Hall of Shame Fireplace Pic
D'Oh!
Don't forget to close that fireplace flue and vacuum out the ashes or cover them with wet newspaper.
Don’t forget to close that fireplace flue and vacuum out the ashes or cover them with wet newspaper.
Here at EnergyLogic, we keep a folder on the server for Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame pictures. The latter is a collection of energy and safety faux pas and gaffes that we refer to loosely as ‘Raterporn.” As a QA Designee I get a lot of interesting pictures sent to me from raters around the country and I thought it would be nice to begin sharing some of the best (and worst). This picture was taken by one of EnergyLogic’s own. I am posting it because I think it illustrates very well the different mindset required for testing an existing home versus a new home. This rater (who shall remain anonymous) works almost exclusively on new homes. In this case, the local building department granted a temporary Certificate of Occupancy before all construction was complete due to a hardship (this family’s original home was destroyed in a tornado). All fine and well, except that our rater took his ‘new home mindset’ into this occupied house and neglected to close the fireplace flue damper and clean out the ash. The result when he ran the depressurization test was a fine cloud of ash that was distributed nicely throughout the main living area including the cream colored rug in front of the fireplace.
Here is the lesson: if you don’t want to make that repentant call to your home owner or pay a carpet cleaning bill, don’t forget to address the fireplaces and wood burning stoves prior to running the blower door! And remember, occupied homes are just a whole different animal!
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
On existing occupied homes it is a good idea to follow a checklist before going full blast with the blower door. I usually go to about 25 pascals and walk around to see if everything is holding together. It is possible to pull linoleum up on old homes. Retrotec has a good checklist that includes making sure everyone is awake – and clothed! You don’t want an embarassing situation to occur!
It is a drawback on existing homes that you don’t want to break anything while doing a rating and you have to be conscious of the homeowners property-sometimes there is not much room to put the gear together. Especially the blower door has to be firmly in place- should it come loose and fall back into the house there is a good chance it may fall on something.