Frustrated at the lack of expertise in Louisville

Constantin

Going through the house and identifying where all the air is going will be a very useful excercise. The many tubes of caulk of Diedre may seal the windows to the walls, but the walls or the ceiling penetrations may be leaking like sieves.

It was most amazing to me that I was able to keep the 3rd floor cool/cold all winter despite heating the lower floors, an open stairwell, etc. I credit the unvented roof and the tight insulation job allowed by Corbond with impeding the stack effect and keeping the BTUs mostly on the lower floors as intended.

If Diedre's house walls looked like our brick, there may be hundreds of holes for the wind to whistle through. Re-pointing the house is but one way to make the shell tighter...

Besides the blower door test, I suggest a building review with an infrared camera. They do a great job of detecting hot spots, water issues, etc. due to their sensitivity. The first step in this direction would be a call to the utility to see if they offer rebate programs for insulation, weatherization, etc. Most do.

If that doesn't pan out, I suggest a click and a hop to energystar.gov, which for approximately $75 will send out a specialist with a blower door to review your home, assess the possibilities, and give you unbiased advice. They'll also work to get you your energystar rebates, may make recommendations re: what to do first, etc. If you're radical enough, you can make old girls very energy efficient as we did here... this 1872 Mansard has a HERS score over 90, which makes it a EnergyStar certified home.

DeirdreLouisville

Frustrated at the lack of expertise in Louisville

On the wall I find a huge number of proffessionals discussing geothermal heat, radiant floors, etc.

But, here in Louisville, KY, I can't find a single company that can develop a heating/cooling plan using these elements.

There is ONE company here that handles Geothermal. They came and chatted. Then the salesmen brought a tech with him to look and talk. Then another. I meet with them for a total of 5 hours telling them my goals: Bring the heating costs down on my 1882 Italianate home, incorporate radiant floor for comfort, update my aging second and third floor ac systems to something more efficient.

Finally, I get an estimate from them......no geothermal.........instead they suggest a new boiler, indirect water heater and a unico cooling system for my first floor only and two leave the 12 year old 80% efficient gas furnaces and old ac units for the second and third floor. Cost: $40,000 (not including any radiant floor which would be billed additionally).

When I asked why they hadn't addressed the radiant floor/geothermal I was told that "geothermal can only deliver 105 degree water to the radiant floor". They felt that geothermal is really best for air only systems. Huh? I keep reading the geothermal and radiant are the perfect match for efficiency.

I hate knowing that we are going to spend a lot of money and still get a system that is 10 years behind most of the country in terms of efficiency and comfort. We will probably end up just stepping up to a better boiler and slapping in new furnaces/ac.

RadPro

A Thought?

Just a thought, did they really believe you were willing and able to spend the money for that magnitude of project?

I have worked for companies that where reluctant to bid or suggest expensive systems just for that reason. They couldn't or wouldn't spend that much so no one else would either! Or when bids and estimates where provided the customer would not or could not spend the amount proposed. After being shot down so many times most people are reluctant to keep getting shot at.

I believe that is the reasoning behind the thread about pre-selecting customers etc.

I am currently talking to a prospective employer from the Covington KY/Cincinnati OH area that specializes in Geo. would you like their number?

Don unemployed in Fremont IA
(That's another story if interested)

DeirdreLouisville

Well, they weren't intimidated about bidding $40,000 for one floor (2600 square feet) of heat/ac. On other forums, where price is discussed by consumers, I read of estimates ranging from $17,000 - $35,000 for complete geothermal systems.

I guess my frustation isn't as much price (although the $40,000 for one floor is way out of our budget) as much as with the disregard for my stated goals. We are paying $1200 a month to heat our house in winter and $450 to cool it in summer. Our main goal is bring down these costs.

Thanks for the referral offer. Yes, I would love to talk to them.

RadPro

referral

The company is T & R Heating and AC. Phone is 859-441-0444. I do not know anything else about them. I have only been conversing by e-mail about working for them.

Good luck!

Don in SEIA

RadPro

again

Hey Gary,

I read thru your post again. If you are putting radiant into an existing house, more than likely you would be installing staple-up and it requires a higher water temp than geo might be able to maintain. It all depends on what style of radiant you are installing. Do you have the ground for the ground loops or well fields?

Another question, what is the first floor heating system. I assume water, but is it baseboard, convectors, cast iron radiators, etc.

If money is a concern you may need to do it in stages.

Hope this helps.

Don in SEIA

Jim Davis_3

There is a real good Geothermal company in Frankfort, a little closer to Louisville, Richardson Heating & A/C. Call David 502-223-8065. Also can totally evaluate the operation of your existing equipment(furnaces & A/C) to see if you are getting the best efficiency out of them.

RadPro

First I did not reply to this thread. Did notice that a post that I made to the ISH CO Panel displayed someone elses name and e-mail address and believe this is what may have happened on this thread.

Unknown

Hi Deirdre,

If you are spending that much in energy costs, I have to guess that something is seriously wrong with your envelope. Even with inefficient systems, that's pretty bad.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I would take a hard look at insulation/window upgrades before you go too far with the high end mechanicals.

DeirdreLouisville

My envelope is old!

