Atlanta Housing Source

Two days ago two men equipped with a bunch of equipment and computer came to my home and did an audit. Unlike the IRS type of audit, this one can put money into your pocket. Four hours later they gave me a 14 page report, improvement recommendations with a budget and a ‘BTU per square foot per degree day’ rating of 4.7. The lower is better and their goal is to achieve at least 5.0 for their customers.
They had infrared cameras, smoke sticks, fans to attach to the door and computers with great software to tell you what to do to increase energy efficiency and comfort. I was looking for cost savings and my wife for the comfort angle. Either way, knowing what to do to improve your home can be beneficial.
We found out that we have a pretty good home as it pertains to energy efficiency. We did find out the things to do to add comport and savings and will implement those before winter truly sets in.
The neatest thing was when they did the blower door test. They put a big fan over the front door, turned off all heating and cooling equipment to find where air leaks were. Using a smoke stick they could show me by the movement of a puff of smoke where the leaks were ands just how bad the air was leaking.
To my surprise my windows that I had considered changing due to my perceived belief that they had big air leaks, had little air coming in around the frames. Being nearly twenty years old the single pane windows that I thought needed replacing, in fact didn’t leak like I thought.
We already added 15 SER / 95% Efficient HVAC equipment a year ago. Two years ago we added 12″ of ceiling insulation and sealed off the pull down stairs with a 8″ thick Styrofoam frame and door in the attic above the pull down unit. We had covered the attic fan and insulated on top of it.
What the audit found was we needed to glue down the attic stair Styrofoam and better seal the attic fan canopy. We need to seal the vents where they transition into the ceiling from the attic to deliver heated and cooled air to the upper story.
We found the gas heater and water heater in our basement do not put out carbon monoxide near allowable limits, which is good news. We do have a carbon monoxide detector just in case. When the water heater goes out we are going back with the tank less style.
The biggest issue is where part of the home is on crawl space. The rooms above the crawl space have always been cold in the winter and they discovered why. We have inadequate insulation on the floors and outside walls.
To remedy the known issues we are sealing and encapsulating the crawl space with closed cell high density foam insulation, gluing the hatch and resealing the fan. We are also sealing the duct work. If done by the end of the year the energy tax credit will apply and my local utility has rebates also.
Cumulatively all my work to save energy and be comfortable is paying off. By Thanksgiving the kitchen above he crawl space will be a warmer place to be and my utility bill will go down. This has been a three year project that has been great on my wallet and on my comfort.
Be sure to get an audit done and take the steps recommended. You have until December 31. 2010 to qualify for the rebates. There is still time.  My home energy audit team is available to assit you. Contact me for more details.

The production of 1 ton of cardboard requires:

•17 trees for the use of pulp
•7000 gallons of water
•462 gallons of oil
•1 ton of cardboard uses 9 cubic yards of landfill space and dumping paper products in landfills adds methane to the atmosphere as it decomposes, with 20 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.
•In 2003, paper and paperboard accounted for 35 percent of the total materials discarded in the United States. Just imagine the impact we could make by reducing the need for so much cardboard.
•In the U.S. we have lost 95 percent of our old growth forests.
•The U.S. pulp and paper industry is the second largest consumer of energy and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.
•According to the American Forest and Paper Association in 2008 the average person in the US added 220 lbs of paper waste to our landfills.

Go through these shocking truths about the environment of our planet and share them with your friends.
•80% of the world’s forests are gone.
•Over 40% of all tropical forests have been destroyed and another acre is lost each second.
•The US has less than 4% of its forests left.
•The U.S. burns 10,000 gallons of gasoline a second. Burning one gallon of gas creates 22 lbs of carbon dioxide. Now that’s 220,000 lbs of Co2 per second.
•An average American creates 4.5 lbs. garbage a day — an amount doubled from 30 years ago.
•Every year we throw away 24 million tons of leaves and grass. Leaves alone account for 75% of our solid waste in the fall.
•Over 100 pesticide ingredients are suspected to cause birth defects, cancer, and gene mutations.
•99% of all those things we buy are not in use after 6 months.
•Every ton of recycled office paper saves 380 gallons of oil.
•About 1% of U.S. landfill space is full of disposable diapers, which take 500 years to decompose.
•40% of our waterways are undrinkable.
•The US has 5% of the world’s population and 30% of the waste.
•Energy saved from one recycled aluminum can will operate a TV set for 3 hours, and is the equivalent to half a can of gasoline.
•As per an estimation by The University of California, 30,000 deaths occur a year because of gasoline or diesel fuel use.
•Approximately, 70,000 people in the U.S die prematurely from heart and lung disease aggravated by particulate air pollution.
•Glass produced from recycled glass instead of raw materials reduces related air pollution by 20%, and water pollution by 50%.
•Americans annually use 50 million tons of paper. This equals the consumption of more than 850 million trees.
•Homeowners use up to 10 times more toxic chemicals per acre than farmers.
•Turning down your central heating thermostat by one degree can cut fuel consumption by as much as 10%.
•Insulating your attic reduces the amount of energy loss in most houses by up to 20%.
•The amount of glass disposed of in 1990 was enough to fill the Twin Towers (1,350 feet high) of New York’s World Trade Center every two weeks.
•Using energy efficient bulbs in place of every 75 watt light bulbs can prevent 1 ton of carbon dioxide from being released in the air.
•Many banks lent large sums of money to developing nations. In order to pay those debts plus interest many nations have turned to the mining of their natural resources as a source of financial aid.
•40,000 children in the world die every year from preventable diseases.
•The human population of the world is expected to rise by nearly three times by the year 2100.
•A 3% annual population growth will result in the doubling of consumption and production of food and other products within 2033.
•The number of automobiles is expected to increase by 15 million per year until at least 2010.
•The world’s per capita grain production has been on the downfall since 1985 despite the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Already a train system has been developed (back in 1987) which is based on magnetic levitation and causes minimal pollution. These versions of a train are already in use in several countries.
•Fibre optics, made of glass, are being used to replace copper cables throughout the world.
•Uncontrolled fishing has resulted in the reduction of the population of many commercial species; some upto one-tenth of their original population.
•Every day 50 to 100 species of plants and animals become extinct as their habitat and human activities destroy them.