Steve Curtis who is a Colorado-based, BPI Certified home energy auditor. He also a Sales Coach for Tom Piscitelli and conducts a one-day seminar on how to incorporate a Weatherization approach to in-home selling of replacement HVAC systems titled, “WeatherizationPRO Edition of Selling with T.R.U.S.T.®”
Do we want moisture in a home? Absolutely. We actually pay to bring it into our homes. We call it plumbing. In Colorado we also like to put moisture into the air with humidifiers during our dry winters. Problems arise, however, when excessive moisture enters the home in uncontrolled ways.
It’s been estimated that 90% of all problems in a house are caused by water. We might quibble about the percentages, but the fact remains that uncontrolled moisture can be big trouble. As a liquid, we see water in basements, on windows and along pipes. As a solid, we see ice inside walls, cracks and crevices. Ice damming can be a major problem in colder climates. As a vapor, moisture travels on air through walls and attic penetrations causing mold and mildew resulting in health problems. Vapor moisture may also cause serious structural damage through rot.
Water moves in different ways. Gravity causes water to flow downward and gets forced through cracks causing hydraulic pressure. Water can also move sideways or even uphill through capillary action. It enters foundation walls and moves up through porous masonry or between siding. Water vapor moves through building materials via diffusion caused by pressure differences. Finally, water vapor is carried by air migration.
A variety of solutions exist for moisture issues. Vapor barriers in walls and crawl spaces can help prevent diffusion and capillary action, air sealing attic top plates/penetrations and basement rim joists can help prevent air migration. And, of course, source mitigation is extremely important.
Your customers expect, rightly so, that you can identify problems like this and offer them appropriate solutions.
Learn more about solving moisture problems and how to add weatherization to your HVAC solutions. You can reach me at [email protected].