My house simply can't be brought up to modern standards-- it is an 1882 Italianate home in an historic neighborhood. 6,000 square feet with 12 foot ceilings on the first floor, 10 feet on the second floor and 8 feet on the small third floor. The walls are 11" brick with plaster on the interior. The windows are mostly original (with storms) and cannot be replaced without huge cost.

We have blown R40 in the attic, used 144 tubes of caulk on the exterior windows (70 windows) added storms and are in the process of getting bids to insulate the crawlspace walls. In winter, we keep the thermostat at 65, in summer at 77 (except master bedroom at betime, which is set to 68).

Our current set up is a boiler/radiant floor and some radiators on the first floor, gas furnace on second floor and a smaller fas furnace on the third floor (3rd floor heat rarely runs as heat seems to rise up from lower floors).

Our first choice was a Geothermal sytemt to service the whole house. As a second choice, we are considering upgrading to a much more effecient boiler (current model is a 200,000 btu 80% efficiency)and replacing 2nd floor with a heat pump. Opinions? Advice?

Unknown

Well, I would *guess* that with the loads it sounds like you have, a joist radiant system would in fact probably not be a good match with geothermal.

I don't know how extensive your rehab is.. perhaps some radiant ceiling in addition to the joist install would bring your water temperatures down enough.

Constantin

Ditto

The heat loss and gain is where I would spend my attention. It comes down to how radically you want to reduce these loads... We opened up our exterior walls to blow in foam and seal the place. Now the old girl loses/gains most of her heat via the windows.

From what little description of the walls we have, Diedre could consider building entirely new walls inside the envelope because the present exterior walls sound uninsulatable... not fun. Hopefully, there is a place to inject foam and seal the place up and take care of the infiltration issues which I suspect are dogging them.

Geothermal heating/cooling is typically very expensive to install. Reduce the load to a manageable level and the installation cost of the AC system plummets also.

bigugh_4

Blower door inspection

would be a place to start. It is a way to find all the infiltration a building has. Infiltration is just a guess,in any heat loss calculation, unless it is actually measured. Some older buildings have found to have 4x8 foot equivilent holes in them, useing the blower door technique. It is not a cheap inspection but a very exact look at the envelope of a building. just a suggestion!

DeirdreLouisville

Thanks for the advice all. I did hop right on over to energystar.gov, but the two programs I found for home evaluation do not have partners in Kentucky. I will call around about a blower test, but based on the lack of other expertise in our area, I am not hopeful!

I should have mentioned that our exterior brick is stuccoed (and just repaired and repainted this year) I don't want to build new walls inside as it would really hurt the aesthetic of the windows-- But I have heard of insulated sheathing .5 inches thick for exterior use-- Has anyone used this in interior applications? Perhaps with thin drywall over? Part of our current remodel involves a 1910 framed addition to the back of the house, we are adding r19 to those walls. What is the best way to seal around the windows while the walls are open?

We are adding heavy, lined drapes on our floor to ceiling first floor windows. Oh, and a lot of the caulk was put in around floor/baseboard perimeter.

Brad White_9

1/2 inch insulated sheathing -Yes

Deirdre, hi

I have used rigid polyisocyanurate (try and say THAT after two mint julips! ) on the interior of my walls.

My house is an 1873 vintage farmhouse up here in Boston. It was used in two different applications.

The first was when I gut-renovated my second floor, all plaster gone to the studs, but the blown-in insulation I had was retained by the grace of God. In this case I used 1.5" rigid, then strapping then blue-board and a skim coat (veneer plaster) in some areas and plywood followed by blue-board and a skim coat in others.

The second application is more in line with what you are doing. I used two layers of lapped 1/2" polyiso, aluminum foil-taped joints, on top of the old plaster. I finished this with plywood, blue-board and a skim coat.

You will have deeper "detailing" at the windows, but you can make something of that if you are clever.

What you miss when you use this interior insulation method are the gaps between where the floor joists intersect the exterior walls. Might they be able to be foamed? Small bore tube in a hole with a simple patch. Otherwise worth doing if you are in it for the long-term.

The fact that you had your brick stuccoed goes to good overall air sealing. Too bad you did not insulate first; oh well.

Constantin

Oh yeah...

... her house could have been a perfect candidate for the PERSIST system. Make the girl swell 2" with EPS, stucco over that, likely no one would be the wiser and she would have a bombproof exterior and killer mass inside. Oh well, as you say.

DeirdreLouisville

The stucco was put on in 1910

We didn't do the stucco-- it was stuccoed many years ago when the house was turned into a duplex (we are taking it back). We had the stucco repaired (some sections were cracking, so those were removed and patched) and repainted. No exterior changes are permitted in our neighborhood without a variance from the landmark commission. New stucco over brick would NEVER be approved. Even minor changes in window styles are routinely denied.

We will spray foam around the windows, floors of the walls that are open and insulate whatever we can.

Constantin

Diedre, I can relate...

... our house is in a historic district also. We had to go through meetings, get changes approved, etc. It doesn't hurt to ask if applying a insulating layer followed by the same stucco exterior and color would cause any heartburn.

To the passerby, there would be little to no indication that anything had changed other than that the stucco looked new and that the windows were set a bit further back than usual. Nothing earth-shattering, to be sure.

However, before undertaking anything the biggest step forward is finding a building professional who can take infrared shots of the house while it's cold out to identify leaks for you to address. The blower door test can be done anytime.