If you lack sufficient sunlight on your skin, you will suffer health effects. That’s because the human body was designed to be exposed to sunlight on a frequent basis. We evolved, after all, under the natural sun, not under fluorescent lighting. Our environment was one with plentiful sunlight.

Skylights can provide up to 30% more natural light than vertical windows while making a small space seem bigger.

A skylight is like a window which has been placed in your roof. It has a frame specially designed to withstand rain and prevent leakage from rain and snow. To maximize a skylight’s use of natural light to illuminate a room or its passive solar heating potential, you will want to take into consideration how a skylight is positioned.

Facing north, your skylight will provide fairly constant illumination, but will not provide a lot of heat.

Facing east, it will provide the maximum amount of light and solar heat gain in the morning.

Facing west, your skylight provides afternoon sunlight as well as heat gain.

A skylight facing south provides the greatest potential for winter passive solar heat gain than any other location, but will often allow unwanted heat gain in the summer. This heat gain can be minimized by installing your south-facing skylight in the shade of deciduous trees or adding a moving window covering.

Skylights come in all shapes and sizes. Its size greatly affects the illumination level and temperature of the space below.

As a rule of thumb, the size of a skylight should never be more than 5% of the floor area in rooms with many windows; and no more than 15% of the room’s total floor area for spaces with few windows. Dept. of Energy.

Glazing

Like windows, skylight manufacturers use different types of glazing to improve their energy efficiency. The glazing comes in three different forms.

Plastic glazing - This type of glazing is usually inexpensive and less likely to break than other glazing materials. However, these surfaces scratch easily and can become brittle and discolored.

Glass glazing - This is found in the more expensive skylights. It is more durable than plastic and does not discolor. All glass used for skylights must be made of “safety glazing,” a generic term for both tempered and laminated glass. Tempered glass is the most impact resistant. Laminated glass is fabricated with a thin layer of plastic embedded near the center of the glass. Both types keep the glass from breaking into large, sharp pieces. Skylights are often made with a tempered glass on the exterior side and a laminated pane on the interior side. This arrangement gives maximum impact resistance while protecting occupants from falling shards of glass.

Solar heat control glazing - Manufacturers use various glazing methods to reduce the impact of summer time solar heat gains and winter time heat losses. These come in the form of heat-absorbing tints, double and tripled paned skylights and low-emissivity coatings.

Slope

When your window professional installs your skylight, one of the factors they will take into consideration is the slope. The slope, or tilt of the skylight, affects the amount of solar heat gain. A low slope on your skylight admits more solar heat in the summer and less in the winter, which is the opposite of the effect you are trying to achieve.

As a rule of thumb, you want to achieve a slope equal to your geographical latitude plus 5 to 15 degrees. For example, the optimum slope for a south-facing skylight in Columbus, Ohio, at 40º North latitude, is 45º to 55º.

Every skylight has a “shaft” which governs how much light is admitted into the room below. If all four sides are flared, then the light is spread over a wide area. If your skylight has a shaft with perpendicular sides, the light is focused straight below. If your skylight’s shaft is flared on only one or two sides, then the light is sprayed in the flared direction.

Ventilation

If you wish, you can have a skylight which also provides ventilation as well as light to your room. This allows you to release the hot air which collects at your ceiling. Your ventilating skylight can be operated by one of three ways:

Manual skylight controls - These are opened by your use of an extended rod to manually crank the skylight open. These are designed for ceilings of less than 15 feet.

Electronic skylight controls - A simpler model of this type of control is wired to a wall mounted switch which opens and closes the skylight. More complex models are controlled by a special wall console of a wireless remote control.

Automatic operating controls - With this type of control, integrated heat sensors trigger the skylight to open when the interior heat reaches a preset temperature. Exterior sensors automatically close the unit when they sense moisture.

Tubular skylights

An alternative to the conventional skylight, which looks like a window in your roof, is the tubular skylight. The tubular skylight is a roof-mounted dome which collects natural light and delivers it to the room below. It is less expensive than the conventional skylight because it is designed to fit between roof and ceiling framing, eliminating the need for structural modifications. You will commonly see these used in bathrooms, hallways and closets, but they can be used in any room of your house.

