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2014-06-02T15:00:00.05Z
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https://www.atticsystemsdealerships.com/about/news-and-events/33336-3-worst-mistakes-home-builders-and-contractors-make-in-the-attics-impacting-homeowner-comfort-and-health-you-need-to-know-about.html
3 Worst Mistakes Home Builders and Contractors Make in the Attics Impacting Homeowner Comfort and Health You Need to Know About!
2018-12-11T00:00:00.05Z
Marc Tannebaum
There is an epidemic of people suffering in most of the 100 million homes across the U.S. Many of your customers are living in uncomfortable and unhealthy homes, and are wasting money trying to heat and cool them.
Even after you have installed higher ef...
<p><span style="font-size: small;">There is an epidemic of people suffering in most of the 100 million homes across the U.S. Many of your customers are living in uncomfortable and unhealthy homes, and are wasting money trying to heat and cool them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Even after you have installed higher efficiency, properly sized equipment in their homes, many of you are experiencing </span>call backs<span style="font-size: small;"> from customers because they have rooms and entire homes that remain too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. The HVAC equipment is working, but the house itself is not!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Poor indoor air quality, made worse in many homes that have air handlers and leaky ducts in attics, is contributing to illnesses like asthma and allergies for families living in these homes. Homeowners are wasting </span>money,<span style="font-size: small;"> and experiencing higher heating and cooling bills than they should. This epidemic of comfort and health issues is caused by <strong>3 MAJOR MISTAKES MADE BY BUILDERS AND SOME CONTRACTORS.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong> </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">1. Insulation is blown in or batts placed on attic floors without first air sealing. </span> </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">When homeowners are too cold or too hot, they may call an insulation contractor to add or install insulation into their attics. Unfortunately, most of these contractors do not air seal the <img style="float: right;" src="https://cdn.treehouseinternetgroup.com/uploads/blog/4026/medium/pipe_1544537851.png" alt="3 Worst Mistakes Home Builders and Contractors Make in the Attics Impacting Homeowner Comfort and Health You Need to Know About! - Image 1" width="249" height="260">attic floor before adding or installing insulation. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Penetrations in the air and thermal boundary between the attic and the conditioned space are completely ignored! Pipe and wire penetrations, can </span>lights<span style="font-size: small;">, chimney chases, top plates, drop down stairs and other gaps and cracks in the attic floor are places that the air your customers paid to heat in winter can leak into the attic. Since the attic is ventilated, this air is lost to the outside.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Heat from superhot attics in the summer can migrate into the home, increasing the cooling load in living spaces. Unsealed attic floors lead to rooms and homes that are uncomfortable and difficult to heat in winter and cool in summer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">The air flowing through all these gaps and cracks deposits dirt and dust in fiberglass batts. Dirty insulation has a reduced ability to resist heat flow between the attic and conditioned areas in the home, increasing heating and cooling loads, and making people hot in summer and</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"> cold in </span>wintertime<span style="font-size: small;">. Heating and cooling systems must run longer to deliver comfort to the home, increasing fuel and electric bills and wasting peoples’ money. Warm moist air leaking through these gaps and cracks into cold, winter attics condenses on the underside of roof decks, which can lead to mold. This contributes to unhealthy indoor air quality, leading to sick homeowners</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong> <br></strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">2. Not Enough (or any) Insulation on Attic Floors </span> </strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Attics that are ventilated are considered outdoor space, and are very cold in the winter and extremely hot in the summer. Most attics do not have enough insulation on the attic floor to <img style="float: right;" src="https://cdn.treehouseinternetgroup.com/uploads/blog/4026/medium/attic_1544538086.png" alt="3 Worst Mistakes Home Builders and Contractors Make in the Attics Impacting Homeowner Comfort and Health You Need to Know About! - Image 2" width="303" height="200">resist the movement of heat through the insulation. Homebuilders and insulation contractors don’t add or install enough insulation to deliver adequate resistance to heat flow to and from the attic space and the living area. This makes the upstairs ceilings very hot, turning them to indoor radiant heaters during the summer. In winter, heated air rises to the top of the house, and conducts through the </span>dry wall<span style="font-size: small;"> ceiling and into the attic, making it more difficult to keep your customers warm and comfortable in wintertime.