Home Diagnostic Test
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, we do something a little bit different that nobody else does. We’re going to come out to your house and perform a home diagnostic test, meaning, we’re going to install a blower door test, which is going to measure how leaky your house is. It’s all about stopping air from leaving your house. And we’re going to use an infrared camera, which is going to help identify hot spots and cold spots: where air’s leaving and lack of insulation. And we’re going to sit down with you to come up with a solution that you’re comfortable with to fix these problems to improve the energy efficiency and make your home more comfortable. If you’re interested in this free home evaluation, which by the way is about a $350 value, give us a call. We’ll be glad to help.
Welcome to Arbor Insulation Solutions!
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Hi, I’m Scott Osborne, owner of Arbor Insulation Solutions, and I’d like to take a second just to thank you for having us out to your home today. One of the things that makes us
really different from other insulation companies is we’re going to take the time to run a
home evaluation test for free. What we’re going to do is come in run a blower door test to figure out where the leaks are coming from. We really look at this as a home improvement. We’re going to improve the indoor air quality. We’re going to improve that heating and cooling costs. We’re going to improve the comfort of your home. During the course of your appointment feel and see a lot of different things about what’s going on with your house. And it’s a lot of information, we understand. If it anytime, you have any questions regarding this process,
don’t hesitate to give us a call. We’re here to help.
really different from other insulation companies is we’re going to take the time to run a
home evaluation test for free. What we’re going to do is come in run a blower door test to figure out where the leaks are coming from. We really look at this as a home improvement. We’re going to improve the indoor air quality. We’re going to improve that heating and cooling costs. We’re going to improve the comfort of your home. During the course of your appointment feel and see a lot of different things about what’s going on with your house. And it’s a lot of information, we understand. If it anytime, you have any questions regarding this process,
don’t hesitate to give us a call. We’re here to help.
Spray Foam Insulation and Ignition Barriers
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions we get a lot of questions about spray foam and what really is involved and one of the things that we’re concerned with is making sure you do it right and do it to code. So typically, when you go up to encapsulate your attic with spray foam, and you have an HVAC system up there or storage, the code is going to require you to have typically an ignition barrier. An ignition barrier is basically a 15-minute, fire-rated treatment paint or material. That’s just going to give you or the service tech enough time to get out of there in case of a fire. Doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, really, and what some of the spray foam guys will tell you is that you don’t really need it unless you go to sell the house, and I’ll just tell you, that’s not necessarily true. What really you’ve got to be concerned with is if there is a tragedy and something does happen with your house, and the inspector comes out from the insurance company and he finds out that the spray foam was installed, and you were incorrectly or misinformed about whether or not you should do the ignition barrier. Basically, there could be two possibilities here. Your payment for your claim is delayed while they do an inspection, or your payment is denied because you didn’t do it to code. We just want to make sure you guys are aware of what could happen when you’re misinformed by some of these other insulation companies or spray foam guys. They’ll tell you you don’t have to do it or you can put it off. I would advise you against it. Hope this helps clear up a little bit about the ignition barrier thermal barrier question. If you have any other questions or need any additional assistance, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We’re here to help.
Should I Replace My Windows?
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions we get a lot questions about whether or not people should replace their windows, and I’ll tell you, if you’ve got rotted, y’know, old wooden windows and they’re just high maintenance, and you can replace them with a good, performing window, go ahead and do it. If you’re thinking about replacing them, because you have drafty windows, let’s talk about that for a second, because what’s happening is your house is like a box, and as the air goes up higher towards the attic, it has more pressure. So basically the air is pushing out of your house, and what it’s doing down here that people are really concerned with in their drafty windows, is sucking in the air down here, creating these drafts. So, what you can do is basically you come along and replace some of the weather stripping along here. That will be a Band-Aid, but the real problem is what’s going on with that attic, because as the house is pushing air out of the attic, it’s drawing it in here. And so what we do at Arbor, is go up there. We’re going to seal up all the top plates to penetrations to make that attic as tight as possible. Basically put a lid on it. And now you don’t have as many drafts coming through, because the air has no place to go. That’s what’s going to make these windows feel a lot better, and improve the comfort and efficiency of your home. If you’re interested in finding out more, give us a call. We’re glad to help.
