Have you had a salesperson tell you that all of your problems will be solved with one little gadget? OR- specifically on your home- ads tells us the replacing windows will cut you energy bills in half. Or that upgrading your HVAC can do the same. A few years ago I decided to investigate and the math did not add up. How can one product be the solution? Is every house or building the same?
What made these claims even sillier to me is when I started getting more green certifications and learning different techniques to help solve the requests that we get from our clients. I truly did wish that I could find a special pill to solve my client’s problems, but over time still had to look at each issue as being unique and the solution would be custom for that specific problem.
Here is one example:
You see these air cleaner that we can buy on TV or off the shelf at the store to help clean your air. Sounds good to me. Deep down I wanted to believe that this is all I had to do to help my clients breath better. Fortunately, since I am an engineer at heart and I resort to the scientific method for solving problems and offering solutions.
The problem is excessive dust which affects your health and your indoor air quality. The solution could be as simple as stopping the source of the dust and/or installing a whole house air filtration system.
A couple of solutions (for free- we usually charge for our consulting):
Problem: In new homes- if you have recessed can lights that not air tight and have fiberglass or cellulose insulation in the attic, then you probably cannot dust enough to keep up!
DIY Solution:
In this order..
- Call a contractor to do all of this or
- Count the number of recesses lights and either order new airtight trims online or go to your local suppliers to get what you need.
- Take out the light bulbs (if they are incandescent or halogen you can take this opportunity to replace them with CFLs and save on lighting costs!
- Remove the old leaking trim and install the new airtight trim. I make this sound easy, however the first couple will take much longer to figure out. The rest should take 15 minutes or less if you do them consecutively.
- Reinstall the old light bulb or new Energy Star light bulb
- Not only are you reducing the amount of dust your energy bills should decrease as well since your air leakage should diminish with the new air tight trims.
Note: if you see large gaps around the drywall- caulk them while the trim is off. If you have the time it makes sense to caulk any small gaps that you see as well. All of this will help cut down on the dust and air leakage
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