Another possible solution to room pressure imbalances

Green Building Advisor had an interesting post about a new ventilation strategy for homes with central returns or other HVAC system problems.

The product is an interior door that has free area built into the door itself, while engineering to reduce the amount of sound transmission.  The door has an equivalent open area of 100 square inches.  So it will be able to handle imbalances that are too big for a simple door undercutting.  

The door will cost more than a tradition interior door.  But we've all come across that rare room that has no real wall space facing the main body of the house.  This door might help reduce pressure imbalances to more acceptable levels.

The door will be going into production soon.

Fall 2014 Wx Assistant fuel cost update

This is a little late, but the updated Investor Owned Utility, etc. fuel costs have been updated as follows:
$/kWh
Duke: $0.141
I&M: $0.112
IPL: $0.100
Vectren: $0.217
NIPSCO: $0.147

$/Mcf
Vectren: $10.11
NIPSCO: $7.34
Citizens Energy Group: $10.72

The 'average' weatherization home has been updated to reflect the more recent billing analysis report.  The average home is assumed to use 942 therms and 9,452 kWh annually.  All the other assumptions remain the same.

Vectren Share the Warmth Wrap up (2014) (Update)

Many thanks to the Weatherizers who helped with this year's Share the Warmth program.  Over $191,000 was spent on 94 homes weatherized between January and September.  The $191,000 from Share the Warmth was helped by over $422,000 of additional weatherization funds to weatherize those homes.


Some quick program facts:

• 54 unsafe furnaces were replaced with new, more efficient ones.
• Seven gas cook stoves were repaired, another four were replaced to help reduce high carbon monoxide production.
• 20 damaged or unsafe water heaters were replaced.
• Enough air sealing was done to patch a single 133 sqft hole.  Think the size of a two car garage door...
• Nearly 53,000 sqft of attic insulation was installed.  More than enough to cover 11 basketball courts in a warm coating of cellulose.
• Over 25,000 sqft of wall insulation was installed.  That is as big as seven IMAX movie theater screens.
• Enough pipe wrap was installed to stretch from end zone to end zone of a football field.

Finally, a brief breakdown of what was spent where:

I'm hopeful there will be a similar program beginning early in 2015.  Thank you all for your help!  

Updated to reflect corrected number of homes completed in the program.