Common Home Problems and Solutions

Is your home cold, drafty, or uncomfortable? Do you have high energy bills? Peeling paint? Excessive dust? Addressing these types of home problems can make your home more comfortable, and at the same time improve it's energy efficiency - saving you money on utility bills and helping to protect the environment too.

High Energy Bills
Diagnosis: The reason for high energy bills is an increase in the price of electricity or gas. However, it is common to trace high energy bills to an in-efficient component (windows, heating and cooling equipment, ducts insulation) of your home or a failure of one of these components to perform as intended. It is not always easy to pin-point the problem, but fixing it can make your home more energy-efficient and comfortable.

Mold, mildew or musty odors
Diagnosis: Water leak or high humidity can lead to mold, mildew, or other biological growth. Depending on the severity, conditions can lead to rot, structural damage, premature paint failure, and a variety of health problems. Water can seep into your house from the outside through a leak in your roof, foundation, or small gaps around windows or doors. Water can also come from inside your house from a leaking water pipe, toilet, shower or bathtub. High indoor humidity caused by normal activities of everyday living such as showering, cooking, and drying clothes, can also be a source of mold, mildew or musty odors. Indoor humidity levels between 30% and 50% are ideal.

Damp Basement
Diagnosis: The source of your problem could be a water leak or high humidity. Both can lead to mold, mildew, or other biological growth. Depending on the severity, conditions can lead to rot, structural damage, premature paint failure, and a variety of health problems.

Water can seep into your house from the outside through a leak in the foundation, or small gaps around windows or doors. Water can also come from inside your house from a leaking water pipe, toilet, shower or bathtub. High indoor humidity caused by normal activities of everyday living, such as showering, cooking, and drying clothes, can also be a source of your problem. A damp basement is commonly caused by moisture migrating through a concrete foundation.

There may not be a sign of any leak or standing water, but the moisture evaporates, increasing indoor humidity. Another common cause is condensation on the cold concrete walls and floors during humid months.

Cold Floors
Diagnosis: Although some types of floor coverings (e.g., wood, stone, tile, or concrete) will naturally feel cold on bare feet, insufficient insulation or air infiltration could be the cause for cold floors.

Drafty Rooms
Diagnosis: Cold air leaking into your house around windows, doors, electrical outlets, light fixtures, and gaps in corners, can cause rooms to feel drafty and uncomfortable. As cold air is coming in through leaks, warm air is escaping through other leaks. The biggest leaks for escaping air are often found in the attic, and recessed lights are a common location.

Dust
Diagnosis: Dust comes from several sources and is difficult to eliminate completely. Increased dust could be a sign that it is time to change a dirty furnace or air conditioner filter or vacuum cleaner bag. Activities that produce dust (such as sanding) can also be a source of increase. Dust can also be introduced into your home through air leaks in ducts, or air infiltration through leaky doors and windows.

Moisture on Windows
Diagnosis: It is difficult to completely eliminate moisture on existing windows. Inefficient windows (e.g., single pane with aluminum frames) or high moisture with inadequate ventilation can result in condensation, frost, or pools of water on windows and sills. Moisture in the air condenses when it touches a cold surface. (The same effect causes a glass of ice tea to "sweat" on a hot humid day.) Continued excess moisture can lead to mold, mildew, and deterioration of your windows and sills.

Peeling Paint
Diagnosis: Peeling or cracking paint, on your home's exterior, may be a sign of a humidity problem or improper application. Peeling exterior paint is caused by moisture being absorbed through the back of wood siding and passing through to the exterior surface under the paint. The paint loses adhesion and peels off. The exterior should be vented to allow any moisture behind the siding to escape.

Hot or Cold Room
Diagnosis: Temperature differences of up to three degrees from room to room are not uncommon, but often one or several rooms are uncomfortably warm or cold. This condition could be caused by several factors within your home including inadequate insulation, air leakage, poor duct system design, duct leakage, unwanted heating by the sun in warmer months, or a failure in part of your heating and cooling system.

Dry Air
Diagnosis: Air leaks in your home allow warm humid air to escape and draw in drier colder air. Dry indoor air can contribute to dry throat and skin and static shocks. Proper humidity levels keep furniture and your home from drying out and reduce the energy use of your heating system because you will feel warmer at a lower thermostat setting.

Did You Know?

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At 665 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in subscriptions and growing, Austin Energy's GreenChoice is the nation's most successful utility-sponsored green power program. GreenChoice® electricity comes from clean, renewable sources. Subscribe now. There is no waiting list. The GreenChoice charge of 5.5 cents per kWh is fixed until December 31, 2022. For residential customers, it replaces Austin Energy's fuel charge of 3.65 cents per kWh. This means the average residential customer consuming about 1,000 kWh per month will pay about $18.50 more per month for GreenChoice power. Thank you for helping make GreenChoice America's #1 green power program.

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This label identifies a home as having earned the ENERGY STAR
And with homebuyers increasingly interested in green building, energy efficiency is the place to start. That's because the energy used in homes often comes from the burning of fossil fuels at power plants, which contributes to smog, acid rain, and risks of global warming. So, the less energy used, the less air pollution generated. And the easy way to make sure a new home is energy efficient is to look for the blue ENERGY STAR mark, the government-backed symbol for energy efficiency. Learn more about how Green Begins with ENERGY STAR Blue by going to http://energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home.index.