Crawlspace Insulation
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, we get a good many calls about crawlspace insulation. And one of the things we want to do here at this house is we’re going to recommend treating this basically like a small basement. So what you want to do is you want to encapsulate it- seal all this nasty, dirty air from coming up into your house. And like we talked about in previous videos, the insulation up here is just a fibrous material, so basically an air filter. And when it’s hit with this cold and hot air all the time it just loses its effectiveness. And so really the answer here is to encapsulate, seal the foundation walls, just like you would on the first floor of a two-story house- same principle behind a crawlspace. You want to put the vapor barrier down to keep the hot, humid air from coming up in the summertime, seal off the vents, put a nice polyethylene liner down, and then come back in and insulate the foundation walls while removing this- this old insulation here. So once you’ve completed the encapsulation and you remove that old insulation from there, what you’re going to have now is a nice, clean environment where the air can exchange between the crawlspace and the first floor. So in the summertime, that humidity is not coming up and in the wintertime, your floors are going to be much warmer. If you’re interested in finding out more about how we can help you, give us a call.
Top Plate Penetrations
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, one of the things we really focus on is air sealing. And what we want to do is tighten up your house so that the air you paid $100 – $200 to heat or cool stays in your house as long as possible. So when your home advisor comes out, he’s going to do a home diagnostic test, which usually consists of a blower door, as well as an infrared camera and a visual inspection. What we have here is an exterior wall. And what a lot of people think is that you want to look at your outlets, which leak air, and they’re going to take this off and put a foam gasket on here. But the problem with that is, you still have 6 holes that are going to be leaking, unless you put a baby cover on there, and nobody wants to do that. So the proper way to seal this wall is to go up into the attic, move the insulation out of the way and seal up that top plate. That’s going to help, because not only do you have leaks here, but you’re going to have leaks along your baseboards where air is coming up and up through that wall and then basically to the outside through your attic.If you’re interested in finding out how we can improve your house, give us a call. We’d be glad to help.
Air Sealing Your Attic
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, we do things that are definitely different than most people. We really focus on air sealing. And when we talk about air sealing, we’re talking about sealing up all the gaps and cracks that are in your house. And usually the obvious ones are like your can lights right here, so you’ll see like a four or six inch hole in your house. But what you’re not typically seeing, or may not be so familiar with, is you have these top plates in exterior walls and interior walls, and what happens you’ll have a hollow core wall and air is coming up through there, through the electrical outlets and so on and so forth. It’s basically venting out to the attic to the outside. And so what we want to do is come in with some spray foam, one part polyurethane foam, and seal up all those gaps and cracks. For your can lights, what we typically do is we have a cover and we’ll put that over there, and we going to make it so it fits perfectly around that can light, giving you a good, tight air seal. It’s also fire rated material, and then after we’re all done, we blow it with a nice layer of insulation, giving you a good thermal barrier. So what you end up with is an air barrier and a thermal barrier, both in alignment. And that’s what you want to do to make your house more comfortable and energy efficient. If you’re interested in finding out more, give us a call at Arbor Insulation Solutions. We’ll be glad to help.
Knee Walls and Bonus Room Comfort
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Here we are still in a bonus room, kind of looking at the air flow and how it’s really affecting not only this room, which we don’t really care about making this hot or cold, because this is basically outside. What we’re concerned with is making the interior side more comfortable. So what you see here is a floor that has some decking down. This is pretty typical. People use it for storage which is great, but underneath here, what you’ll see is the joist and this joist runs all the way out to the soffit. That soffit is bringing in air and what’s happening is, you know, the airflow is coming up and through that wall and also it’s coming up and underneath this floor and all the way across, making those floors cold in the wintertime and hot in the summertime. And this would be also part of how we’re going to make that room more comfortable. So you have several issues going on in the bonus room. You have the batt insulation, making that perform better with the Thermax. You ‘ve got the air sealing that goes on, which is also the Thermax, and then of course when you put that Thermax up on the wall, you’re sealing all six sides. So you want to seal the top, the bottom, and the left and the right, and of course this side is Thermax and the other side is typically drywall. That gives you your six. And then of course putting blocking underneath here to stop that air flow from coming in and across those floors. If you’re interested in finding out more, give us a call at Arbor Insulation Solutions, we’ll be glad to help.