The average tubular skylight ranges in size from 10 - 21 inches in diameter, which lights a 100-600 square foot interior space.

Skylights of any type transform a room by adding warmth and depth while bringing out the natural beauty of your home and its surroundings. When planning your new home or the remodel of your current one, take some time to consider skylights as a beautiful enhancement that also provide comfort to you and your family while conserving the energy we all share.

According to Wikipedia, fenestration is defined as, “Products that fill openings in a building envelope, such as windows, doors, skylights, curtain walls, etc., which are designed to permit the passage of air, light, vehicles, or people.”

The National Fenestration Rating Council (NRFC) has developed a rating system for you to compare the performance of different fenestration products. NFRC is a third party, non-profit organization that sponsors certified rating and labeling programs to help consumers compare the energy and performance features of windows, doors, and skylights. NFRC’s programs do not distinguish between “good” and “bad” products, set minimum performance standards, or mandate performance levels. This is where ENERGY STAR comes in. ENERGY STAR enables consumers to easily identify NFRC-certified products with superior energy performance.

Let’s look at the NRFC label and see what it tells us.

There are five (5) characteristics to consider when looking at a fenestration product.

1. U-Factor - This measures how well the product prevents heat from escaping your building envelope. The rate of heat loss generally falls between 0.20 and 1.25. The lower the U-Value, the greater the product’s resistance to heat flow, and the better its insulating value. The U-Factor is particularly important during the winter heating season.
2. Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) - The SHGC measures how well the heat caused by sunlight is blocked. It is expressed as a number between 0 and 1. The lower the number, the less solar heat is transmitted into your home. Atypical range is 0.25 to 0.80. Blocking solar heat gain is particularly important during the summer cooling season.
3. Visible Transmittance (VT) - This is expressed in a number between 0 and1, and is a measure of how much light comes through your fenestration product. The higher the VT, the higher the potential there is for daylighting. Generally, products range from 0.20 to 0.80.

Daylighting is the practice of placing windows or other transparent media and reflective surfaces so that, during the day, natural light provides effective internal illumination. Within the overall architectural design of a building, particular attention is given to daylighting when the aim is to maximize visual comfort, productivity, or to reduce energy use. Energy savings from daylighting are achieved in two ways–either from the reduced use of electric lighting or from passive solar heating or cooling.

4. Air Leakage (AL) - Any air which filters through cracks in the product’s assembly results in heat loss and gain. AL is measured in cubic feet of air passing through one square foot of window area per minute (cfm/ft^2.). The lower the AL value, the less air is leaked. Most industry standards and building codes require a minimum AL of 0.3 cfm/ft². The AL rating is optional and manufacturers can choose not to include it in their labels.
5. Condensation Resistance (CR) - This measures the ability of the product to resist the formation of condensation on its interior surface. The higher the CR rating, the better the product is at resisting the formation of condensation. The CR rating is optional and manufacturers can choose not to include it in their labels. The CR does not predict condensation but rather measures the potential for its formation.

So, when you look for windows, doors or skylights take these characteristics into consideration. The better NFRC ratings will result in increased energy savings and great comfort for you and your family.

Air conditioning

An air conditioner is basically a refrigerator without the insulated box. It uses the evaporation of a refrigerant, like Freon, to provide cooling. The mechanics of the Freon evaporation cycle are the same in a refrigerator as in an air conditioner. Depending on your needs, you may choose either a room air conditioner or a central air conditioning system.

• Room Air Conditioner - These units cool individual rooms as opposed to an entire house, providing cooling only where it is needed. While individually they are less energy efficient than a central air system, overall they may be less expensive to operate because they only cool where it is needed. The EPA requires that new room air conditioners have an EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio) of 8.5 or greater. If you live in a mild climate, it is recommended you select a unit with an EER of at least 9.0. If you live in a hot climate, a unit with an EER of over 10 is recommended.
• Central Air Conditioner - A Central Air system circulates cool air through a system of supply and return ducts. Supply ducts and registers carry cooled air from your air conditioner throughout your home. The air then flows back to the central unit through return ducts and registers. The minimum EPA standards for a central air conditioner are a SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) of 12. However, there are many excellent systems available with SEERs of nearly 17. The higher the SEER, the greater your energy savings will be.

