Listening to mid-day on the FM news station. I Mark sat act like in the Twin Cities today and the program. We're going to be talking about making your living space more energy efficient energy energy efficient. I think is what we're looking for here with me. This morning is Peter Burns at the Saint Paul neighborhood energy Consortium. Thanks a lot for coming in this morning Peter. Appreciate it more when we talkin about what you can do basically to make your house warmer more comfortable and also to save money on heating bills this winter, and we hope to hear from you this morning with your questions about insulating weatherstripping new vs old windows and all the rest if you're listening in the Twin Cities the number to call is227 6000 that's to 276 thousand in the metropolitan area outside of the Twin Cities anywhere. You can hear the broadcast this morning. You can call toll-free with your question at one 800-242-2828 the toll free number. Once again one 800-242-2828 while we are happy to wait for people to line up on the phones here with their individual questions. I wantedAsk you first off what it is you do when you get a call from somebody saying I want you to come to my house and do an energy audit. What are you what's on your mind? What are you looking for? When you go to that house will basically I'm I'm coming to the house and taking a good look on the outside of house to get a good feel for the age of the house because that really tells me a lot about how the house will be built will sit down and we'll talk to the clients and take a look at their their actual consumption will be provided with information on how much natural gas and electricity that use and then I'll I'll do an interview with that with a client to find out what kind of problems they're they're experiencing with the house is the house cold. Is it warm does it heat evenly are there cold rooms in the house? You know, how does the house feel a lot of times the homeowners really they know what's wrong with the house theyIt's just I don't know exactly how to fix it. So once I once I find out what what kind of problems they have then we we actually tear into it and I'll be looking at basically for things in a house that I can change to lower. Someone's some utility bills and of the first one has to do with insulation levels throughout the house, but want to do is get up into the person's addict and measure up the attic insulation to see whether or not they have adequate insulation will want to find out what's inside the wall cavities of the house. It's an old house chances are there isn't much insulation or or any insulation wall. So we'll look at insulation levels. First. Second thing we'll do is a evaluation of the heating system and trying to figure out how well that's performing with a note that is a on efficient energy efficient system or whether or not it's an old in efficient system whether or not it's producing carbon monoxide or not, whether it's drafting properly the third thing it will look at houses. How air moves in the houseTuulikki structure or whether or not it's a it's a tight house and and both of those houses have have unique problems of their own the before thing we can we can talk about her or look at for someone is energy use habits. What what temperature is the people try and maintain and the duration electric on electric side of things were looking for appliances that may be unnecessary. Maybe the people have an extra refrigerator in the basement that has a can of pop in it that we can that they could certainly do without maybe they have a freezer. It's got a frozen pizza in it, you know, I mean that that they can do without you know, we're basically going through the house top to bottom to try and find out ways that we can knock on their bills a lot to go through it a lot to think about their is Peter Burns is here today on Saturday. Midday. He is with the Saint Paul neighborhood energy Consortium and we have a timely topic given the Northwest winds are whipping across the state today. We're talking about ways to make your living space more energy efficient. Let's go to the phones and Ron and Duluth. Good morning.I've got a problem with the events that go through the roof and real cold weather like 20 30 below. Are you get time with the frost sticking out and that's blocked the floor. So the order in the basement, I would I keep these programs to clear you're saying that you're you're getting a combustion gases of back into the house sewer pipes warm air freezes. Okay. Are you seeing this frosting up in your attic? Is that what you're saying the frosting python the opening up on the roof? Right, but you're not talking about a floop you're using a couple of different terms are the flue pipe. Let's call that the pipe that exhausts the combustion gases from your furnace or water heater that will call that a flue pipe. Okay, what you may be talking about is the soil stack that the advanced sewer gases or prevent sewer gases from backing up into the house. Is that what you're talking about?and that's a Forming squatting with stuff at the end of the ficking out of the house. You got me like, I don't know. I've never heard anybody had that problem before I knew singer for your soil stack is is frosting up and it's it's actually closed at some point you how do you know that it's close are you up there? airflow you every time it freezes up at 103rd some I don't know maybe you could wrap some insulation around it as it goes through the attic. I just I've never heard of that that problem before I would say, you know, maybe wrap maybe wrap that pipe with some insulation to to allow the the warm air that's going up there to remain warm it before it gets out of the house rather than freezing up somewhere in the pipe. It might be good dancing and freezing in that soil stack. I guess I would try that short of that. I'd say talk to you. I'll talk to a plumber maybe more about plumbing and heating. Yeah, I'd say, okay, let's go and to Mark who is at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Bagley. Good morning on the FM news station for 30 year old house. I and we just put a window in in in inside the walls not very much insulation. I think it's called flax straw and I look like a waffle kind of male flat bat. That's what I'll call it is probably older than 30 years, though. Don and and it's kind of a mismatch of you know different what would you recommend? I'd like to take the siding off and insulates and put the siding