Knee Walls and Bonus Room Air Flow
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Hey guys, it’s Scott Osborne over at Arbor Insulation Solutions and we’re at a job site this morning where it’s about 25 degrees and the home owners are complaining about a bonus room, a room over the garage. It’s really hot in the summer time and pretty cold in the winter time. And so what we want to do here is kinda look at what’s going on. We have this batt insulation, which is to code, and this is the way, you know, new construction is going to be. And really, to make this work properly to make the room more comfortable, what we want to do is we want to stop the airflow that’s coming through here. This is acting like a big air filter, and
as you’ll see in this area there’s going to be some gray areas where the air is just
constantly moving through, it just makes it dirty. And it just acts as a big air filter. And so what we want to do is stop that air that’s just pounding this R-value, and basically degrading the R-value because it’s, you know, cold or hot and so on and so forth. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to come back and we’re going to put this Dow Thermex, 1 inch thick, which is an R-value of about 6.5, and that’s going to stop that air movement. It’s going to add additional R-value here, as well as, it has a little bit of a foil on there, which is going to act as a radiant barrier, so it’ll resist the heat flow, reflect the heat flow back toward the heat source. So, in the summertime the heat will reflect back, and in the wintertime it will keep the warm air in. And then that’s how you’re going to improve this wall. That’s going to make that room very comfortable for the homeowner. If you’re looking to improve the room over your garage, give us a call. We’re glad to help.
as you’ll see in this area there’s going to be some gray areas where the air is just
constantly moving through, it just makes it dirty. And it just acts as a big air filter. And so what we want to do is stop that air that’s just pounding this R-value, and basically degrading the R-value because it’s, you know, cold or hot and so on and so forth. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to come back and we’re going to put this Dow Thermex, 1 inch thick, which is an R-value of about 6.5, and that’s going to stop that air movement. It’s going to add additional R-value here, as well as, it has a little bit of a foil on there, which is going to act as a radiant barrier, so it’ll resist the heat flow, reflect the heat flow back toward the heat source. So, in the summertime the heat will reflect back, and in the wintertime it will keep the warm air in. And then that’s how you’re going to improve this wall. That’s going to make that room very comfortable for the homeowner. If you’re looking to improve the room over your garage, give us a call. We’re glad to help.
Knee Walls and Bonus Room Air Sealing
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So, here we are in a typical knee wall. This is usually found in a room over the garage, a bonus room, master bedroom, so on and so forth. And what we have is the batt insulation in here with an R-value usually about y’know 19 in the wall. And the R-value, what that is, is the higher the number the greater the resistance to heat flow. Now the issue is, this R-value is basically decided in a vacuum where it’s 72 degrees, so if this is determined to be an R-19 in a laboratory, once you put it in a real world environment, like this nasty area of an attic where you constantly have air pounding against it and moving through it, it really degrades that R-value. Now, what’s happening in this room typically is you have a soffit down here. This is where the air is flowing, and of course the theory is: air is going to come up, it’s going to follow these rafters, it’s going to go up through these baffles and up into the attic. But in reality, what happens is that air moves across here, it’s pounding against this wall, making this wall uncomfortable in the wintertime and in the summertime. The other aspect, the other problem, is that the airflow is also moving underneath this floor, and so you have cold air coming across the floor, making the floor cold. And usually people think, “Well I just need to blow more insulation in that floor,” and that’s really not the answer. What you want to do is you just want to stop that airflow from going across your floor and through these walls. And we do that typically with a Dow Thermax product. It’s a rigid foam board. It’s about 1 inch thick R-6.5 so you’re going to increase the R-value overall in this wall. That will make it a lot more comfortable on the inside, and it will help reduce those utility costs as well. Give us a call at Arbor Insulation Solutions. We can help.
Rebates through Power Companies
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, we concentrate and focus on air sealing and making your home more comfortable and energy efficient. But we can also help you maximize your rebates through utility companies, such as Georgia Power, and we’re proud to be a Georgia Power approved contractor. And we’ve seen rebates up to $2,250. If you’re interested in finding out more, give us a call.
