 Hello, this is Nate Adams. I'm the founder of EnergySmart Home Performance and right now you're probably wondering Why on earth should you hire EnergySmart? Oh, and what the heck do we actually do? Those are great questions, and here's what we do. We fix your house By the time we're done it will be comfier, healthier, longer lasting and much cheaper to operate. Here's what we fix or substantially improve. Never expect perfection. This is not a world of perfection But we can substantially improve any rooms in your home that are too cold or too hot like living rooms, second floors nurseries, master bedroom, you name it. We can tackle icicles, mold and mildew, indoor asthma and allergies, believe it or not, and Of course, high bills, particularly if you have propane or fuel oil. We can also work remotely as well as locally Check out our website for more things that we can tackle. Look at the problems we can help with page Here's the thing that makes us very very different from everyone else. We solve problems at their root. We don't treat symptoms We treat causes How do we do this? We have a four-step process. We define the problem. We diagnose the causes. We develop plans and we deliver solutions We are Diagnosticians. Now most people are going to think why on earth do I want to pay for the diagnosis? So let's look at a couple of situations tell some stories We've probably heard the adage that failure to plan is planning to fail Let's talk about attic mode. It's one example of this. Take a look at this attic You can see all the green stuff going on here. This is a terrible terrible mold problem in a client home and When it comes to attic mold attic ventilation always gets blamed, but let's take a step back What's the root of the problem? The root of the problem is moisture that can't get out of the attic Should we be worrying about getting that moisture out? Or should we be worried about stopping the moisture from getting into the attic? The moisture in the attic is a root cause. So how do we deal with that? Attic mold is almost always caused by moisture from inside the house Typically an attic got insulated and What that does that reduces the temperature in the attic cold air can't hold as much moisture So the warm moist air that sneaks up into the attic from inside the house Condenses on the roof deck and then it becomes mold So in this case, this is a home that was recently insulated didn't have an attic moisture problem before But now the temperature is lower in the attic and there's a mold problem Here's the deal if you just get insulation and you don't worry about air sealing That is very likely an eight to ten thousand dollar mistake by the time you're done So you have to do remediation. That's anywhere between two five thousand dollars You need to remove the insulation on that could be worse for the radiation too. That's typical numbers Removing the insulation routinely costs about double what putting it in the first place does Air sealing needs to be done and good air sealing is not super cheap And then of course you have to reinstall The insulation and then the thing that really stinks is we see people do this again They'll remediate the mold not solve the root problem in five years down the road Have another moldy roof deck possibly need to replace the roof, which is a very expensive That's another ten thousand dollars routinely or more That's a it's another very expensive mistake all because you didn't hold the root cause That was failure to plan It's also a failure to understand Interactions, there's a lot of different things going out on the house and it's moisture from inside the house That's causing a problem like old in the attic Let's talk about another failure fixing a cold room So typically this is done with either insulation or a new furnace. So we'll talk about both Now say you want to warm up the house by adding insulation. This seems logical So this is like putting a thicker coat on your house So if you put a thicker coat on your body doesn't have to work as hard to keep you warm The same thing happens to your furnace now This is a very bad thing when you're talking about rooms that are further from the furnace Because now that furnace isn't for the run is long and then those rooms that are typically cold and at the end of the run Are not going to get as much heat as they did before and they're likely to actually get colder We actually wrote about this in April of 2014 With a case study on insulation failure. So take a look at that post Oops Now here's another typical thing that happens You put a new furnace in trying to fix that cold room Routinely those things are too big when those are too big You get big temp swings and the same problem that I just mentioned the rooms at the end of the runs never warm up and quite often HVAC contractor will put a larger furnace in that what was there before and typically furnaces that are in homes or anywhere Between two and three times larger than they need to be so there's always going to be cold room problems Let's take a look at what that looks like because we like to measure. We like to track. We like to see what's going on So sadly, this is actually my house. In fact, this is my daughter's room Take a look at the temperature go up down up up down up down up down When there's swings this big our bodies can feel it and we feel uncomfortable This is a bad thing you want it to be very very even in temperature and that requires some planning Here is an actual client home. In fact, this is a heat pump Which is typically not considered something that works well in cold climates Well, I beg the differ take a look at how even the temperature is in here now this particular clients The lady of the house always always wore a coat inside the house in the winter And she said for the first time she took the coat off because their home is comfortable So they don't have any cold rooms in their house anymore And also take a look at the date on this report This is January in Cleveland, Ohio. It is not warm outside