back on is that sound like a reasonable thing to do with the house my vintage when I try and do is actually get more insulation in the wall cavity at self. A lot of people will when they when they resided House Bill put the exterior sheathing. It's like a foam insulation on the outside and then hang the new siding on the outside and they want addressed that the condition of the wall cavities at all. And really that wall will not perform as well as it could if you fully insulated the wall cavities first, if you have a fully inside wall cavity and then add the sheathing and the in the siding and you have a nice set-up, but without that wall insulation with only that quarter inch of flax bat. You're going to have your not heat loss through that wall no matter what A colleague of mine recently paid somebody to nothing got a grant or something or a loan low interest loan for doing this to have insulation blown into the house. They cut the little holes all over the Adidas hat that does that make sense to do that? And if you are going to go that route, what do you need to do to make sure you have the right contractor doing it. First of all, that is the standard technique for adding insulation in a wall cavities that are that are not insulated that we just call it Tom blowing in insulation. Are they can use either cellulose which is recycled newspaper treated with a flame retardant or they can use what is called mineral or Rock wolf or fiberglass. Are those are both man-made fibers and and they are blown in what we like to see is it that the material is blown in a tightly actually it's cold out how we call it a dense pack method and the other reason for using a dense pack technique is that it prevents settling that can occur at the tops of the cavities overtime for years contractors. It would blow in insulation cellulose insulation and they would blow it fluffy. They would kind of fluff it into the cavity. They would use less product and more air and then five years down the line. We we we could find out that the that the insulation had actually settled at the top when you blow it in under under a 3/4 pounds of pressure using what's call the dense pack method. It does not settle. There's a very very slight reduction in the R-value, but it's it's just it's barely measurable and the advantages of having a nice and tight neck. Have you prevent of settling his is superior. Don't get that big gap at the top out or five years. Peter Burns is here on Saturday. Midday today on the FM news station. He's with the Saint Paul neighborhood energy Consortium. We were talking about ways to make your living space more energy efficient and there's plenty of room on the phone lines right now. If you have a question to 276 thousand is the number to join the conversation in the Twin Cities to 276 thousand outside of the metropolitan area with your insulation and energy of Question sign him up a question can be energy-efficient. Well, whatever one 802-422-8282 toll free number. Once again one 800-242-2828. We were talking a minute ago about insulation in the other caller said his house might have been 30 years old and you had a pretty good idea that because of the type insulation with describing. It was probably a little older than 30 years. I wanted to ask you if you would go through a bit of a history of insulation if it for us at at it, it's my turn to start out when people didn't insulate at all and then maybe started getting it's a crumpled newspaper in and then from there to the fiberglass. Now, how is it evolved? Well, I would say that the reason 8, they didn't insulate how the older homes was simply because the other fuel sources work were so much cheaper than they are now other just simply wasn't a need to insulate. What I typically find in in the in the homes from I would say 1890s to about let's say 1920s. You can find absolutely nothing in the walls that are there will be empty wall cavities and then possibly in 1920s, you'll see the flax bats you'll see I'm sure might my dates are are are really stretching it here, but don't know the various materials that we see inside wall cavities are flax bats will seahorse hair and some of those 1910-1920 houses a mixture of horse here and some flax in case in a bat in the in the in the forties and fifties. We started seeing a material called Balsam wool. This is a very common material and it comes in about a 1-inch by 1-inch bat. It's a it's a wood fiber if you're ever in your wall cavities at you. It's in case between two pieces of paper and it's kind of a light brownish material and looks fiber in Balsam wool very very common material. There's another material use called kimsal which looks like a crepe paper in case in a bat. Another material was just newspaper sewn together. That was that was real real popular. They call it multi-cell and it's just stitched newspapers in case in a bat then I would say in the in the in the 50 sometime. We started seeing the fibers of the the rockwool fiberglass or mineral that the difference is those those two terms Rockwall and mineral wool get are pretty much interchangeable. There's two different types of man-made fibers. We can call him glass fibers or the the rock or slag fibers. It's a sponge material man-made fiber. They're really kind of tricky to tell tell them apart but you seem enough and you can tell the difference but the rock walls are still in use today as the as fiberglass or when was fiberglass is still out there nowadays. I guess I would say that the fiberglass and cellulose Rockwall are the most common Turtles we see in that home today. Is there anything out there on the Leading Edge for that the Techno feigns hear that they've been the newest latest installation of the 21st Century? There was some recycled plastic. That was the latest that I've seen some type of a plastic insulation from real recycled Plastics that was being fooled around with I guess the the cutting-edge stuff is is just how to get it in. There's different ways of of getting it in and in new construction, some people have for years been fooling around with trying to blow in cellulose rather than using a fiberglass batt in a wall cavity for new construction. So, I guess that would that would be some of the newer things. Okay, Peter Burns is here. He's with the Saint Paul neighborhood energy Consortium. We were talking about making your living space energy-efficient. We have a full Bank of Colors Let's go to the phones and Dave in Minnetonka. Good morning. Good