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong>3. Ducts in attics</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Many homes have heating and cooling systems and ductwork in their attics. Ducts in attics are a major contributor to this epidemic. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">In summer, attics can be 130Ëš or hotter. Uninsulated or under-insulated ducts in attics act as reheating lines. The cold air homeowners paid to cool gains heat from the very hot attic as the air moves through the ducts to the areas of the home that need to be </span>cooled<span style="font-size: small;">! The opposite happens in winter. Ducts act as re-chilling lines. The air homeowners paid to heat loses that heat to cold attics as the air moves through poorly insulated duct systems to the conditioned parts of the home.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Duct systems are designed to produce and distribute a certain amount and temperature of air <img style="float: right;" src="https://cdn.treehouseinternetgroup.com/uploads/blog/4026/medium/attic-2_1544538172.png" alt="3 Worst Mistakes Home Builders and Contractors Make in the Attics Impacting Homeowner Comfort and Health You Need to Know About! - Image 3" width="257" height="262">to heat and cool the home. Unfortunately, a large percentage of that air is lost along the way due to duct leakage. Up to 47% of the air your customers paid to heat or cool can be lost through holes, gaps and poor connections in ductwork. If there is an air handler in the attic, it can suck contaminates like mouse feces, mold spores and dust from the attic into the ducts. Contaminates are distributed right into the living areas, potentially causing and making it worse for allergy and asthma suffers. Placing ducts in attics is possibly the worst decision made by builders and contractors.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Attic Systems trains HVAC contractors to identify, sell and install solutions to fix these problems, profitably! Attic </span>Systems<span style="font-size: small;"> is a part of Contractor Nation, the largest and most successful family of home improvement and repair contractors in North America. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">For more information on Attic Systems, contact us today at [[phone]], x – 7029, or visit us at <a href="http://www.AtticSystemsdealerships.com">www.AtticSystemsdealerships.com</a></span></p>
2018-12-11T00:00:00.05Z
https://www.atticsystemsdealerships.com/about/news-and-events/30571-why-arent-you-offering-air-sealing-and-insulation.html
Why Aren't You Offering Air Sealing and Insulation?
2017-12-21T00:00:00.05Z
Marc Tannenbaum
Over the past several years, HVAC contractors have been enticed to enter the Home Performance industry. This push has come from industry gurus, franchisors, product manufacturers and service providers (this writer is included), various certification orga...
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Over the past several years, HVAC contractors have been enticed to enter the Home Performance industry. This push has come from industry gurus, franchisors, product manufacturers and service providers (this writer is included), various certification organizations, energy utilities and even the Department of Energy. The availability of government and utility-funded rebates also made Home Performance attractive to contractors looking to make it easier for their customers to make investments in fixing the envelope of their home.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">While this push has been made with all good intentions, it has been met with limited acceptance throughout the HVAC community. Several heating and cooling contractors have successfully added products and services designed to improve the envelope of the home to their service offerings. However, not many have made the transition from a HVAC company that offers air sealing and insulation services to a Home Performance contractor that offers home heating and cooling improvements among a broader list of home services designed to deliver a complete comfort solution.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">So why aren’t more HVAC contractors involved in Home Performance? I believe those of us exhorting HVAC companies to take on Home Performance made a mistake. We made it too complex and overly difficult. We insisted that everyone get certified in building science and take advantage of rebates. There were too many products to learn to sell and install. It just became easier for the typical HVAC contractor to add plumbing or electrical services to their customers, instead of jumping into the Home Performance business.