seal air leaks

This small, two-bedroom house was very well built -- except for the parts that weren't.  The windows in the lofted bedrooms were particularly leaky.  The water heater and furnace were all the way at one end of the house, on an exterior wall.  The plumbing and ducts ran through the unheated, vented crawl space.  In the course of our inspection we also found the dryer vent entirely clogged with lint.

The owners of this house had only recently moved in, after renting it to others.  The tenants had used the thermostat very frugally so that the heating bills were unusually low and the computer model could not be made to match accurately.

We found a gas leak at the end of an old disconnected pipe where an appliance had been.  We recommended removing and recycling the pipe, capping off the junction.

This house had extremely high baseline electricity consumption.  Our main recommendation to the homeowners was that they reconsider whether they need to run two full-size freezers, three refrigerators, and a hot tub year-round.

This manufactured house had two wall furnaces, one of which had been replaced just months before we arrived.  Since these wall furnaces are natural draft appliances (using the air from the room to draw exhaust up the flue pipe), whenever they are not in use their flue pipes leak air from the outdoors.  We recommended replacing the older of the two furnaces and one of the window air conditioners with a mini-split heat pump so that the flue pipe could be permanently sealed.

We recommended a tankless water heater since the house had only one bathroom and one resident.

We were asked to evaluate the public housing in Strong City for their 5-year report to HUD.  They elected to have us audit only one unit (a row house) rather than all of the units.  The unit we inspected was in excellent condition.

We found high carbon monoxide levels when the water heater started up and advised the landlords to install CO detectors in all units for the safety of the tenants.

This was quite a large house, but built recently and well so that it was performing quite well.  However, they had humidity issues in the finished basement which appeared to be due to poor air circulation.  We recommended balancing the ducts and installing a larger dehumidifier.

One of the main recommendations we were able to make was to remove the south-facing skylights.  Skylights can be very nice, but when exposed to the full summer sun, they let in a lot of heat!

Notable air leaks included the whole house fan, recessed ("can") lights, and the basement windows.

This rural 2-story house was owned by a single mother of two teenagers.  She qualified for the Weatherization Assistance Program, so they had come and blown insulation into the attic and replaced the windows, without first sealing air leaks or addressing other major problems with the house.  I was very disappointed by the quality of work done by the WAP contractors.