Typical Improvements To Your Home Concerns
High Electricity Costs
Heating, cooling, and powering a home can be an expensive business. In cold winter months and hot summer months, a homeowner's electricity bill can often be far more than expected, but with little explanation why. Power companies charge by KwH used by the whole home, not the individual appliance, which can make finding the source of high electricity use difficult.
At Greenwise, we're able to offer a number of solutions to help combat the cost of expensive electricity. The first is a piece of advice for any homeowner - monitor electricity use. Be wary of leaving lights on or running appliances longer than necessary. Older-model washers, dryers, and hot water heaters can consume large amounts of energy to do the same job as newer, more environmentally friendly versions.
Greenwise can also help by making sure that energy isn't being lost to the outside of a home by finding points of energy leakage and re-sealing the home. Owing to our expertise in the field of home eco-fitting, we're also able to offer more comprehensive services, such as the installation of a solar water heater or high-efficiency furnace. We're a full-service, fully certified green home company, and we specialize in making homes energy-friendly.
Home Too Hot Or Too Cold?
A home will typically have some rooms that are colder or warmer than others, owing to the construction of the home, insulation issues, and the way that air is delivered to each area of the house. Rooms in a home are not always a uniform size, but most forced-air furnaces are designed to provide the same amount of heat to each room through the duct-work. This results in areas that are too cold or too hot depending on their size as well as how many windows they have, and based on their location in the home.
There are a number of ways that homeowners can reduce this disparity in heat. The first is to have the airflow in a home properly balanced so that each room receives an amount of heat or cooling proportionate to its size. Programmable thermostats can also help to save money and make a home more comfortable, as they will keep the home at a constant temperature regardless of the environmental conditions around them. Automatic settings can be programmed for night or when the home is empty to limit the amount of unnecessary heating or cooling.
Owners can also have new, energy-efficient windows installed, or clean air ducts to ensure that air is flowing smoothly. As well, alternate heating and cooling options now exist, such as high-efficiency gas furnaces and water-based radiators and forced-air heat. Mini split ductless air conditioners are also an option -- these provide room-by-room cooling methods all controlled from a central compressor.
Greenwise Solutions, Inc. is a green home auditing, retro-fitting, and construction company that specializes in helping homeowners address every stage of their home heating and airflow updating. With solutions to suit any home and budget, and staffed by experts in the field, Greenwise can help homeowners find the balance in home heating and cooling.
Asthma and Allergies
For those with breathing difficulties, such as allergies or asthma, your home should be the one place you can breathe effectively and relax. Unfortunately, many homes have airflow systems that allow airborne pollutants from outdoors to come inside. This, in turn, leads to an increase in asthma attacks or severe allergy symptoms as the tainted air in the home is recycled, continually bringing in new mold, dust, and bacterial particles.
In order for a home to have the best quality air, airflow must be controlled. Greenwise Solutions can help clean your home's air by starting with an audit of all ducting systems, HVAC systems, doors and windows, and air intake spaces such as an attic or crawlspace. If there are areas where outside air can enter the home without being purified first, it means sealing work is necessary.
Next, we'll take a look at just how well the air exchange in the home is working. In order for a home's air to be free of pollutants, it must be able to cycle in and out through filters. If this flow system is not working properly, Greenwise can help get it back on track and make your property a clean haven for allergy and asthma sufferers.
Comfort
A home is a place to get away from it all, to relax after the stress of a long day, and take refuge from uncomfortable weather. The goal for any homeowner is to make their home comfortable during any season, especially during extreme weather in winter and summer, without paying too much for this control.
Unfortunately, due to the building methods used in many older homes and the speed at which many new homes are built, a house will often have inefficient ductwork, open spaces, and a furnace or air conditioning system that's not up to the task. This results in areas of the home being too hot or too cold. Setting the thermostat to a temperature which makes all rooms comfortable can be very costly.