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">With that said, I do still believe that air sealing and insulating, especially attic floors, duct systems in attics and rim joists are necessary home improvements HVAC contractors should offer to deliver a complete solution to comfort problems your customers are experiencing. Here’s why:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Even after you have installed higher efficiency, properly sized equipment in their homes, many of you still experience callbacks from customers because they have rooms and homes that remain too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. This can be happening because the thermal and air boundary between the attic and conditioned space is not intact, not aligned and not sufficient to keep warm air inside the home in the winter and hot air from the attic penetrating the living space in the summer. The home is experiencing higher heating loads in winter and cooling leads in summer because heat is moving across the attic floor to and from the living area.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Any air leaking out of the home and into the attic in wintertime must be replaced with cold air leaking into the home through gaps and cracks at the bottom of the home (rim joists). This air must be heated. This contributes to heating systems to run longer than they need to and higher heating fuel or electric bills.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Ducts in attics that can be 130˚ or hotter in summer act as reheating lines as the cold air homeowners paid to cool gains heat from the very hot attic as the air moves through the ducts. The opposite happens in winter. Ducts act as re-chilling lines. The air loses heat to the cold attics as it moves through poorly insulated duct systems to the conditioned parts of the home, making it difficult to deliver overall comfort year round.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Duct systems are designed to produce and distribute a certain amount and temperature of air to heat and cool the home. Unfortunately, a large percentage of that air is lost along the way due to duct leakage.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">All these issues contribute to the level of comfort your customers ultimately experience in their homes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Simply put, HVAC contractors can do a much better job of offering and installing complete comfort solutions by adding attic air sealing and insulation, duct sealing and insulation and rim joist sealing on their replacement installations. Not only will your customers thank you for providing a thorough solution, you can add $5,000, or more, of high margin work to your jobs!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">You don’t need to be a certified Home Performance contractor to do this, nor do you need utility rebates. You do need sales people that can explain and demonstrate to homeowners why and how these problems contribute to overall home comfort. You will need to make a small investment in equipment to install the work. You do need systems and processes to make this a regular part of your product and service offerings. And you do need ongoing training to stay at the top of your game.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And here’s the bottom line. Because they remain too hot in summer or too cold in winter, your customers are going on the internet today to research, find and hire contractors to add batts or blown-in insulation in their attics. Most of these “blow-and-go” contractors don’t air seal and certainly don’t understand duct systems and do a grave disservice to your customers.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">So, why aren’t you offering air sealing and insulation services to your customers?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></p>
2017-12-21T00:00:00.05Z
https://www.atticsystemsdealerships.com/about/news-and-events/30091-3-issues-impacting-homeowner-comfort-and-health-you-need-to-know-about.html
3 Issues Impacting Homeowner Comfort and Health You Need to Know About
2017-10-18T00:00:00.05Z
Marc Tannenbaum
There is an epidemic of people suffering in most of the 100 million homes across the U.S. Many of your customers are living in uncomfortable and unhealthy homes, and are wasting money trying to heat and cool their homes.
Even after HVAC contractors have...
<p>There is an epidemic of peopl<img style="float: left;" src="https://cdn.treehouseinternetgroup.com/uploads/blog/4026/medium/girl_1508337800.jpeg" alt="3 Issues Impacting Homeowner Comfort and Health You Need to Know About - Image 1" width="254" height="168" />e suffering in most of the 100 million homes across the U.S. Many of your customers are living in uncomfortable and unhealthy homes, and are wasting money trying to heat and cool their homes.</p>
<p>Even after HVAC contractors have installed higher efficiency, properly sized equipment in their homes, many of you are still getting call backs from customers because they have rooms and entire homes that remain too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. The HVAC equipment is working, but this epidemic is causing your customers to remain uncomfortable and even causing health issues!</p>
<p>Poor indoor air quality, made worse in many homes that have air handlers and leaky ducts in attics, is contributing to illnesses like asthma and allergies for families living in these homes. </p>
<p>Because of this epidemic, homeowners are wasting money, and experiencing higher heating and cooling bills than they should.</p>
<p><strong>Three major issues are causing this epidemic:</strong></p>
<ol><ol>
