Increasing your home’s energy efficiency requires attention to detail and a whole-home approach to making upgrades. But what are “whole home” solutions? At Healthy Home™ Energy & Consulting, we look at your home as a system, with each part contributing to your home’s comfort, safety, and efficiency. In this blog, we’ll discuss what it means to be a contractor with a whole home approach and the benefits our services can provide.
Whole Home Solutions
Your home is an interconnected system, where each part is dependent on each other and plays a crucial role in its performance. Some of these factors are out of our control—like the local climate—but here are a few whole home upgrades you can make to your upstate New York home.
Attic Insulation
While your attic is unconditioned, making sure it is properly insulated is one of the greatest things you can do to increase your home’s overall comfort and efficiency. You can use either spray foam or cellulose insulation in an attic, both providing benefits like:
Noise reduction
Detering mold and pests
Reducing energy loss
At Healthy Home™ Energy & Consulting, we also recommend performance-based air sealing to enhance the benefits of insulation. Air sealing and insulation work together to improve your indoor air quality, and further provide year round comfort.
Heat Pumps
Heat pumps are some of the most versatile and energy efficient heating and cooling systems on the market today. Unlike a traditional furnace, heat pumps work by transferring heat instead of creating it. By transferring heat in or out of your home and running on electricity, heat pumps can bring many whole home and air quality solutions, like:
Healthy Home™ Energy & Consulting also does mini split heat pump installation, which provides all of the above benefits with the addition of room-by-room controls. Mini split, or ductless heat pumps can be installed as a full furnace replacement or provide supplemental heating and cooling. We work with Mitsubishi Electric heat pumps for the cold New York climate which can heat your home—even when its -13° F outside!
Basement Moisture
Your basement or crawl space is part of a whole house ventilation system. This means that the moisture that builds in the lower levels of your home can affect the indoor air quality of the upper levels. There are many ways to keep moisture out of your basement, including:
When we perform insulation and air sealing services, our team always ensures that the area is also properly ventilated. While too much air flow can cause problems, so can not enough. Ventilation is important for indoor air quality and keeping contaminants—like moisture—out of your home.
These are much more powerful and efficient than stand-alone units and can be installed directly into your home’s central heating and cooling duct system, removing moisture as it circulates.
The Healthy Home™ Process
If you’re interested in whole home improvements, call Healthy Home™ Energy & Consulting. We understand the whole home philosophy and can perform a comprehensive assessment of your home and its performance. Our team is made up of building science professionals that can provide whole home solutions during our extensive home evaluation process.
1. Healthy Home™ Evaluation
During a Healthy Home™ Evaluation, a home energy consultant will perform a number of tests to determine any inefficiencies in your home, like:
Evaluate air filtration & fresh air systems
Professional blower door testing
Infrared camera imaging
Indoor air quality testing
Combustion safety testing
We will use the results from these tests to gather a better understanding of your home along with gaining valuable insight into how to reduce energy loss and health concerns.
2. Custom Healthy Home™ Solutions
Our Healthy Home Specialist will provide you with the results from the evaluation along with customized solutions for your home.
3. Healthy Home™ Upgrades
When you are ready to move forward with Healthy Home™ solutions, all home upgrades and system installations will be completed by our in-house team of building science experts.
Healthy Home™ Energy & Consulting: Your Whole Home Experts
We are certified building science experts and a leading provider of home performance services throughout Brewster and surrounding areas. Healthy Home™ Energy & Consulting is on a mission to help homeowners improve their homes and reduce their energy costs with the best quality work and materials possible.
Transform your home into an energy-efficient Healthy Home™ and get started with a Healthy Home™ Evaluation. Call 914-242-9733 or contact us online.
