Doing an energy audit of your homes.. Good way to address some causes of hidden mold..

[Guest guest]

Just thought of something that might help many people here...

I was watching a " This Old House " segment last night aboout the new kind of

energy audits that are being done and they showed a person testing a home

using a " blower door " , a " smoke pencil " and an " infrared thermography " video

camera to find areas where the insulation was not working and where there

were air leaks between floors..

They might rerun this segment. If so, SEE IT. It is worth its weight in gold

for what it shows you about a typical home.. and how to address its problems

in cold or hot weather..

This was about tightening up your home so that it was better insulated..

They showed how the camera actualy showed the places on the walls where the

warm indoor air was leaking out and the insulation was failing..

Those are places where condensation can mean mold.. Looked like this energy

audit would be a good investment for anyone concerned with mold in their

homes because you can see where the issues are and plug them up!

This will dramatically reduce cold spots where warm air could condense to

feed mold, whiich could help a lot to reduce mold growth inside of walls..

The contractor was using fiberglass batting normally, but where there were

air holes, he was using wadded up pieces of fiberglass insulation to first

plug the holes, and then spraying the pieces with instant foam in order to

seal up the air leakage through it.

This looked like a REALLY GOOD WAY TO DO IT.. despite the concerns about

formaldehyde, etc.. because the foam cures very rapidly and it seals up the

holes VERY well..

And of course, they also needed to seal up the heat leaks around and through

the attic door, which they did with a big box made out of what looked like

cardboard with aluminum foil reflective material on it to reflect back the

heat..

Call your local power company.. they should be able to point you to a

contractor who can come out and do this in your home..

Its not such a common thing yet, but it will be..

These blower doors look expensive, but I bet one could be improvided pretty

easily with off the shelf components like plywood and box fans.. and

something like a laundry basket and a big plastic bag to show relative air

pressure..

The smoke pencil looked cheap and effective..