, airflow is responsive to blockages and leakages you cannot see. Examples of this may include more insulation in one area than another, small openings around light fixtures that let conditioned air escape out of living spaces, drafts, or noticeable temperature inconsistencies.
Home Performance:
Home performance is taking ”the whole house approach to learn how the systems in your home can work together to provide the most comfortable, efficient living space.” 1
Clues that a home is not performing at maximum efficiency can not only be seen, but also felt. For instance, if a person has been diagnosed with allergies, and while inside they have persistent symptoms that could be speaking to a deeper-rooted issue in the home. Another symptom of a low-performing home is experiencing noticeably different temperatures in different rooms or on different floors. These feelings of discomfort is your home’s way of expressing that something needs to change for it to perform in a manner that best serves you and the planet.
Inefficient home performance translates into higher energy costs. Air leaks that cause comfort issues are also allowing the heated or cooled air that you pay for, to leave the home. Then, for each cubic foot of air that leaves, a new cubic foot of air is sucked into the home. These new basketballs (approximate size of a cubic foot of air) that come into the home bring with them cold, heat, humidity, and outdoor allergens that now need to be heated or cooled and filtered once again. This is known as the “stack effect”.
So now that all the ways you have lost control of your home have been exposed, the question is how can you regain this control; call a home performance company. A good home performance company will interview the resident(s); look at the whole place, for example how comfortable is it year round? Are there any particularly cold or hot areas? Are there drafty areas or places infected with mold, do the people who live there have any allergy or asthma issues, or are there any unusual smells? Home performance companies aren’t there to maintain HVAC equipment, but rather are assessing the density of insulation, energy use, environmental conditions, and indoor air quality and to see what needs some tweaking to make sure your home is comfortable and efficient.
Comfenergy, LLC:
Comfenergy of Sterling, Virginia is just such a company. Having been in business for six years, they have expanded greatly during that time, growing from serving just Sterling, VA to the greater Northern Virginia area. Additionally, they have won many customer accolades and awards. They help homeowners not only make their place more comfortable, but through their process of analysis, and interviewing, they provide long-term solutions that provide a definite return on investment.
“Today’s home buyers want energy efficiency. If you modify your house with improved insulation you will generate a return on your investment while benefiting from increased levels of comfort and decrease operations costs. It is one of the only home improvements you can make that will generate this financial performance.” 2
A Comfenergy consultant works with the homeowner to build a plan by addressing problems and issues that were found during the analysis stage. Depending on what was found, a plan can include anything from air sealing and insulation, to basement waterproofing, crawl space repair, mold and radon mitigation, to replacing windows. All of these services help make the home more comfortable, which directly correlates, to not only better indoor air quality, but also saving money through increasing energy efficiency.
“Our projects pay for themselves”
- Justin Dobson, Co-Owner of Comfenergy
Comfenergy and Environmental Responsibility:
Comfenergy takes environmental responsibility seriously. This is demonstrated through their work with the Loudoun County Green Business Challenge and helping it transform into what is now the Virginia Green Initiative as a founding member. The solutions they provide are as environmentally friendly as possible. The number one thing you can do to reduce the radius of your carbon footprint is to air seal and insulate your home, a service Comfenergy has extensive experience and expertise in.
Conclusion:
When you’re feeling uncomfortable in your home and have already tried working with an HVAC company, don’t tolerate paying high prices for low performance, call a home performance company such as Comfenergy, to analyze home performance issues and address them.
“You can be uncomfortable and pay high utility costs, or we can make your house comfortable and start saving those utility costs.”
- Justin Dobson, Co-Owner of Comfenergy
Footnotes:
1 Web Blog: Energy Savings at Home – How it Works: What is Your Home Telling You?; Energy Star.Gov; URL accessed 7/9/2019; https://www.energystar.gov/campaign/improvements/how_it_works
2 Web Blog Entry: The Economic Benefit of Improving Your Insulation;
5/2/2016; John LeVan; URL accessed 7/9/2019: https://www.comfenergy.com/about-us/news-and-events/22522-the-economic-benefit-of-improving-your-insulation.html