Existing Homes

What is Home Performance?

Home Performance is the assessment and improvement of the systems in a home to ensure that a home is safe, healthy, durable, and efficient.   The systems evaluated include air tightness, insulation, water management, heating, water heating, ventilation and lighting.  It's complex business and work that should only be done by someone with the proper training and experience to ensure that it's done well and does not cause any health and safety problems.

Getting Started:

We should begin the process with a phone conversation, so that we can better understand your goals with your project.   From this phone call, we will prescribe the appropriate service to meet your goals and expectations.  If a full Home Performance Assessment makes sense, we will schedule a time to come out for the assessment.  If not, we will discuss the other options.

Home Performance Assessment: ($250 - $450)*

A Home Performance Assessment (HPA) takes place at the beginning of a project.  During an HPA we will perform a comprehensive analysis of your home and literally map out areas that your home may be losing (mostly) heat, since in the Northwest, we live in a heating dominated climate.  We will also perform diagnostic testing, such as a building air leakage test, also known as a blower door test, to determine how leaky your home is and determine opportunities to tighten it up.  If your home has a system of duct work that is in unconditioned space (in an attic or crawlspace) we will perform a duct leakage test (also known as a duct blaster test).  In addition, we may perform a series of "combustion safety" tests, that is, if you have combustion appliances, such as a gas furnace or water heater.

*Price varies depending on size and complexity of house.   Please call for details.

The Recommendations:

parrault1

From this analysis, we will prescribe a series of improvement recommendations.    We will discuss performance options with you while considering your goals and budget.  If a remodel or addition is part of the scope of work, then we will incorporate the selected options in the detailed drawings and specifications for your project.  If a home performance retrofit is all that you require at this time, we will develop a "home performance retrofit design" which includes drawings and specifications to plan your project.  We will also perform energy modelling that will help prioritize the work for phasing or return on investment analyses.  We can also perform detailed "heat loss" calculations for determining air flow and furnace/heat pump sizing.

During Construction:

Quality control is a key component of a home performance retrofit.  Achieving a high degree of improvement is a challenging process and requires a high degree of thought and control.  If the quality is not controlled and performance criteria verified during the project, going back after the fact to try and fix it is nearly impossible without large expense.  "Do it right the first time" is our mantra, and quality control will ensure this.  We do this by a series of tests during construction, such as an air leakage test or duct leakage test before the insulation is installed as testing it after the fact offers few chances to improve it.  We will also do insulation density sampling to ensure that the insulation is installed properly.

After Construction:

After the work is complete, we will perform the same testing that we did at the beginning of the project, mostly to document the final figures and file the paperwork.  Of course, we will explain every thing that the numbers mean in the beginning, along the way and at the end.