In my last post I discussed the areas that need to be considered when purchasing a new furnace. Now we will deal with what inefficiencies we can add to either a new furnace installation or an existing furnace. One of the most overlooked areas in energy efficiency is failing to understand the other parts of a heating system that have as much effect on heating costs as the furnace itself. Those parts include the distribution system and system control or thermostat.
The distribution system is your heating's system’s vents and registers. Included in this system are both the supply and return ducts. Most systems I see lack the proper return ducts (not enough return for the amount of supply). Most homes, as did mine, were built with a single return duct. The proper installation would have as many square feet (in volume) of return ducts as supply ducts. If you have installed a new furnace, this balance of return ducts and supply ducts should be correct, or if incorrect prior to the installation of the new furnace, corrected by your heating contractor by adding one or two new return ducts (and registers.) If you are just trying to correct your own system and not installing a new furnace you could just call a duct installer and have him/her size up the correct return ducts needed and install those ducts. With the correct supply/return balance the hot air distribution will reduce costs and make for a more comfortable home.
Once you have the proper balance between supply and return ducts those ducts should be taped and insulated. If you ever want to see how much heat is lost before reaching its end point (each room) you could purchase a “Smoke Pen” (which I purchase at
. You will see a variety of “smokers” that all do a great job of helping to locate leaks in ducts and heating systems. My three favorites are the the and the (the 4 minute variety). By using these smokers from the start of the heating ducts to the end of each branch register (in any accessible location) all of the leaks should be found and can be properly taped. Remember, actual duct tape is not the duct tape sold in rolls of cloth tape. The correct duct tape to be used is sold in rolls of metal tape made specifically for taping heating ducts and unlike the cheap cloth tape, metal tape lasts forever. Below is a photo of a taped duct.
Now that all of the leaks are found and covered, its time to insulate the ducts. Most un-taped, un-insulated ducts can lose as much as 20% of their heat in distribution so besides taping the ducts, all ducts should be insulated. What I have found to be the least expensive and easiest insulation to install is a proprietary product called Prodex and sold at
. (You will find many other similar products on the web but none are even close to this product in quality.) This product is both an insulation and a radiant barrier. It is basically Closed-cell polyethylene foam sandwiched between 2 layers of radiant barriers. (See below close-up.)
It is a perfect insulator and costs about $200 for 700 square feet (or $0.28 per square foot.) One of the best things about using Prodex is that you don’t need a professional installer due to the ease of the installation of the product. The product can be cut into workable size pieces and installed by anyone. The key is that it does not need to be installed tightly around a duct. It can be installed loosely and what makes it work properly is just to making sure that all seams are taped (with the same metal duct tape.) Below is an example of what your duct should look like once insulated and taped.
Now your heating system is set for the new heating season. The last part of our energy savings will come from the installation and proper programming of our homes thermostat. If you don’t currently have an EnergyStar thermostat one should be purchased. Most people don’t realize the difference between an EnergyStar thermostat and a regular programmable thermostat. I will explain the difference. With a regular thermostat when it is overridden (like deciding you want the temperature to be 71 instead of the programmed 70) the temperature will stay at the overridden temperature (in this case 71 degrees) indefinitely. This will cost you money as this temperature is usually higher than the programmed temperature. All EnergyStar programmable thermostats will always return to the programmed temperature at the end of each programmed cycle. This will save a lot of money if the program is used properly.
How do we maximize our programming Most of us live on a regular schedule. Monday through Friday we wake up (lets say 8:00 AM) , go to work at 9:00 AM and return home (at 6:00 PM) for the evening. We might go to sleep at night (11:30 PM) only to repeat the same schedule the next day. Weekends we mostly stay (or not stay) without the regular leaving and returning. Using this schedule we might program the thermostat this way: Program the weekend at 70 degrees both days all day. (If we decide to go out for longer than 2 hours we can manually override the temperature settings to 68 degrees or lower.) For our Monday through Friday schedules we will set the heat to 71 degrees at 6:00 AM. This will give us a toasty home to wake up to. The next program will be to drop the temperature at 9:00 AM (when we are going to work) to 67 degrees (or even lower if you’d like). Then we would program our next change to take place at 6:00 PM (or at least 1 hour before we got home.) Here we might program a warm house at 71 degrees. Our last programming will take place just before bedtime. Here it depends on whether you like a warm sleeping environment or a cooler one. If you like it warm, you might want to just drop the sleep-time temperature to 70 degrees. If you like it cool, you might want to drop it to 68 degrees or less.
For those who would like to calculate the savings it would be safe to assume that for every degree of temperature differential there is a 2%-3% savings of energy. This means that for a typical 2000 square foot home the typical savings should be between $80 and $200 per year. Obviously the more you set the temperature down and the longer the savings period of time the more money you will save. Also, as the cost of fuel increases, the savings increases. The beauty of all of this is that you only tape and insulate once but the savings last forever. Most people will get a 100% payback (return on investment) in their first year. If you know any other investments with a 100% payback in the first year please call or write. have a warm, comfortable winter.
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