Many Arlington, Alexandria, and Falls Church homeowners aren’t as comfortable as they’d like to be in their homes, but don’t know what the underlying issue is or how to fix it. Everyone knows when they’re too hot or too cold, but not many people understand what’s going on inside the walls of their home, up in their attic, or in the other hidden away places in a house.
Today’s let’s take a look at some common home comfort issues we hear homeowners talking about, explain what the cause of those issues could be, and explain the services Home Energy Medics offers that can get your home comfort back on track.
What’s Causing My Home Comfort Issues?
At Home Energy Medics, our home performance and building science experts have plenty of experience in recognizing the symptoms of poor home performance issues. Do any of the following sound familiar?
Rooms that are hard to keep warm or cool
Inconsistent temperatures in a home are a sure sign of issues with your insulation or air sealing.
Indoor drafts
If you can feel a breeze in your home, even when all the windows and doors are shut, you have air leak problems, likely the result of tiny cracks and gaps in your home’s exterior.
Humidity problems or mold
Humid air in your home, which can sometimes even lead to mold growing in corners or on walls, is usually the result of moisture and mold issues inside the walls of your home, in your crawlspace, basement, or attic. It can also be the result of (or exacerbated by) poor ventilation in your home.
Coughing, sneezing or allergy-like symptoms inside
Feeling sick or generally unwell in your home can often be tied to poor indoor air quality. IAQ problems can result from mold growth (see above), air leaks, pests or animals that have made their way inside your home, carbon monoxide leaks from a malfunctioning furnace, and more.
How Can I Solve My Home Comfort Issues?
It’s great that we now have a baseline for what may be causing your indoor comfort problems, but how do we fix them?
There are a number of home performance services that can address problems that homeowners are having, including:
Insulation & air sealing
Air duct sealing
Window and door installation
Professional building science contractors use these broader services to address very specific problems in a home.
Mold and moisture solutions, for example, could include finding an attic insulation company that can close up air and moisture leaks with air sealing. Your moisture issues could also be traced back to AC ductwork sweating or condensation on your ductwork. This could not only be creating mold problems inside the walls of your home, but energy loss and decreased home comfort as well.
In short, it’s sometimes hard to generalize and say, “If you are experiencing [X] in your home, it’s because of [Y].” Every home is unique, and common home comfort issues can have very different causes, depending on the house. To find out your exact situation, there’s no substitute for reaching out to a local home performance and energy audit company near you.
Schedule an Audit Today with Home Energy Medics
A home energy audit helps pinpoint the exact areas where home improvements are most needed in a Washington, DC area home. Using advanced technology and testing methods like infrared cameras and blower door tests, an energy auditor can determine air leakage levels and where energy loss is most occurring in your home. That information can then be used to accurately determine what services like insulation or air sealing will have the most impact, and what areas in your home need help the most.