Our Family Serving Yours Since 1964

There are many appliances in a modern home that use electricity and gas. Our comfort system is usualy the biggest user of thes utilities so it gets blamed for excessive cost most often . To solve winter time high bill problems , the source of the problem must be found and repaired if possible.

Possible problems include the following items :

1. The comfort system is not operating properly and using more fuel than it should.

2. The conditioned space has a negative pressure and is forcing outside air to infiltrate the space creating an oversized load to deal with.

3. The home envelope is not adequate to keep the elements outside of the conditioned space .

4 .The weather is unusually cold creating stress on the envelope protecting the conditioned space causing the comfort system to have longer run times

5. There are other appliances in the home such as a water heater , well pump , or other system that needs to be adjusted to eliminate excessive run times .

Possible solutions to the problems listed above are :

1 . Checking the comfort system for excessive fuel usage--- Most service companies are good at finding and fixing problems in a system that keep it from working. It takes a different mind set to establish a base line for a comfort system . This must be done in order to know how well a system is working . At the Jim Brown Company we have 2 means of testing the base line of the equipment . The first is a diagnostic test on the equipment to look for service related problems .The second is to do a Heatmaxx test to look for any compatibility problems between the equipment and the duct system . Between these 2 tests a good base line of performance can be determined .

2. Determining if a home has a negative pressure --- Almost every house that has modern appliances has a negative pressure . Negative pressure is developed when air is forced from the conditioned space to the outside . Things that cause this to happen are bathroom fans , kitchen hoods , clothes dryers and leaky supply duct work . What makes this use energy in excess is simply to force outside air to enter the space wherever it can find a way to get in and mix cold winter outside air with the conditioned air creating high utility usage . The solution to this problem is a blower door and smoke test to identify the problems then remediation to fix the known problems . A blower door test costs $90.00.

3. Checking the envelope of the home ---In order for a home to perform well during cold weather times it must be able to prevent the cold air from entering the conditioned space . This is an insulation and infiltration problem.To solve the infiltration problem a blower door test will be needed.This will locate the places where outside air is entering the conditoned space . This test costs $90.00 to find the problems . To remove the problems remediation is required . Inadequate insulation needs to be tested by an insulation expert that can advise what needs to be done and establish a cost .

4. Dealing with cold weather --- Cold weather is like death and taxes , it is simply a fact of life . Proper preparation for cold weather will reduce the impact of it .

5 . Checking other appliances that use fuel for proper operation --- Every modern home has a waterheater , clothes dryer ,clothes washer and homes outside the city have well pumps along with many other appliances. The appliances that cause high fuel usage the most are water heaters and well pumps . If the water heater element sticks to on or is asked to do excessive amounts of work , the cost to do this work will be high . To determine if this is happening will require the assistance of a professional . The well pump is another large user and is usually easier to diagnose a problem . Things like leaky faucets , toilets that constantly run , or breaks in the line bringing in the water to the home are common causes for a well pump to have excessive run time .

Most high bill problem are a combination of the 5 items listed above. The most cost effective and informative thing that a home owner can do to identify where problems are is to employ a blower door test . The $90.00 the test costs will be returned many times over when the problems are now known and repaired .