EnergyStar fraud

[William J. Decker]

Originally Posted by rlondon

you do realize, Will......that Obama won Illinois by a fairly huge margin. So much for Chicagoans filtering out "old Chicago Pol"s before they get to the national stage.

Chicago is 59% black and a big union town. Chicago also has some 75% of the votes in Illinois.

Jesse Jackson (sr.) did not have these demographics when he was running (black majority). Also, Pres. Obama was a relative unknown when he ran for the Senate and his Republican opponent shot himself in the foot.

From then on, it was the Chicago Machine all over the place (Jesse did not have the Machine's support) and Axelrod (Richard J's personal campaign guy) took Mr. Obama to the top.

Even then, Pres. Obama only wone by 4% of the vote.

Hope this clarifies.

[John E. Mullarkey]

Mr. Decker, Well said and do not back off. Daley was Mayor when I went to boot camp, USN Great Lakes, at North Chicago in the early 70's and the current Mayor also happens to be named Daley, imagine that! Talk about a political machine.

[kweiss]

Will stay out of the political stuff, but I definitely agree on the energy efficiency part, Will.

I find it to be a paradox around here. I think it is sadly funny the amount of improperly insulated homes, new homes, that I find around here, and I am not even referring to the Infrared insulation findings.

They have the nice little 2006 IECC or the Energy Star sticker on the breaker panel in the garage. Then you climb the ladder and see that they are 2 inches low on ceiling insulation according to their own height markers. I have had multiple houses that had several areas of insulation completely missing in accessible areas near the access - still had their stickers. Again, not even talking about homes that I find significant insulation missing in INaccessible areas with IR.

I am still on the outside looking in on the efficiency rater stuff (trying to decide which certs to get this year) but I have to say, I am not impressed with the work I see being done. I strongly suspect many of these guys are doing walk bys and throwing up their stickers.

[Rob London]

http://www.nachi.org/energystar-program-criticized.htm

[Jason Kaylor]

Originally Posted by kweiss

Then you climb the ladder and see that they are 2 inches low on ceiling insulation according to their own height markers.

Kevin,

Is that blown in insulation? Not to say all the insulation guys are doing a good job, but one of the knocks on cellulose is that it settles. Guys installing cellulose should have to return to the house a year or so later to fill in where it settled.



JJ

[Brian A. MacNeish]

Originally Posted by jkaylor

Kevin,

Is that blown in insulation? Not to say all the insulation guys are doing a good job, but one of the knocks on cellulose is that it settles. Guys installing cellulose should have to return to the house a year or so later to fill in where it settled.
JJ

All that has to be done at the time of insulation is follow the manufacturer's instructions. I have a chart in front of me for a product that has been tested at R3.8/inch:

R40 Blown depth-11.8" Minimum depth-10.5"

So simply blow the 11.8" and it settles to 10.5".......Pretty simple. If they're cheating....... it's another issue and the contractor's problem.

Don't knock the cellulose. It's a great product...... uses benign chemicals (borax & boric acid) for fire/rot/mould resistance; uses mostly re-cycled newsprint as feed stock. In 1983, it was the first product in Canada to be awarded the new federal government environmental logo.

Within a few weeks, my company stopped blowing fiberglass...period. We only had 1 larger contractor demanding it; all our other other blowing was cellulose. Within 2 years, that contractor was back using our services and having cellulose blown in all his attics. In 1989, this guy was one of the contractors I served/mentored in Moncton, NB and was awarded Canada's "R2000 Builder of the Year" award.

[kweiss]

Originally Posted by jkaylor

Kevin,

Is that blown in insulation? Not to say all the insulation guys are doing a good job, but one of the knocks on cellulose is that it settles. Guys installing cellulose should have to return to the house a year or so later to fill in where it settled.



JJ

Sometimes. But if you look at the product sheets it will generally give a installed thickness and a settled thickness, taking that into account. So I think it is generally an installer / lack of supervision problem. They do come out and fix it in the ones I inspect after I call it out. Unfortunately, I don't think the energy star inspectors are even always checking.

[Michael Roberson]

I wrote an article on this for my Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/notes/mike-r...d/411209359947

[Jason Kaylor]

Don't get me wrong Brian, I do not think Cellulose is a bad product. I end up talking to a lot of insulation guys throughout the week. Some of these guys really know their stuff, and some do not. The ones that do are split up between spray foam, fiberglass and cellulose. Each one rattles off the benefits and negatives to each. The only negatives I have heard on cellulose is the settling, and like you stated that can mostly be overcame. Dust is another one that often comes up.

JJ

[Brian A. MacNeish]

Originally Posted by jkaylor

Don't get me wrong Brian, I do not think Cellulose is a bad product. I end up talking to a lot of insulation guys throughout the week. Some of these guys really know their stuff, and some do not. The ones that do are split up between spray foam, fiberglass and cellulose. Each one rattles off the benefits and negatives to each. The only negatives I have heard on cellulose is the settling, and like you stated that can mostly be overcame. Dust is another one that often comes up.

JJ

First of the year , had a house renovator/flipper friend ask me about doing an attic in a row house (I still have some smaller cellulose insulation equipment left from a past life!). He was told at the big box store to use fiberglass and never cellulose because of the dust. This was the last thing to do in this house....blow the attic....all carpets, finishes, etc were installed.

My son and I hauled the hose up through a second story window after laying a tarp down, blew the attic and left in 3 hours after about 4-5 minutes cleanup. The guy was amazed and wondered what the store salesperson was talking about.

Could be in the installer's attitude towards their customers and their premises!

[Jim Hime]

Energy Star bungling from the horses mouth. Government can't prove it saves any money.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/me...ware/19595869/

[Jason Kaylor]

The guy that wrote that article also writes about UFO sitings. Does anyone look at a story source anymore? Negative and controversial news is what sells, not unbiased facts.

I am not defending the viability or not of Energy Star, just would rather read a white paper or case study by a non bias source and not a blogger trying to sell advertising. If there are advertisers or adwords/adsense links on the site they are in the business of drumming up clicks.

JJ