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Green Saves you $$$ and the Planet..........Think Green
Great West sends all of the inspection reports by email saving the Earths oil and paper, plus plastic CD's and electric energy. In the old days we mailed out the reports.Just the energy used by the US Mail Office alone to move a report in a envelope or package from our office to a customer was slow, expensive and very wasteful to our environment.
Your digital inspection report will be in a small Pdf file waiting for you to open from your email and save any way you choose.
We also provide a Green inspection. We look at each property to see if they can be improved with newer developed technology or other energy saving ideas.
Click the House below for other great green ideas.
Winterizing Your House.
Use the Helpful Checklist below to save on your energy bills.
Air enters and leaves your house constantly. While some of this movement is necessary for ventilation, most homes have entirely too much air exchange. Reducing air infiltration can be easily and economically accomplished by providing seals where air enters and exits.
Use his audit to evaluate your home. After you have completed it, take it to the hardware store or home center for the tools, materials, and advice on how to plug the leaks that are costing you money in higher heating and cooling bills.
Begin by checking the exterior doors for these possible leaks:
Cracks where the door meets the frame.
The joint between the frame and the exterior and interior walls of the house
The bottom of the door at the threshold.
Between the base of the threshold and the floor underneath.
If your door has windows, are they properly glazed or is the glazing old and cracked or missing entirely.
Are any of the panes cracked or broken.
If the doors have existing weatherstripping, is it still in good shape or does it need replacement.
Does you home have adequate storm doors and are they properly hung and caulked.
Taking the same approach to interior doors can't hurt either. Keeping them properly sealed helps reduce room-to-room infiltration and makes it possible to control more precisely the heating and cooling of individual rooms.
Look at your windows next:
How many windows have moving parts that allow leaks.
Are there any gaps or flaws in construction around the frame.
What is the condition of glazing compound around the glass. It may be old and cracked.
Are seams around the window trim caulked.
If weatherstripping exists, is it adequate or in need of replacement.
Are any window panes cracked or broken, and need to be replaced.
Are the windows covered with drapes, shades, or blinds.
Are storm windows installed and properly fitted and caulked to eliminate gaps where the window meets the framing
Once you have covered all the conventional openings, look for the not-so-obvious ones.
Foundation cracks or crack in basement walls
Separation between any two materials of the house construction like an exterior chimney and the house
Utility pipes
Phone, electrical, or cable lines
Mail slot
Clothes dryer vent
Outside light connections
TV Antenna entry
Electrical outlets
Cracks or splits in the siding
Gaps or loose mortar between blocks, bricks, or stone facing
Air ducts for heating and cooling system
Improper insulation around window air conditioning units
Leaky basement windows
Exposed roofing nails
Gaps around roof flashing
Split or loose shingles
Poor drainage around house
Damaged, blocked, or poorly connected downspouts
Gaps around garage door
Energy also leaks from you home by other openings
Is your furnace properly cleaned and tuned for maximum efficiency?
Is the air filter clean?
Check the air conditioning filter
Check the range filter
Check for dirty or blocked heating/cooling registers
Do you set your thermostat too high in winter and too low in summer?
Do you turn your thermostat down when you are out the the house for several hours?
Is the thermostat broken, worn, or dirty? Have you considered a programmable thermostat?
An improperly located thermostat (too near to a heat or cool source or an outside wall) can waste energy
Check for leaks in heating and cooling ducts and joints
Is your hot water heater set at an efficient temperature?
Is the hot water heater malfunctioning in any way?
Are you lighting and heating or cooling unused or seldom used rooms.
Have you insulated your hot and cold water pipes and heating and air conditioning ducts.
New Christmas Lights offer lower wattage LED bulbs
Energy saving has even extended into our holiday decorations. That's right, the standard mini lights, which we've used for years. And to give you an example of the savings, this guy here will draw about 68 watts. The new LED bulbs will draw about 13 watts a set. Now the cost is about two to three times more, but this guy here is rated to last up to about 20 years. Now the same precautions whether you're buying exterior or interior lights pertain. No more than three sets to be plugged in at any one time. Make sure you purchase them with a UL rating, either indoor or outdoor, or whatever application you're going to use. And make sure that the plug in part of the light itself has a fuse in it. In case there's problems you can replace that very easily. The LED bulbs, I think they're very attractive when they're plugged in. They're good light. And the savings, about 80 to 90 percent.
Clean the Dryer Vent
A lot of times you hear people advertising duct work cleaning. What I want to talk about is dryer vent cleaning. Totally different. This is a standard vent for a dryer, four inch. Of course we have high velocity of air going through there. We have heat, we have dampness, we have lint. And over time there will be collections of lint that form on the inside of this duct work. It could cause a fire. It can also cause a waste of energy. In other words, your clothes aren't going to dry as rapidly as they should in the dryer. So I would say every six months to a year you really need to clean or replace the duct work to your dryer. The question is when you get up over six or eight feet and it's up behind walls, how do you do that? Well there are services that can clean the duct work in your dryer. Or you can get a rotary dryer vent cleaner. It has a little brush. It's has a handle on the end of this. They are normally only about six feet long. You can push it down into the dryer vent and turn it. If you have one of those areas where it might run ten or fifteen feet, you can buy this particular 12 foot extension. You can connect them together and you can actually hook it up to your portable power drill.