Making Your Home Energy Efficient

Cutting costs is a must these days. Making your home energy efficient isn’t just about getting the most use out of it as possible anymore – it’s about saving as much money as possible, too. There are many ways to maximize the efficiency of your home. Some require the assistance of a professional like HA Construction, others you can accomplish on your own with a small time commitment.

Quick, Easy and Worthwhile Changes Around the House

By making a few changes in your everyday approach to your home, you can conserve energy. If you haven’t done so already, implement these strategies:

• Unplug appliances that aren’t in use. Even if you have them turned off, just having them plugged into an outlet still drains some power. Appliances account for up to 20% of energy bills, so even the small things can make a difference.
• Turn lights off as you leave a room. Better still, open your curtains and use natural light as often as possible.
• Utilize sleep mode features for your personal PC. While the general consensus is that it’s better to keep your PC on, you should still utilize the sleep mode feature and turn off the monitor when it’s not in use. If it’s going to be more than a day until you use it again, go ahead and turn off the whole system.
• Replace every light bulb in your home with florescent bulbs. This may be a well-known fact these days, but reminders are still nice. According to ENERGY STAR, Florescent bulbs use 25% of the energy that incandescent bulbs use, saving $6 per year per bulb, and $40 over the lifetime of one, solitary bulb.
• Turn your heat/air conditioning down at night, and when you won’t be in the home for several hours.

Take it One Step Further

You really won’t know what your home needs to become more energy efficient without a home energy assessment. This will help you to see where your home uses the most energy and where changes need to be made, including your heating and cooling system.

You can, of course, conduct an energy assessment yourself by taking the following steps:

1. Walk around your home and make a list of areas where you feel obvious drafts. Places to check include electrical outlets, window frames, switch plates, baseboards, door frames, attics, etc.
2. Check caulking and weather stripping, both indoors and out, around doors and windows. Make sure there are no gaps and it’s properly installed (if you can see light coming through the sides of an outer door, then the stripping isn’t installed right).
3. Do a building pressurization test. Close all accesses to the outside (doors, windows, fireplace flue, etc), then turn off all combustion appliances (water heaters, furnaces, stoves, etc). Turn on your bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans to suck the air out of the home – this will pull air through cracks and leaks more readily so you can detect them easier.

While these personal assessments may have obvious results, you might be better suited to hire a professional to do a complete energy assessment of your home, so that you leave no stone unturned. Professionals use state-of-the-art equipment to detect problems. Infrared cameras show the warmest and coldest areas of your home, helping you to see where you might have inadequate insulation issues. Blower doors check for leaks. To find an energy assessor you can trust, contact your local government offices for recommendations.

Changes that Require a Bit More Time and Financial Investment

Now that you’ve made the easy changes and conducted an energy assessment of your home, you may find that it’s time to implement more radical changes that require time and money. Many older homes don’t have adequate windows to keep indoor and outdoor temperatures in their respective locations. You may also find that, while the insulation used in your home when it was built met requirements at the time, it’s insufficient now and needs to be replaced. You may even discover that your furnace is too small, working harder than it should to keep your home comfortable. Or maybe you just want to convert your cold, drafty attic into an energy efficient master suite.

HA Construction can help you with these projects, big or small. Contact Andy today to make a difference in your home energy bills. While an initial investment is required, you’ll save your family money in the long run. And, who knows, you may just find yourself enjoying a movie night with your family without having to huddle together under a stack of blankets to keep warm.

Determining the Type of Carpet That Best Fits Your Needs

Whether you’re building an addition or are simply replacing the old worn-out carpet in your home, choosing the type of carpet to put down isn’t a decision that should be taken lightly. The right durability for the location of the carpet, along with comfort and aesthetic appeal (not to mention, your budget) are several factors you must consider.

What Does That Mean?

When you walk into the store to look at carpet samples, you may quickly find yourself overwhelmed with terms that are outside your everyday vocabulary. Before you start your carpeting adventure, familiarize yourself with these terms:

• Pile – the texture and height of the carpet
• Density – how close together the strands of the carpet are. Higher numbers mean the strands are more compact and the carpet is stronger.
• Fiber – the yarn of the carpet, which is spun as two, three or four-ply. Types of fibers include wool, nylon, olefin, polyester and acrylic.
• Weight – the weight of the carpet is determined by how many ounces it is per square yard. The entirety of the carpet (backing, coating and fibers) is the total weight, while the fibers alone is the “face weight.”

“Pile” on the Information

There are several different types of carpet ‘piles’ to choose from, each with characteristics that benefit different room and traffic areas. With cut pile, the ends of the carpet fiber are cut evenly across. The most common forms of cut pile include:

• Frieze – A twisted fiber, frieze is the best carpet for high traffic areas. It’s often used in commercial projects, since the fibers aren’t uniform and hide dirt and other discrepancies well.
• Saxony – With a high density of packed half-inch fibers, Saxony (also known as ‘plush’) has a soft feel. Because the carpet is cut in a uniform fashion, it often shows vacuum marks, footprints and other movement of the fibers. This is considered the best option for formal settings.
• Textured – Less dense than Saxony, textured is still a soft carpet option with a more casual appeal. You’ll see this used the most in homes because it often has a variety of tones and uneven cut, which hides dirt well.

Loop pile is another option, especially durable in high traffic areas. The fibers, as you can imagine, are attached to the back of the carpeting in loops and come in two main varieties:

• Berber – Berber is one of the most common and inexpensive form of loop pile available. The loops are a variety of sizes across the carpet and are usually in natural color tones. While this is usually a great option for bedrooms, you may want to consider something else if you have indoor pets. Because the loop height varies, pets can easily snag their nails and pull several loops at once.
• Level Loop – Level loop has loops consisting of the same height, providing a smoother surface that is also very durable. Notably, however, it is not as soft and comfortable as other options.

There are also combination piles available, called (coincidentally) ‘cut and loop.’ This option is often used to create a pattern in the carpet (such as diamonds or a basket weave look). This option is also softer than standard loop options. As you make your selection and consider the cost of each type, remember that more expensive carpets have more pile (yarn) per square inch, which means it is less likely to crush over time.

Put a Little Bounce in Your Step

The padding you choose to go underneath the carpet is just as crucial as the type of carpet pile. The cushion under the carpet, which gives it a little bounce rather than setting directly on the hard surface of the floor base, can make all the difference in the quality of the carpet installation. Quality, which provides comfort and insulation for both weather and noise, doesn’t mean the thickest padding available. The best options are usually between six and eight ounce weight.

Don’t Take on the Task of Choosing Carpet Alone

HA Construction can help you determine the pile and padding that are best suited for your carpeted area – providing you with insight on the best quality options. Even with a lesson on terms and styles, it can still be a very overwhelming task to choose what works best for your home, since there are so many facts to consider. Andy and the guys at HA Construction are the experts – take advantage of their knowledge and understanding of your needs.