EMF Home Consultants Building better solutions For home energy efficiency
Mark Fredenberg can see through walls.
No, he’s not Superman. And he doesn’t have X-ray vision. But he does have a blower door which he uses to find hidden holes in your home’s walls, ceilings and floors. Places where air escapes, resulting in higher heating and cooling bills.
 |
|---|
| Mark Fredenberg uses a blower door to find out where air is leaking from this home. The number one issue that he finds regarding home energy efficiency is air sealing. Fredenberg has worked for more than a decade with the Wisconsin’s Energy Star program and has conducted energy audits for nearly 1,000 new and existing homes. |
Fredenberg’s business, EMF Home Consultants in Cottage Grove, was launched in 1991. It is a State certified home inspection business, and energy consulting firm accredited through the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation. He works with Homeowners and Realtors, inspecting homes to uncover defects, safety concerns, maintenance issues as well as where changes can be made to improve energy efficiency. He has worked for more than a decade with the Wisconsin’s Energy Star program and has conducted energy audits for nearly 1,000 new and existing homes.
The number one issue that he finds regarding home energy efficiency is air sealing. “If you know where the leaks are you can seal them up, but you often don’t know where they are so that’s where the blower door test comes in.” A blower door is a devise that blows air out of the house. This allows to Fredenberg to see areas where air is being sucked in through joints, cracks and crevasses. “People are always amazed as they walk around and feel the drafts coming in from the windows, doors, and unexpected places.”
It’s important to have a strong attention to detail when building a house, says Fredenberg. “You leave a little hole in a wall and you don’t think much about it because it’s just a little hole. From a thermal standpoint you’re not loosing much heat as hot goes to cold. But it makes a big difference from a pressure standpoint; it’s much like the wind filling the sails on a sail boat. On a windy day, there’s pressure on your outer walls and that pressure on the same little one inch hole is going to be huge. There’s a lot of air trying to push through that hole, and not just the air, but moisture is also coming through. So now you are getting potential condensation issues with mold inside of the wall in that area.”
Fredenberg says fixing these issues starts with giving people solid solutions they can use. “I enjoy educating people about energy issues and showing them how much they can save by taking simple steps. When that light goes on in their mind and they say, ‘oh, I can do this’ or ‘I definitely want to get that done’ it’s priceless.”
Along with that education comes giving the homeowner options. Using years of construction know-how coupled with the latest technology, Fredenberg is able to deliver energy analysis reports that offer multiple options to help homeowners budget their annual energy costs. For instance the homeowner might think that they are loosing all their energy through their windows, but the blower door test finds that the windows are actually doing a good job. Now that $20,000 they were going to spend on windows can be better used for insulation and other cost effective improvements. “Your home is a system made up of many components interacting with each other. Changing one component may actually cause problems elsewhere. So I bring to each home a visual assessment of its components, and make recommendations prioritized and inline with these component relationships based on Building Science, not sales opinions”.
Making improvements in the right places saves money up front and for years to come. It’s good advice that EMF Home Consultants brings to homeowners as well as home builders. Fredenberg’s consulting work also extends to contractors throughout central Wisconsin, ensuring that they have the knowledge they need to build efficiency into new construction. “I can educate the builder on how he’s thinking about energy issues instead of just getting the house built,” says Fredenberg. “We want to build a house that’s safe, durable, comfortable and efficient. Building science professionals have made great advances in looking at a home as a system. The component relationships have been tried and tested, and we get to reap the benefits. We can truly say, ‘We build better, and we can prove it.’ So, let’s meet the budget, and make lifetime relationships.”
Building a good home that will be there for generations to come is important to Fredenberg. That is also how he approaches building customer relationships. Honesty is at the foundation of his work and he says he always tells the customer the truth and what he can and cannot do. “For example, I realize the seller says this is a new furnace, but it is running strange, let’s get the heating contractor in to assess repairs and costs. I know people in about all the trades to get opinions or bids.”