Upgrade Services

1st Choice Energy offers multifamily energy upgrades that reduce energy costs, improve comfort, and make your tenants happy. These services include high efficiency air conditioning systems, attic insulation, duct sealing, solar screens or film, radiant barriers, and weatherization.

High Efficiency Air Conditioning Systems 

The efficiency of air conditioning systems has improved significantly over the last 10 years. If your AC system is more than 10 years old, you should be able to significantly reduce your cooling bill by installing a more energy efficient system. A 10-15 year old  system probably had a 10-12 SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating) when new, and now is operating at at an 6-10 SEER level, due to efficiency loss over time. If your current system is operating at an 8 SEER level, a new 16 SEER system would reduce your cooling bill by 50%. That's right. going from an 8 to 16 SEER level of operation will cut your electrical consumption from cooling in half. With the heat of Austin summers, this can result in significant savings to you over time.

Attic Insulation

Insulation is the key factor in reducing the rate of heat transfer from the hot attic into a building's living spaces. It's not uncommon for temperatures to reach 130-150 degrees F in Austin attics during the summer. The only barrier between these  high attic temperatures and the inside of your house is the sheet rock ceiling and attic insulation. Insulation values  have an "R" rating - or "Resistance" to heat transfer. The higher the R value the better. An insulation value of R38 is recommended for Austin attics. This translates to approximately 14-17 inches of blown fiberglass insulation, which really slows the transfer of heat from the attic to your house!

Duct Sealing

The number one energy saving measure in most Texas homes is sealing duct work to reduce duct leakage. It only makes sense to minimize the amount of conditioned air escaping from your ducts to the attic and outside. You've paid good money to cool and heat that air, so don't let it heat and cool the county! Duct mastic is a thick, viscous sealing material used to seal duct leakage commonly found at duct connections, between the register and sheet rock, and at the supply and return air plenums. The goal is to reduce leakage below 10%, but the lower the better!

Solar Screens or Solar Film 

The biggest source of heat infiltration in Texas homes is through the windows. Solar energy (energy transmitted from the sun via Ultraviolet (UV) and Infrared (IR) wavelengths) enters the home through the window glass. Clear glass doesn't block radiant energy. However, solar screens and solar film do an excellent job of blocking solar energy before it enters the home. Depending on the screen or film material, 70-90% of the IR energy (which heats things up) and 95-98% of the UV energy (which fades curtains, sofas and carpet) is blocked from entering your home. Blocking solar energy from entering your home is one of the most important factors in reducing your air conditioning bill!

Radiant Barrier 

Attics get so hot in the summer because the sun heats the roofing materials  (shingles and wood decking), which in turn radiates energy into the attic. Since the attic is an enclosed area, this creates an oven effect. So how do you prevent an attic from getting so hot? One way is to install a radiant barrier (RB). Radiant barriers are thin, shiny metal surfaces that reflect a high percentage of the energy that hits them and only emit (or transfer into the attic) a very low percentage of that energy. There are two popular types of radiant barriers: foil and paint based. Foil radiant barriers (think of a 4' wide roll of very tough aluminum foil) reflect about 97% of the radiant energy, and radiant barrier paints (think of latex based house paint full of aluminum dust) block about 78% of radiant energy. Technically, radiant barrier paints are called reflective coatings. Which is better? Foil starts off with a higher reflectivity rating (97%), but may degrade over time with the collection of dust. Some foil can also have problems tearing away from the roof rafters, thus loosing 100% percent of it's reflective ability. RB paint starts with a reflectivity of 78%, but it's emissivity supposedly doesn't degrade as much over time, and RB paint doesn't have the problem that foil may have of coming loose from the rafters. Either product can be effective in our hot Texas climate.

Weatherization

Houses must "breathe" in order to provide healthy indoor air quality (IAQ). Current ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers) standards recommend that approximately one third of the volume of air in your house exchange with outside air every hour. In Texas, most houses breathe naturally because of air infiltration around doors, windows, plumbing penetrations, base boards, fireplaces, etc. The only problem with this natural form of ventilation is that it allows unconditioned and unfiltered air to enter the home. There's an old energy adage which says, "Build it tight, ventilate it right." Proper ventilation is provided by ducting in outside air, filtering it to remove dust and allergens, then passing it through an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) to pre-cool/heat and humidify/dehumidify the incoming air. Most older homes need "tightening up", and exterior doors and plumbing penetrations are some of the key places where weather stripping and caulk can help reduce the natural infiltration of air.

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs)

Compact Fluorescent Lamps, more commonly known as CFLs, typically use about 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs of similar light output and last far longer (typically around 6x as long). And the high-quality CFLs in today's market are a far cry from earlier iterations of the technology: today's CFLs have a light quality that is at least as good as incandescents; buzzing has all but disappeared and most new, high-quality CFLs have a close-to-instantaneous startup time. 1st Choice Energy installs high quality CFLs in multifamily properties that will reduce your buildings' energy consumption and keep your tenants happy.  

Contact us today about an energy audit combined with upgrade services!

Be sure to check Austin Energy's Multi-Family rebates for a summary of available Multi-Family rebate measures.