morning. I brought about a product to get the advertised you put foam board on the outside of the foundation and you cover it with this product. I guess it's cosmetic. But but I was wondering about is this more effective to Insight on the outside of the foundation or to actually do it on the inside of the foundation in the basement exterior Foundation insulation. And I guess the first question that I would have for you is whether or not you're using that basement as living space are are using it as living space. Haverty Furniture, just prior to when we bought it and now it has a gas furnace but is very little duck worked out there. So it was I guess it was heated by the gravity furnace a reading plan out or do you have a family room down in that basement that you're using? Okay, so you're not actively heating that space. Okay. So if you're not actively heating that space we would not recommend that you spent a lot of money to insulate your foundation or your basement. If you were using that basement as a family room or some type of living space, then I would definitely recommend that you add insulation and I guess my preference would be to go from the inside just because it's more of a do-it-yourself job and it's easier that exterior Foundation insulation is a lot of work and you got it. You got to dig out down to frost line and apply that all that that rigid insulation on foundation. And then at Material you're talking about on the top is that is at covering it so, I don't know if the plastic base or what but it's a it's a covering all that goes on top of it just for Casa. The purposes and Anna prevent degradation of the of the insulation cuz if it gets nicked or chip little degraded little bit, but I would say that again if it's not living space to put your money somewhere else. In terms of trying to save money. Okay, but I mean if he doesn't answer lay the outside even though it doesn't live as you say, he was a basement for a living spaces in the family room anything down there. I wouldn't attend to cool off the basement just tap'd translate to cooling off the upstairs of the house as well or actually would you would have heat loss but we're looking after people is what kind of Investments they can make in their homes that are going to pay for themselves in a reasonable amount of time. And if you're not actively heating that space you're not you're not pumping heat into the basement. Trying to heat to 68° you just you may have better Investments the foundation. Are you looking at probably $1,000 worth of materials and a lot of time and I guess there would we would say there would be other priorities especially since he said he had an old Betty Furness, you know that might be a better a better Improvement to make on a house 22 minutes past 11, you're listening to midday on the FM news station Dave in or Frank. I think in Minneapolis you run the air with Peter Burns. Good morning. Good morning. I also have a a gravity furnace. I live in an old house in Minneapolis and the furnace is an old octopus converted from cold a gas, which currently I think doesn't have any provision for bringing combustion air from the outside. So what happens is that the furnace will pull cold air from what is now a vented to space and underneath the three-season porch vented through the basement. So I get cold air coming in from the underneath the floor in the porch, which makes the basement very cold in the winter, and I'm wondering if there's some way I can retrofit That Old Furnace to bring outside air in for combustion without you know, pulling it through the basement to get to Okay, couple questions for you it is that when you say there's a there's a porch is that is that a heated porch? Is that a crawl space from a crawl space under crawl space is vented into the into the basement and the area above that crawl space. Is that heated Space 3 season 3 season porch? Okay, I guess first of all, let's let's talk about crawl spaces real quickly. Cuz crawl spaces are real common problem areas for people. There's two different types of crawl spaces. There's what's called a vented crawl space and there's an unvented crawl space a vented crawl space is going to be open to the outside. They're going to have to have events that you can see that allow air to pass underneath the foundation. Okay, and and usually has a earth floor if you have a vented crawl space that should definitely not be open to the inside of your basement. Okay. So if you If your if it's configured like that, you you want to change that you want to you want to close that off from the inside of the house. The other type of crawl space is what's called an unvented crawl space and an unvented crawl space is not open to the outside. In fact, you want to seal it up so that it doesn't have any air leaks because what you may be getting you may have an unvented crawl that's just leaking a lot of air and and Pulmonary in any way if you have an unvented crawl space, you don't want any air leaks you want to insulate the founding a perimeter Foundation you want to have insulation on a foundation walls about r19 fiberglass on the wall, and you definitely want to have a moisture barrier down on the earth. You want to have a thick layer of plastic over the Earth and then it definitely should be open to the basement cuz you're you're sexually creating heated space out of there. Some people have people have pipes going through there and you definitely want some heat getting through there. But okay, so that's a little discussion. I crawl space is now for your I don't know what you got there. Okay is what I'm trying to tell you if you're concerned about combustioneer your house if you're feeling cold air coming in your house probably has plenty of air for your for your for your furnace. I wouldn't worry about the furnace starving out for a for lack of oxygen. It's going to have plenty of are the combustion air issue is is really kind of a safety issue moron in terms of being a safety valve on a house being too tight. And and I really don't like the term too tight. Let's just say a tight house. Okay that it it's a it's like a ready supply at the house ever needed outside ischl outside air. It's a ready source of of outside air. Let's say you had a relatively Tied House in the winter time and you put you had a bathroom exhaust fans a dryer a fireplace all these things that are moving are outside the structure all of a sudden there in a in a relatively tied house. You can have a competition