NEWAIM Energy provides energy auditing and weatherization services to customers in Midcoast Maine.

	13 Robinson Rd Waldoboro, ME 04572 207 832-5162 Al@NEWAIMEnergy.com
The best way to reduce your energy bill is simply to use less energy! Maine has the oldest housing in the country. Most of our homes were built well before energy conservation was a concern. Even new homes generally offer significant opportunities for improving efficiency. NEWAIM Energy will evaluate your home using the "House as a System" approach. All aspects of your home interact with each other and impact the overall safety and efficiency of the system. This includes they way the occupants work within the system. We all know that home improvements can be expensive and in today's economy we need to ensure that each dollar is well spent. Spending money to make changes without knowing the return on investment or how that change will interact with the rest of the house just doesn't make sense. Our Maine Certified Auditors will employ the latest technology to evaluate your home and pinpoint exactly where improvements can be made. You will be provided a prioritized list of recommended improvements along with an estimated cost and return on investment information. (Actual return on investment will vary with changes in fuel prices) Small jobs can be accomplished by NEWAIM Energy Maine Certified Weatherization Technicians. If the job requires significant effort or special equipment we will work with you to find a qualified professional to accomplish the work. If you wish to do some of the work yourself, we can provide you with the guidance you need to do the job right. After the changes have been accomplished we will return to make sure the job was executed correctly and delivers the expected results. Contact us to schedule your home energy audit today.
Ice Dams Ice dams are caused by inadequate insulation and/or air sealing in the attic. Heat escapes the living space and warms the underside of the roof. The snow then melts and runs down the roof surface until it reaches the cold eaves where it refreezes to form ice dams and icicles. The two pictures on the below were taken on the same day on the same property. The left picture is of a ranch built in the 1950's with 6" of fiberglass (R19) in the ceiling and no air sealing. The right picture is of a single story fiber processing mill which is built similar to a ranch with no interior walls. The mill has 12" of fiberglass (R38) in the ceiling with good air sealing. If you house looks like the left picture, your should give us a call. If we were building the mill today we would have insulated to R60 in the ceiling and probably would have used 18" of blown in celluose to achieve that value. We may go back and add 6" of cellouse on top of the fiberglass. Adding insulation to the attic of an existing structure is realtively easy. Increasing the R value of the walls is more difficult.
Air Sealing Air sealing is one of the easiest jobs to accomplish and it returns big results. The return on investment if you do the work yourself may be as little as a few months. If you have it done professionally the payback may be a few years. Air sealing is labor intensive, but does not require a lot of material. Below are some pictures that show air sealing problems. Nothing can hide from our infrared scanner! These pictures were taken with our color infrared scanner. Warm surfaces appear as bright colors and cold surfaces are dark. The dark "fingers" represent the flow of cold outside air entering the house with the blower door running.
Switches and receptacles located on exterior walls make holes through the building envelope. Adding a gasket under the cover plate can help reduce this problem.	Attic hatches are another major source of heat loss. Hatches should be insulated, have a gasket around the mating surface, and use eye hooks to tightly secure the hatch in place.	This is an unsealed chimney race. Warm moist air rises from the basement and has a direct route to the attic where the moisture condenses on cold surfaces. Along the way heat is lost from the living space by convecting through the drywall.
Corners are a common place for heat loss. Traditional framing techniques create a void where walls join. This void usually has no insulation. New framing methods have been developed that avoid this problem. This problem is difficult to correct in an existing structure.	This picture shows air leakage around a fireplace. Air sealing around the fireplace chimney can resolve this problem.	This picture shows the sensitivity of our FLIR b50 infrared scanner. I placed my hand on the wall for just a few seconds and then took this picture. The hand print will remain visible for several minutes.