Greenwise employs a number of methods to reduce the cost of your heating and AC bill and make your home more energy efficient to ensure comfort. We'll evaluate if an appliance or furnace is simply not doing its job. At Greenwise, with our accredited auditing and full-home green construction knowledge, we can help make a home less costly to heat and cool, even as we make it more comfortable.
Energy Efficiency
Many homeowners pay far more than they should for electricity and heating costs because their home's energy systems are inefficient. This is a common problem in homes built in the 1970s and 1980s, before modern energy-efficient home construction techniques were developed. In these homes, there is often a loss of heated or cooled air through improper duct work, poorly sealed doors and windows, lack of insulation and other unnoticed openings. Additionally inefficient appliances cause heating and electric bills to skyrocket.
There are a great deal of environmentally friendly ways to help make a home more energy efficient that actually end up costing the homeowner less in the long run. Replacing lightbulbs, installing low flow plumbing, adding insulation, installing Energy Star appliances, and even replacing windows all leads to better energy efficiency. Proper duct sealing, combined with the installation of a solar water heater, for example, can significantly reduce your energy consumption and costs by up to 30%. As specialists in the area of green home technology and with a substantial list of accreditations, Greenwise can help homeowners harness their home's potential.
Health
A home should be safe, secure, and healthy; but for many families being inside their own homes can actually be more dangerous than being outside. This is largely due to Indoor Air Pollution, typically caused not by a malfunctioning heating or cooling system, but by improper sealing of the home itself.
Often known as the "home envelope", the network of air circulation, insulation, water, and vapor barriers that surround a home needs to be intact and uninterrupted to function properly. If it is not, outside pollutants can be sucked into the home where they begin to re-circulate, harming those inside.
These pollutants can take the form of dust or other small particles, increasing the severity of allergies or asthma; or they can be insects, mold, or even bacteria. Having a home that is properly sealed against outside health issues and that has high-quality air circulating inside is crucial to a healthy life.
Here at Greenwise, we specialize in whole-home sustainable design, from initial auditing to installation and retro-fitting. We're the best at what we do - and are qualified with LEED, HERS, BPI, and BPC certifications to name a few. Contact us, and let us start you on the path to a healthy home.
High Heating Costs
How much heating a home needs depends on its location - a home in northern California will have higher heating costs than one near the southern edge. But even in homes that need a great deal of heating, there are a number of factors that affect total cost.
Two of these - the severity of weather and the cost of electricity or natural gas in the area - are beyond the control of a homeowner. A spike in natural gas prices or a cold snap will mean higher heating costs.
There are factors that a homeowner can control, however. The efficiency of not only a home's furnace, but also how much of its heat is kept within the home will have serious effects on the cost of heating.
A poorly-maintained furnace or a home that does not have a sealed thermal envelope will be burning through more fuel than is needed, and will heat a house far less efficiently.
Here at Greenwise, we're full-service green home specialists, and we offer a number of solutions to lower heating costs, beginning with an energy audit and continuing on to duct and air sealing or even the installation of a new high-efficiency furnace.
Mold and Mildew
No matter how efficient the furnace or how well-sealed the ducting system, some mold and mildew spores will enter a home. If the home is properly heated and has minimal humidity, these spores will not present a problem.
Leaking pipes, cold windows, or extremely humid air in the home can lead to a source of moisture, which propagates the growth of mold and mildew. Using moisture to bind them to walls, mold spores will use organic material in the home as a food source and begin to rapidly spread. In some cases, mold will occur within walls and its presence will be unknown until a smell or renovation project reveals it.
Even then, simply removing the mold will not solve the problem. So long as there is moisture and a food source present, the mold will return. At Greenwise, we specialize in helping our clients to control and prevent the spread of mold by evening out temperature fluctuations in the home, ensuring that pipes and ducts are properly sealed, and providing green air circulation and purification systems. Certified by LEED, BPC, BPI and HERS, we're specialists in making homes eco-friendly, safe, and sound.
