Increasing your energy efficiency isn’t the only benefit of joining CEWO and getting your home assessed. Sometimes you uncover a simple fix or a safety problem that you didn’t know you had. We asked our awesome Energy Advisors to share a few tales about what they found during their assessments. Here are a few examples:

Cold furnace –

Energy Advisor, Dean Evans said he was sitting at a table discussing a chill in a house with the homeowners when the furnace kicked on.

“I got a chill, the air-coming from the furnace was very cold,” Dean said. The problem? They discovered that someone had installed a large return air register straight to the outdoors. When the contractor temporarily blocked the outdoor return it magically felt much warmer.

“Sometimes the fixes are so simple and inexpensive!” Dean said.

Animal house -

Ted Weintraut said customers where complaining that they had heard noises in the wall behind their bed and around the heating vent. Sure enough, the contractor found burrows in the insulation. When the Advisor leaned in and saw a squirrel’s head pop out of insulation like a prairie dog. They even managed to get a picture of the squirrel wandering around in the attic. After blocking vents to prevent pests from entering, and sealing the ductwork of any openings, the squirrels had to find a different home.

Ill-fitting vent -

Dan Saddler visited a home and found a self-installed gas water heater in the basement TV room. It had been installed 20 years ago and needed to be replaced for several reasons – one of which being that the flue didn’t align with the tank exhaust and was basically venting into the basement.

“I asked the homeowner if any of the family had been feeling ill. She replied no, but then added that her husband and oldest son have been feeling tired and lethargic for many years but didn’t think it was from the water heater.” – Dan Saddler

 Flue season –

In one house recently Zane Goff found that an oven was just installed into an old kitchen fireplace. “The old fireplace had no flue and so the drafts had just been pouring out behind the oven,” he said. “The contractor reduced the air leakage by over 50% on this job, partly by removing the oven and sealing off the no longer used chimney chase then reinstalling the oven.” – Zane Goff

Go Ducts! -

Jason Henderson entered the crawlspace of a house and made a startling discovery. “The entire crawlspace was in fact the distribution system for the furnace. There were supply registers in all the bedrooms and the rest of the house but there was absolutely zero ductwork in the crawlspace!” he said. “The homeowner was losing the majority of his heat and was always cold. Not to mention how much the furnace had to run to keep that crawlspace warm!” he said.

Disaster House -

When Ben Scott entered a house recently, he knew something was wrong right away. At first, it was the smell of natural gas and combustion gases in the air. He found the culprit, a free-standing natural gas heater with an open flame in the living room and a homeowner-installed gas line connection.

When the contractor entered, his carbon monoxide monitor started going crazy. They also found a gas leak in the living room. After opening the doors to get some ventilation for safety they also found severe mold covering the ceiling of the bathroom and a disconnected flue pipe. There was no wall insulation, no floor insulation, high air leakage. And when they checked the flaking paint on the outside of the house they found lead, a bad sign for a family house with two children living in it.

Do you think you may have an issue or two at your house? Visit CEWO and apply today!