So here's the curse you just bought a new furnace and air conditioner that's an eight to ten thousand dollar mistake to replace those correctly and If you insulated your attic in the process and you caused a mold problem That's another eight to ten thousand dollar mistake So you could be talking twenty thousand dollars in the stakes by not doing some diagnosis So how do you fix it? Said it a few times already you plan Now here's how we need to look at this our bodies are a system of systems all kinds of stuff going on So we have laws heart brains to eyesight skin. There's all kinds of things that are interacting This is only a handful of the systems But if you go to the doctor and he prescribes you something the odds are it's going to have a side effect It's going to affect one of these other systems the same thing happens in our homes because they are a system of systems So you've got your walls. There's the roof. There's the insulation. There's how tight the house is There's the plumbing The electric system the duct work the furnace and the air conditioner and there's more beyond this All of these systems work together and if you change one you change something else So who considers the interactions they're going on between all these things. Is it the heating and air guy? Is it the insulation guy? Is it the electrician? Is it the plumber? Is it your mason or maybe is it the rougher? Nope, it is none of those guys. Nobody considers interactions. So who does? We do At EnergySmart, we are building scientists. This is what we do We consider interactions. We ask questions. We measure. We consider your wants We consider your home's needs as every house is different and every client is different. We consider your health We develop tailored plans to solve the problems that you want solved We tell you how and why those plans will work. Oh And we can deliver our solutions to although that's an extra cost So how do we do this? Every problem has the same process and we found that if you skip a step and miss something you fail So we apply the same process to everything and It's the same one that we discussed earlier. So we define the problem. We diagnose the causes We develop plans and we deliver solutions Here's how that actually happens There's three steps to our process. So the first step is an initial consultation This is where we define the problem The second step is our comprehensive planning process. This includes an energy audit, but it's far more than that We diagnose the house and we develop plans in this stage The third step is the project management. It's the actual execution This is where we deliver the results that we promised So there you are we define diagnose develop and deliver By the way, we're not contractors in case you're wondering if everyone does we used to be insulation contractors We're not anymore. We are your consultants. We work for your interests We are completely independent and we remain Independence and run your project so that the results that you are looking for actually show up and we track after the fact to see What's going on as you just saw earlier with a client picture there So that is why in the world you should hire energy smart performance and pay for diagnosis and fix your problems So what do I do now? If you're still here, either you're stunned by the rapidity of my speech or you're actually interested So what do you do next? Please? Don't pick up the phone. It's not that time yet What you want to do is go watch some more videos or Do a bunch of reading on the website start with the main tabs Try the science and problems we can help with or go play around on the block If you aren't willing to read at least five pages on this website, you're not gonna stick with us We aren't the ones for you. That's okay This is a relationship Our clients we keep in touch with we want to know what's going on. This is not a one-hit-wonder thing You will hear from us again. So do some homework up front So when you're ready and you're sure that we're the one to help you solve all of your problems except for the ones Of course that require a couch Fill out our questionnaire We'll talk more about that in a second but here's the two paths that you can choose as far as actually moving forward and The questionnaire I'll show you these so you can go straight to the comprehensive planning process. So Just skip straightforward This is faster and it costs a little bit less doing it this way So by doing this we are going to define diagnose and develop So we're going to get the first three steps out of the way Simultaneously and this is really the better way to go because you're going to be much more engaged in the questions that we ask you Now the other way you can go though if you are just a little unsure and you want to try this out We offer initial consultations. So this is where we define the problem We will ask you a whole bunch of questions trying to understand what it is in your house You are trying to solve we will take a look at your energy bills and see if they are Unreasonably high and give you an idea of where you stand on that We'll educate you about the process that we do and the science that's underneath everything that we do and Most importantly, we will run a blower door test which finds out how much your house leaks and air leakage is Absolutely critical. It's only one number We can know we want to know that number about your house because it's the largest driver of energy use comfort problems And oftentimes moisture problems and indoor quality problems as well It's a very very important thing and it's part of the initial consultation now if you go through that The process rather than going straight to it We can apply part of the fee from the initial consultation towards the comprehensive planning process But it all starts with the questionnaire it's at the top right of every page on the website Oh and do some homework. We're not your usual contractor. You can tell that by now You don't want us to be and why? Because we actually deliver results