for that indoor air. And when what can happen in certain cases is that the air that those systems those those mechanically operated ventilation devices need will pull it down a flue pipe an open flue pipe like a water heater flue pipe or your chimney flue pipe. And if that water heater came on when that air is coming down that water heater will not draft prop properly. So you could have a backdraft with the combustion air intake does or make-up air combustion air provides again. It's a safety valve so that if that a house ever needed are it's going to pull it from that wide-open 6in insulated ductwork before it'll Backdraft the combustion appliances sensor issue when you build a new house now because they are still sealed up that can you retrofit an old octopus style furnace probably with a knit with the air intake valve if you feel like you need one actually, it doesn't have to be anything that you that you're doing to the e to the octopus itself. All all we're recommending is that you get this insulated ductwork going outside the house. And just hanging down into the into a bucket inside the house. It does not have to be connected to the to the duct work at all. So you have that channel that way for her to come in other than the flu from the water heater exactly. So that you've got out you got an opening. Let's go to Wisconsin Hudson and Bill the morning around and I hope you around for many years doing this kind of work. Thank you very much. I've got a room with a high peak roof. That's well insulated but it really called for a couple of big job Skylight kind of windows open for Windows in am I going to ruin the Comfort level in r value of my ceiling if I put them in? Well, you're definitely not going to have the same R-value that you have that you got me. What what what is Dino the R-value is you got cathedral ceiling, correct? Yeah. It's the ceiling follows that the pitch of the roof, correct. And and do you know what the R value is in there? Don't buy. It's pretty well-built. Okay, how what year was the house built 20 years ago 20 years ago. I think the cathedral ceilings have a limitation on the on a space-available. It may be built without with a 6in i joist, maybe an 8in in case of those are your insulation is based on thickness and they may have only put 3 in of insulation in there. They may have put 6in. You never know. It's really hard to tell just looking from the inside only way to tell is not actually popping a hole somewhere so you can see what's going on in there. But me back your question with the Skylight. Yeah, you're going to have you'll have lost. You know, no question that you know, if your current R-value is if you got six inches of insulation to Cady got r19 insulation plus some structure know maybe you're up around 20 you put in a skylight, you know, you're going to be dropping the R value of that area to about three or four depending on the quality of the Skylight that you put in. So yeah. I have some you let you know definitely glass anytime you have glass you're going to have a lower R-value then then you would with the wall structure, but I keep in mind, you know, it's not a big area me know maybe you're putting one or two of these things in and I guess it's a it's a it's a it's a trade-off it so, you know that you're getting your getting light out of it and more enjoyment out of the room with those Skylight. It's a you know it till I guess it's they know that's how you have to look at its 11:30. You're listening to mid-day on the FM news station marks. It act like here along with Peter Burns is with the Saint Paul neighborhood energy Consortium were talking about making your living space more energy efficient to 276 thousand is a number to call in the Twin Cities. If you have a question for Peter outside of the Twin Cities toll-free anywhere, you can hear the broadcast at one 800-242-2828. If you get a busy signal hang up and try again cuz we'll try to make her way through the calls as quickly as we can. We'll go to Minneapolis and almack's good morning. I think Al and Minneapolis you there? How's that there? I'm going to wait for a minute while this gets sorted out. Okay, Ken will go ahead with mildew around the bedroom Center homes on on the outside wall up at up on the ceiling and I'm sure that it's because there's not enough insulation in the Attic right out toward the corner and I'm wondering how it is that you can get insulation out there when you crawl in the Attic. You're unable to know the real tight spot. That's a lot of overhang and I know it's important to get air coming from up underneath up through there and out the vents in the Attic. You may have a couple of things going on with that house. Okay. First of all, there's your corrected, you know that you've you may not have enough insulation there, but the other thing that may be occurring is that if there's a saw that I would go out on the outside and look where your soffits are placed and you may have that mildew. Rolling right around a soffit if if that soffit is allowing are two to whisk up through the insulation. You could have what we call a wind washed where the wind from the soffit is just defeating the insulation is passing through the insulation, especially if you have a blown fiberglass insulation without any type of a baffle that would that would directly of the the air from the soffit up rather than down onto the sealing surface. So what was basically happening is it again are from the soffit is is coming through the insulation and it's cooling off the surface of a ceiling and then when the warm moist air from inside the house hits that cool surface, it condenses and turns into a back into moisture and it does it time and time again and and sooner or later becomes a breeding ground for the for the mold. So you've got to make sure you got to do two things if you got us off at there I'd hang out a baffle and and make sure that the Are goes up get a thing you can do is trying to construct some type of a damn to make sure that the that the air is directed up and not down to the to the sealing surface and then just trying to get as good an R value as you can in that area. I know it's really it's a hard place to work because it's so tight the pitch of the roof comes in a really low at that area, but just try and get his as as thick a piece of insulation or as much insulation in that marries. You can't I've got to ask you this before we are one or way through the end of the program. We still a lot left