Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

Workshop for Homeowners August 9

Story by Celeste von Mangan

Anyone who owns a home has a variety of maintenance and improvement challenges to deal with on a continuous basis—issues like indoor air quality, energy consumption and comfort. A local company skilled at helping homeowners take care of these issues and others will lead a workshop to help people solve their home problems on Saturday, August 9. Phil Hull of Building Performance Engineering will lead the workshop that begins at 9:00 a.m. and ends at 1:00 p.m. at the High Country Home Builders Plaza on the Highway 105 Bypass in Boone.

“The workshop is a PowerPoint presentation about what problems we typically find in homes and what people can do about them,” Hull said. “Homeowners can tackle these problems on their own if they feel confident, or we can come out if they feel like the problem is more complicated; we can come out and do a home performance assessment. We are calling these assessments home performance versus energy audits.”

Hull said he will sit down with homeowners and cover a variety of concerns.
“Comfort issues like hot and cold spots, high bills, strange odors in the house, a lot of issues with allergies and asthma are some of the problems we help people with,” he said. “We help find the source of the problem. Someone else may have to clear it up, but we can prevent it from happening again. For example, moisture issues may cause mold growth. We determine what can be done in the home to stop the mold growth and prevent it and someone who deals with mold can remove it. But if you do not solve the problem of what causes the mold, it is going to come back and that is where we come in.”

“We” includes one dozen employees from Building Performance Engineering, each one with a different job.

“No one else in the High Country that I know of does what we do,” said Hull. “We have a very unique business and it is really kind of amazing. You have a house that is 50, 60 or 100 years old—it is amazing what people put up with because they do not know where to look for help. A lot of different things can happen within a home.

“Air can bypass insulation and all the insulation will not help that situation. I would say that air infiltration accounts for 50 to 60 percent of energy loss in a home. We find those types of leaks; it is what we are trained to do.”
Hull uses thermal cameras to check for problems with insulation in a home.
“Typically, we find that most old houses have six inches of insulation where 12 to 14 inches of insulation is needed in High Country houses,” he said. “Using a thermal camera, we take a walk through your home and look at walls, ceilings and floors. The light from the camera shows up in reds or blues, depending on the time of year—blue light in the winter when insulation is missing, large red spots in the summer.”

Combustion safety is another area of expertise. Hull and Scott Suddreth are Building Performance Institute certified in combustion safety.

“We can check a furnace or a water heater that runs on gas with a combustion analyzer and make sure they are not back-drafting, which is a pretty dangerous situation,” Hull said.

The workshop for homeowners can help people identify what they can take care of themselves and what requires professional help. Presenters will have hands-on activities to demonstrate the various tools used to diagnose energy and comfort issues and will show people how to correct simple problems. The cost for the four-hour class is $25 and includes a workbook and refreshments. The street address for the Home Builders Plaza is 755 NC Highway 105 Bypass in Boone.

Call Hull at 828-265-4888 for more information or to register for the workshop. Preregistration is suggested.

Want To Go?

Date: Saturday, August 9
Time: 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Location: High Country Home Builders Plaza
Cost: $25