<li>
<h2>Insulating Attics without Air Sealing Attic Floors</h2>
<h2> </h2>
</li>
</ol></ol>
<p>When homeowners are too cold or too hot, they may call an insulation contractor to add or install insulation into their attics. Unfortunately, most of these contractors do not air seal the attic floor before adding or installing insulation.</p>
<p>Penetrations in the air and thermal boundary between the attic and the conditioned space are completely ignored! Pipe and wire penetrations, can lights, chimney chases, top plates, drop down stairs and other gaps and cracks in the attic floor are places that the air your customers paid to heat in winter can leak into the attic and, since the attic is ventilated, be lost to the outside. Heat from super- hot attics in the summer can migrate to the home, increase the cooling load in living spaces. Unsealed attic floors leads to rooms and homes that are uncomfortable and difficult to heat in winter and cool in summer.</p>
<p>The air flowing through all these gaps and cracks also deposits dirt and dust in fiberglass batts. Dirty insulation has a reduced ability to resist heat flow between the attic and conditioned areas in the home, increasing heating and cooling loads in the home and making people to hot in summer and too cold in wintertime. Heating and cooling systems must run longer to deliver comfort to the home, increasing fuel and electric bills and wasting people’s money.</p>
<p>Plus, warm moist air leaking through these gaps and cracks into cold, winter attics condenses on the underside of roof decks, which can lead to mold – and contributes to unhealthy indoor air quality, leading to sick homeowners! In severe cases, this can lead to serious rot issues and failing roofs.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<h2>Not Enough (or ANY) Insulation on Attic Floors</h2>
<p>Attics that are ventilated are considered outdoor space, and are very cold in the winter and extremely hot in the summer. Most attics do not have enough insulation on the attic floor to resist the movement of heat through the insulation. Homebuilders and insulation contractors don’t add or install enough insulation to deliver adequate resistance to heat flow to and from the attic space and the living area. This makes the upstairs ceilings very hot, turning them to indoor radiant heaters during the summer. In wintertime, heated air rises to the top of the house, and conducts through the drywall ceiling and into the attic, making it more difficult to keep your customers warm and comfortable in wintertime. Lack of adequate insulation on attic floors significantly impacts the heating and cooling loads in a home.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h2>Ducts in Attics (The Most Hostile Environment of the Home)</h2>
<p>Ducts in attics are a major contributor to this epidemic. Many homes have heating and cooling systems and ductwork in their attics, the most hostile area of the home. Attics can be 130 degrees or hotter in the summer. Uninsulated or under-insulated ducts in attics act as reheating lines, with the cold air homeowners paid to cool gaining heat from the very hot attic as the air moves through the ducts to the areas of the home that need to be cooled! The opposite happens in winter. Ducts act as re-chilling lines, with the air homeowners paid to heat, losing that heat to the cold, cold attics as the air moves through poorly or uninsulated duct systems to the conditioned parts of the home. </p>
<p>These systems are designed to produce and distribute a certain amount and temperature of air to heat and cool the home. Unfortunately, a large percentage of that air is lost along the way due to duct leakage. Up to 47% of the air your customers paid to heat or cool can be lost through holes, gaps and poor connections in ductwork. If there is an air handler in the attic as well, it can suck contaminates like mouse feces, mold spores and dust from the attic into the ducts, and be distributed right into the living areas, potentially causing and making it worse for allergy and asthma suffers. Placing ducts in attics is possibly the worst decision made by builders and contractors.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>These problems and the epidemic of discomfort and poor health they cause create a tremendous opportunity for HVAC contractors. You are in the best position to add air sealing and insulation products and services to the jobs you’re currently selling and installing. Your customers and prospect are already contacting you to solve their comfort and indoor air quality issue. Many of you have 100’s if not 1000’s of service agreement customers that can be easily marketed to for these add on products. In many parts of the country, you already have sales and service people in attic, literally stepping over these added sales opportunities. </p>
<p>In reality, if you’re not sealing up attic floors and ducts in attics, and insulating attic floors to reduce heating and cooling loads, you could be installing over-sized equipment and you may not be offering a comprehensive and complete comfort solution to your customers. </p>
<p>And here’s the kicker – your customers are buying insulation now – so it might as well be you that helps them buy the right job, installed the correct way!</p>
2017-10-18T00:00:00.05Z