to go about halfway, but for people who are up in their attics working around insulation and rolling around in the insulation and trying to get out to that edged insulate. What do you recommend that they are they aware so they don't get that bothered by the insulation. I'm speaking from experience to go about doing that. I would say that get yourself some type of a jumpsuit and definitely put on gloves a respirator. You may want to put goggles on goggles are a real pain to wear but I would say if you're bothered by the stuff to put goggles on and A hat just bundle up as best you can and then when you're when you're done crawling around in the stuff, I don't shed the clothes and and then take a cold shower. If you take a hot shower you're opening your pores and pushing the stuff off further into your skin. So take a cold brisk shower and get it off and wash your clothes twice and that should get most of the most people complain about the fiberglass crawling through fiberglass. It's a real nightmare cellulose isn't so bad to crawl through on a skin. But nothing I get to decide what stresses where unmask get up there with us with some type of a good quality mask a respirator. Did you not talking just about one of these old small white little plan actually a good quality have different grades of quality of those masks. I just wouldn't get the cheapest thing. I get my hands on, you know, if your crawl through out, you know, if you got a serious job where you're up in your attic maybe ceiling air leaks air by passes and you got to go swimming through 6 inches of fiberglass to get to these bypasses. I get a good quality Mass. I wouldn't fool around with it. It's It's pretty harsh stuff. Okay. Well Allen Minneapolis is a forever lost. Hopefully not forever. Maybe we'll hear from him a little later. We don't have a landline anymore. Instead. We going to go to Dent Minnesota and John good morning on the FM news station morning. I have a question about condensation on the inside of one's windows. We do the washer. We have a aquarium in the house. I noticed and showers in the morning as well be able to feed your feelings and hold your house five years and we might not be the trick to keep it off. Well, I've got I've got some other things here for you. Okay usually homes that have moisture condensation problems are are usually relatively tight homes. You may want to consider having some type of a test call is called a blower door test is a test that we that we do on Holmes and it's essentially a measurement on the tightness of the building. And that'll I mean with a blower door test going to do is confirm for you that it's a you got a tight house. Okay, and when you have a tight house the strategies that you use our number-one you try and reduce the source. Okay, you got some free normal sources, you're showering you're cooking at the aquarium is definitely a source of moisture. If you can't knock out those sources, what you got to do is ventilate are the buzzword for for new homes nowadays is to build a tight butt ventilated right ventilation is kiani's new houses new homes. One of the biggest problems we find is that they don't have adequate ventilation. You got to get that moisture out of your house in the old house is there there was a recall on natural ventilation rate that they were just leaked eat. They were not tight the walls were empty and there was a lot of outside air come in all the time. So it wasn't a problem because the moisture was carried out naturally when they started building the houses Tighter and actually engineering tightness in the design. They are they a lot of Builders neglected to Add these ladies ventilation devices. So nowadays we're going in if we find a house. That's tight. Number one. We're going to want to see that it's got combustion air that outside air intake definitely have to have that you would check your house for that. You definitely want combustion your if you got a tight house and then you may want to use some kind of ventilation strategy and there's just a wide variety of products out there nowadays just want a simple bathroom exhaust fan to a whole house air to air heat exchangers for offer extremely tight houses and homes that have no pretty bad problems with with with the moisture. Did John magnetic windows and if so, what is he talking about? This is actually a. It's it's similar to putting on the shrink wrap film on Windows. I was trying to create a trapped air space will prevent the condensation from occurring on the window surface itself, but he's got I'll bet he's got out now it just from what he's saying. He's got he's got a tight house and probably inadequate ventilation and that would probably take yours go to then you got to watch out for a lot of people humidity. By their homes in the winter time, I'll come in at home. This one home in particular. I came in and in a place right away I could feel at this place had an elevated humidity level was over 50% They had a black mold growing along the along the route that be on the bottom of the wall and she had to shift for kids and they were there all sniffling and sick in the house was just like a swamp and I went over to the they had this April are aware of some type of a humidifier system on and they were running it way too high. Then the father apparently had a I had a skin condition and he felt that he needed to have this moisture in the house, but he was overdoing it. He was over humidifying house and it was causing serious problems not only on the inside with the mold, but the quality of the air was poor and they had serious problems up in the attic up where there was air leakage. This warm moist air is loaded with moisture was leaking up into the attic getting the cold roof line and actually had mold is black mold growing on the roof boards, and they had serious serious problems and it was caused by Over humidification so number one yet. You lower that that humidity humidity setting if you've got problems like these knock out some of the sources and then start ventilation strategies. Okay. Pete Burns is here on Saturday. Midday. He's with the St. Paul neighborhood energy Consortium and we could not have a program about making your home energy efficient without talking about furnaces and that's what we'll do next with Mike and Brooklyn Park. Good morning. I am in the process of building a new home and my heating subcontractor says, it'll cost me about $800 to bump up from a 80% efficient furnace to a 90% My question