Bonus Room and Rooms over the Garage
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, one of the biggest complaints we get is the room over the garage, right, the bonus room. It’s hot in the summertime, it’s cold in the wintertime. And we can fix it. We fix these all the time. Most people think you just add insulation to the sealing in the garage, that’s not what’s going to fix it. What you want to do is you want to stop the air that’s coming in from the sides and in through the attic and make that room more comfortable. If you’re interested in finding out how we can make your bonus room more comfortable, give us a call.
Why Should I Air Seal My Attic?
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, what we really focus on is air sealing. Meaning: what we want to do is keep the air you’re paying for in your house as long as possible. The way this works is your house is literally like a chimney, it’s called “stack effect.” What it’s doing is it’s sucking in the air at the bottom and it’s blowing in the air out through the top. So what we want to do is put a lid on it, cap it, we want to seal that air from leaking out of your home and into your attic. Also what it’s going to do is it’s going to make the indoor air quality better because you’re not pulling in the hot, humid air, cold air, and all the dust and allergens that go along with it. So you end up with a healthier, happier home.
Should You Encapsulate Your Crawlspace?
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, one of the things we do is encapsulate crawlspaces. Why do you want to encapsulate a crawlspace? Because 40% of the air you’re breathing in your house is coming up from the crawlspace. So what we want to do is we want to get in there, seal it all up…all it really is is just a small basement, right? So we want to make it a comfortable environment where your HVAC system can bring in cool, clean air as opposed to nasty, hot, muggy air and all the allergies that go along with it. So if you’re interested in finding out how we can help you, give us a call.
The Whole Home Approach
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, we take what is called a “whole home approach to solving your issues with your house. So what we are is we’re BPI certified (Building Performance Institute) which is where we get our training, our knowledge, our experience, and we have of course the experience, to come out and look at all the different systems in your house because they all kind of work together. Your windows, your doors, your HVAC systems, the top of the house, the bottom of the house, your insulation… And what we want to do is give you the right solution to determine what’s going on with your house, to make your home more comfortable and more energy efficient. If you’re interested in finding out more, give us a call.
Keep Your Home’s Temperature Comfortable
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So at Arbor Insulation Solutions, what we really focus on is comfort, not necessarily how much you’re going to save on your utility bills. Because we all appreciate comfort, right? We drive nice cars, we have comfortable clothes, but we live in a cold, drafty house in the winter time, or a warm, hot house, humid house, in the summertime. And so what we really want to do is just keep that air that you’ve paid for in your house as long as possible. That’s what’s going to improve your comfort. It’s going to stop the drafts in the winter time, the humidity from coming in in the summer time, the allergens, the dust, so and and so forth. If you’re interested in finding out how your home can be more comfortable, give us a call.
ROI for your Home’s Insulation
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At Arbor Insulation Solutions, we get the question about return on investment: How much is this going to save me? And to be honest with you, we really couldn’t tell you. We can give you an average that most of our customers are going to save somewhere between 20 and 40% on utility bills. But it really comes down to a lifestyle difference, right?. So at my house, where I’ve got four teenagers taking showers all day long and laying around with the air conditioning, I’m going to save more than say somebody who has just one or two people in their house, because my lifestyle requires more energy usage. But what we always find out after talking to people is that they really appreciated the comfort. And now their house is not as drafty, it’s not as dusty, it’s more comfortable, the air stays in the room and the house longer. So if you’re interested in finding out how we can help you, give us a call.
Spray Foam Insulation and Fiberglass
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One of the things that we do at Arbor Insulation Solutions is when we come out to your house, we’re going to determine where the air is leaking from. So what we’ll do is we’ll come up with a variety of solutions, which may include, most likely, a spray foam solution along with your typical fiberglass or cellulose insulation. And the idea is to give you the spray foam to seal up the gaps and the cracks in your attic and then the insulation is designed to keep the hot air in the summertime from transmitting through into your living space and then on the winter side, keep the hot air you’re paying for in the house from going up into the attic. So if you’re interested in finding out more about how the spray foam and the fiberglass work together, give us a call.