Barkers improve cooling efficiency by over 3 times!
When Chris and Winnie Barker visited Retrofit America’s booth at the Atlanta Home Show last October, they were looking for a way to bring down their utility bills and make their home more comfortable in Atlanta’s hot summers.
We analyzed their utility bills and found that, in fact, their cooling efficiency was very low. A poorly insulated attic and an uninsulated second-floor crawl space was allowing radiant heat into their living space. Their ductwork was leaking at the boots and plenums and their 1986 AC unit was outdated and inefficient.
Thermal image of air leakage through attic hatch
To retrofit the Barker’s home, Retrofit America increased the blown insulation in their attic to R-38 and installed an insulated tent over their attic access hatch. We installed R-19 fiberglass batt insulation around their crawl space walls and sealed their ductwork with mastic. We also replaced their old AC unit with a SEER 13 system – and we awaited the onset of the summer heat to see our results…
Uninsulated crawl space wall
Summer 2011 was even hotter than the previous two summers, and the Barkers’ cooling efficiency improved by more than three times to meet the challenge – improving from 16.5 to 5.0 BTU per square foot per cooling degree day. (That’s a measure of how much energy it takes to cool one square foot of a home by one degree Fahrenheit over 24 hours.) The chart below shows their monthly kilowatt-hour consumption, pre-retrofit (in blue) and post-retrofit (in green):
The Barkers' cooling efficiency improved by over three times
Chris Barker says: “Meeting Retrofit America at the Atlanta Home show was one of the best things that could have happened to us. The recommended energy saving improvements have made the house environment so much nicer in which to live. Combining the energy rebates from Georgia Power with the noticeable savings on our energy bills is going to give us the return on our investment in less than an year. Thanks Retrofit America!”