is how would how do I calculate the energy savings to pay off and how will my furnace collection affect my resale quickly if you would when we talk about percentages of efficiency what basically are they are they talking about a new way of reading heating systems they call it a Fue in that stands for annual fuel you. Station efficiency, and the the higher efficiency furnaces are going to have what we call a secondary heat exchanger now don't call them condensing system that allows them to and to grab heat twice essentially and those systems cannot have efficiencies up up in the high-90s and and personally I am an advocate of high and heating systems. I like I like the high and heating systems. They were years were a lot of people shied away from them because they were they were new and they started have problems but they've been out a long time and we feel that the the bugs are out. These are high-quality systems now and if you got an old 50% system 55 60% system and and bump up to a high-end heating system will usually say that you can you can knock on I would say at least a quarter off your off your cost but being able to calculate your how much you're going to save what you got to look at the formula involves. The the actual annual space heating cost. You got to know what your costs are for 12 month. And there's an actual calculation. I would I would say I don't want to do it on the on the air here for you. But if you're interested in something like that, I don't give out an energy auditor call try and get an energy audit somewhere in and they can they can crunch that number for you, but you can have to have your consumption information for 12 months. But if you're up with at 80% efficiency furnace, I think which Mike said he wasn't in Brooklyn Park does it make sense to to drop another $800 to get up in the 90s efficiency wise or is that all depend on how that the numbers crunched? I would still Advocate on a high-end heating system. I like that the high and heating systems a lot of mail come with me and I'll with the aisle where they vent it out out the side of the house in PVC plastic its measured the temperature of the flue gases from one of the condensing system. The temperature of the exhaust gas is probably about a hundred degrees on the on a lower efficiency systems, you know, you'll have to three System for 500 Degrees of waste heat. Okay, so they're they're just they're just much more efficient. Burns your with the same Paul neighborhood energy Consortium. There are similar groups all around Minnesota for people listening and I assume even in the surrounding states. Once the program ends here in 15-20 minutes if they need some more help and no more answers to their questions on Monday or Tuesday. What where can I go to find out about first of all, what kind of government programs low interest loans for example might be available to make their homes more energy efficient and everything else you recommend for Stuff call utilities to find out what the programs they have. And then who else do you call if your having an energy audit done if you're in if you're in st. Paul or or Ramsey County, you can call the Saint Paul neighborhood energy Consortium, but if you're all throughout the state, I would say just contact your your your utility they can they can point in the right direction for us in most cases of free residential energy audit and then to find out about programs I think in Saint Paul for exam There are programs where you can get maybe low interest loans if you use the money to make your home more energy efficient that's reducing pollution to sort of thing. How do you find about those find out about those program? The auditor should should have information about programs available in your area. Okay now it's probably a good time to get your phone call in a few really hope to get something done before winter cuz I suppose you folks are starting to get pretty busy as a temperature starts to drop. Let's go back to the phones and to Judy in St. Cloud. Good morning. I'm calling about Windows and we get moisture in between the glass. Sometimes it goes away with that. Isn't that he may have to get a whole new window or did can we just there another way we can handle that. How old are the windows happened? There is that the seal between those windows has has degraded and is no longer effective and and are warm air from inside the house warm moist air from inside. The house is getting between Pains hitting that cooler outside surface and condensing and I would say, you know, you may be looking at a replacement there. If it's driving you nuts, you know, it's not incredible heat loss. Don't mean it any worse than if we if it wasn't if it was sealed but you know, you may be looking at a new window there or you could try clocking it from the inside. It's it's just are moving into that into that space is a little bit of hair. Once that happens. There's no way really to clean that either right now. It's a little tough for me. I'm talk to get inside that yeah, it's that that's the biggest problem that people have with his little streak the window and it'll never be clear again. So yeah, that that's very very difficult to deal with I would say, you know, you may be looking at on your window. Okay back to the phones with another question for Peter Burns John's in Minneapolis. Good morning on the FM news station. Am I have a so-called story and a half House in Minneapolis. 1920's vintage. I'll wear it sometime during the 1940s see the attic was made into a living space. And as a result, there's no attic to insulate and I'd like to insulate the the feelings upstairs plant feeling there's only about 4 in of feeling and there really isn't I'd like to know weather should pack that full of insulation R Us but I have to leave an airspace. I can't really take to ceiling down because it's a beautiful old Knotty Pine paneling that would really be destroyed if I took it down. What do you recommend as far as inflating those of feeling did you get an energy audit done and and you'd want to have an audit without with a blower door test Knotty Pine expansion packs are notoriously leaky. There's a lot of air movement in those in those type of expansion addicts every every seem that you have every place. There's a there's a groove or where two pieces of the Knotty Pine come together is is basically a leakage point and when you run a blower door test, this is a test that where you went. So you put a fan a portable fan a large portable fan on the front door. What are out of the house technically depressurize is the house and it allows you to get off a flat-out measurement in cubic feet per minute of airflow, but it also allows you to walk around and feel where the air is coming in. Okay, and you're going to have a lot of leakage through that area or through that up in that attic and and strategies that with that we employed at to try and correct that is to blow in insulation that you may have. You may have a very slight flat portion call the Peak attic they could be insulated you could also have insulation blown in tightly into those slant wall cavities and that would reduce that alone is going to reduce the rate of infiltration through that Knotty Pine, but that that's what I do in terms of trying to pack insulation up into an existing slang cavity boy. That's that's that's a tall order. I mean you just that that's going to be very very difficult without me. I'll wait with with the system with it would have been in place. I would say get out and I'll get it on it and and and then do a blower door test back to the phones and to St.Paul with the Diane. Good morning. I just moved to Minnesota from Texas last year or so. I've only been through one big winter here. So I'm kind of a cold-weather rookie and I noticed when cold air was coming through my windows. I went around and put that shrink wrap all over everything and I kind of want to know what you think about that stuff in terms of how much is it really helping me and are there better things I can do for a reasonable cost to have to bear in mind everybody really kind of points to their Windows as I as a the most serious flaw in their house, but you got to keep in mind is that are in your house moves? Okay, and and are warm are tens to tens to move up and and within your house or also, we could call pressure zones. There's there's areas of weak all positive pressure and there's areas of negative pressure the areas of negative pressure are areas where outside air is coming in your basement is usually an area of negative pressure in some homes. The first floor is negative and a positive pressure. Where the air is trying to push out the warm air that you've paid to heat is pushing up and try to get out of your house. So a lot of times when people have when they when they say they feel are coming in from the windows. It's because the first floor is is is negative and a negative pressure in that air is coming in. But the thing to keep in mind is that if that air is coming in here is going out somewhere. Okay. So what you may need to have done is to have some healing work done on the on the second floor of the house to seal up a r leaks. There's within the structure your house. There are there are hidden air leaks that we called bypasses and this is simply a it's a it's like a like an open window to the outside of the house where we are from inside. The house is allowed to ask is escaping up into the attic and those areas really need to be sealed up. You can get up there and use a strategy of packing fiberglass and expanding foam on these things, but you got to seal your bypasses that that that's really the first thing you got to do. What are things I would tell people is at your house is a system is a pretty complicated system. There is a lot going on in your house or air movement. There's heat added to it. There's insulation and you really got to cut a look at the whole picture of how your house is working. You can't just change one thing. I hope that the house is going to work as well as it can you really have to address each one of the factors and I would say that no putting up a shrink wrap. You know, that's going to give you some comfort me know when you're sitting by that window, you won't feel the draft but there's something else going on in your house. If you're feeling a lot of outside air coming in through those windows. How do you find these are the leak spots? I mean if if somebody wants to go searching out to see if they might have some of these leaky spots in the house. They're the two most common that you could find a house are where the soil stack goes up through the center of the house. If you go down in your basement, you'll see a heavy cast metal pipe that not only goes down but it also goes up and if you look where it goes up through the floor, which is actually the ceiling of the basement you'll see it around. Type in a lot of times it'll be a great big square cut out and that'll go all the way up through the attic and and we recommend ceiling that both in the attic and down in the basement. The other, Leeds point is where the flue pipe for chimney goes up through the house that has to be dealt with a little differently because that may be a hot flue pipe and we don't want you putting any combustible materials on that. We want to see some sheet metal out of a sheet metal collar on that is sealed at bypass up but the Santa thing we tell people is that most homes have the the the equivalent of a window wide open all winter long if you added up all the tiny little air leaks in your house and the end the big one. It's probably equivalent to leaving a window open all winter long. And so do you know just just imagine if you will your living room with a with a window open all winter long? It's not there's a lot of lot of heat lost a lot of cold air coming in. Okay, let's get back to the phones to Tom and Anoka who has a question about fireplaces. Good morning. Right to my glass doors and everything. I tried stuffing installation if there is better up a my house is about 5 years old and I'm going to get any ideas. Yeah, you may want to try a Chimney Cap. It's the product out there called a simulator that it's like I'm a spring-loaded cap that it'll open and close and that that should seal the top up pretty well and then I'll just open up when he has a firing automatic. You have to manually open that puppy or you're in you're in deep trouble. Are you all the tail a little Smokie and New Station morning? Thanks for taking my call. I've got about a 90 year old house and I'm remodeling bedroom upstairs and I was wondering what I want to put cathedral ceiling in and I'm wondering what he recommends for insulation and thicknesses. I'm at and then I'm putting a crawl space entry Edition on also and what what does he recommend for insulation on the crawl space? Cuz it's going to be heated. Okay, is it is at crawlspace going to be open to the basement or is it invented? Okay, if your if it's going to be open to the basement, it's an unvented crawl space. You're going to want to insulate the perimeter walls and I'd say r19 fiberglass Batts hanging from the rim joist would be it would be sufficient and you definitely want to have a some Plastics in poly sheet and down on the earth. If it's exposed Earth. Okay, the second floor you're saying that you have you got you going to put in cathedral ceilings? What kind of a joist cavity do you have their it anytime anybody's read redoing a Remodeling on an addict or an expansion attic. I'll try to get them to use a technique called an AR 26 lamp wall or you'll put 6in insulation in the cavity. But then you go across the joists with rigid insulation. Some are 7 rigid insulation. So you're adding R value to the wood because the wood itself has a has a relatively low. O r value what's a good conductor has a poor R-value. So by adding that that that extra Shilling or are rigid insulation across and then rocking it, you really had some good r value to that but I would get as much information as caddies. You can those expansion addicts and cathedral ceilings if they're not properly insulated. They can be they can be a lot of lot of expense expensive to heat how thick is that stuff that you're saying to put across the the Joyce you can get in various thicknesses, but I'd say one in gets in R7. Okay, and no way to vent it at all and it's not necessary. No update. They typically don't vent those. I mean you can set him up vented. There's it's kind of a there's a lot of debate in the insulation Community now about whether not to have vented or unvented cathedral ceilings, but if it is vented and you're going to be vented it's got to have low d'high, it's got to be ears got to move from low to high. Sometimes. I'll set up Cathedrals with just a ridge ridge vent along the top. And that'll provide Samira movement. Okay, let's go back to the phones and and and Saint Paul who has a question about old windows. Good morning. Good morning. I live in a 19. I'm sorry 1889 brick Condo building and it was renovated and 71979 Selby Avenue. Okay. Okay. So, you know the area of the building to go ahead and double paned and some of the Paynes have lost of the sea and unfortunately, they're roll out windows and when I say, unfortunately I have been told that when I roll them out, you know in the spring or the summer Cyrillic rank is going to add to the breaking of the seal and I'm just wondering am I going to have Replace these windows in order to get a better seal because I am getting a certain amount of draft in the winter. You could be looking at replacing when it's on what you want to do on it. You know, how uncomfortable is it? How bad is it? How much money do you want to spend on it? You know that The Simple Solution in the inexpensive solution is that is the shrink wrap solution or just making sure that the weather stripping that you've got on that window is still in good shape, but now in terms of the the seal between the inner and outer pain if that's shot, you know, they can we talk about that earlier that you know, there's not much you can do about that and you may be looking at replacing that that piece of glass in there. Okay, let's go back to the phones Christine in Minneapolis. You're on the FM news station. Anyway, I have a one-and-a-half story house in South Minneapolis that I would like to finish and I was wondering about the correct way of doing it you had mentioned some of it while I was on hold but I'm kind of concerned I can't seem to get different answers as to yes. I do insulate the roof. No, I don't because then how would they are escaped? And then how do I vent for something like that? Well, you know you're asked me how to how to redo your ear your attic is it now? I mean, you really have to look at the space that you're you're dealt with first of all what we try and do on and I know if when I would recommend any way is that in some areas in that net addict you're going to create what's golden knee wall, which is a short 4-foot wall that goes up and there's going to be a space that follows the pitch of the roof called at a slant wall and then it's going to flatten out in some in some area and will call that the peak addict but really help how much each one of those areas depends on how much how much space you have. You may not have a lot of space to get a flat Peak. So it's really, you know, it's really tough for me to to tell you how to set that up without seeing a space. You know, I mean, there's you definitely want insulation between you and the outside. Okay, you definitely want insulation between you and the outside. But again, you got to look at how how it's how it's set up more how you're going to set it up. In the about minute we have left Peter Burns. If you would just make some suggestions for people who might not have a lot of time energy or money to do the big Improvement replace a furnace or add new event Source or thing. What are some small things that in general people can do to try to cut down on energy bills this winter. I would say the easiest and cheapest thing you can do is to run a lower temperature now, we recommend 68° and that when you're out of the house to 2 to drop the temperature to do what's called a setback and we got a lot of debate on this but every study that we've ever seen says that setbacks do save money that if you can if you can't if you can drop the temperature for 10 degrees for 8 hours, you will save 10% if you can do that twice at night and you know, if you can do it once during the day and once at night all you'll save 20% so it really you can save just by rolling back the temperature just turn the thermostat down after it down. Okay. Well with the Saint Paul neighborhood energy Consortium kind enough to Come in and answer all the questions today. Thanks a lot for us spending part of your day over here. Appreciate it. Thank you Mark. Midday on Saturday is produced today by Greta Cunningham was in for Kitty Isley the technical director for the broadcast have been Clifford Bentley and Brian Thomas and thanks to all of you who called in with your questions. I apologize to the people who are left on hold hanging in the balance. So to speak wondering how to insulate their house. Maybe next time we can get it in. This is Mark's it act like midday on Saturday supported by the oriental rug company specializing in the sales and service of handmade oriental rugs and located in Minneapolis at 50th and Bryant.