Heat Pumps

Heat pumps can work to either heat your home or cool it. When they are in the cool mode, heat pumps move heat from your cool house into the warm outdoors. Because they move heat rather than generate heat, heat pumps can provide up to 4 times the amount of energy they consume. There are two types of heat pumps - air source and geothermal heat pumps.

• Air Source Heat Pump - In the cooling mode, the heat pump takes heat from inside your home and dumps it outside.
• Geothermal Heat Pumps - These heat pumps use the constant temperature of the earth as the exchange medium instead of the outside air temperature. While many parts of the country experience seasonal temperature extremes-from scorching heat in the summer to sub-zero cold in the winter-a few feet below the earth’s surface the ground remains at a relatively constant temperature. Depending on latitude, ground temperatures range from 45°F (7°C) to 75°F (21°C). Like a cave, this ground temperature is warmer than the air above it during the winter and cooler than the air in the summer. The Geothermal Heat Pump takes advantage of this by exchanging heat with the earth through a ground cold heat exchanger. Even though the installation price of a geothermal system can be several times that of an air-source system of the same capacity, the additional costs are returned to you in energy savings in 5-10 years. System life is estimated at 25 years for the inside components and 50+ years for the ground loop.

Evaporative Cooling

An evaporative cooler (also known as a swamp cooler) produces effective cooling by combining a natural process - water evaporation - with a simple, reliable air-moving system. Fresh outside air is pulled through moist pads where it is cooled by evaporation and circulated through your home by a large blower. As this happens, the temperature of the outside air can be lowered as much as 30 degrees. Evaporative coolers work well when the outside air is dry and desert-like. As the humidity increases, however, the ability for them to cool the air effectively decreases. Since water is continually lost through evaporation, a swamp cooler can use between 3 to 15 gallons of water a day. For evaporative cooling to work properly, the cooled outside air must be allowed to escape. By choosing which doors or windows in your home you leave open, you can help direct the flow of cooled air to areas where it is needed.

The type of cooling system right for your dream home is based on many factors - budget, your area’s weather and the size of your home. Talk with your architect or designer on what is the right system for you and your family

Since 1983, insurance claims due to a majority of severe storm events have been doubling every five years.

Flexibility in Design - Drywall can be attached directly to the forms on the inside while stucco, cultured stone and siding can be attached directly to the outside. Framing and insulation will not have to be added where ICF has replaced foundation walls. ICFs can take the place of just the foundation or can go all the way up to the roof line.Quiet - Your outside noise is significantly muted due to the thickness of the walls.Energy Efficiency - Because a home built with ICF is well insulated and not drafty, your ongoing energy costs are less than with a conventional stick built home.

Every ICF home saves approximately 8.5 trees and effectively preserves nature’s air filters.

The most common use of ICFs is for the basement level of a home. This is the most cost effective use of the forms. As the height of the wall gets higher, the cost goes up, but there are many examples of ICF walls going all the way to the roof line.

Frames

Let’s look at window frames first. Frames seal out the moisture and drafts from your home. Today’s windows come with frames made from a variety of materials, each of which has their own benefits and drawbacks.

Wood window frames
These are the most common type of frames used in homes. Because wood is easy to work with, it is frequently used in highly detailed designs. These frames can be painted or stained to complement the color scheme of your home and are one of the best insulators. The downside to wood window frames is that they require regular maintenance. Painting these frames regularly can protect against deterioration for hundreds of years.

Vinyl window frames
Vinyl window frames are very energy efficient, and are the least expensive option with virtually no maintenance. However, while they are available in a variety of colors, they cannot be painted or stained and have the texture of plastic, not wood.

Aluminum window frames
While they cannot be painted or stained, they are available in a variety of anodized or baked-on finishes, and are the strongest and most durable of all the frame materials. Aluminum is a good thermal conductor, so in cold weather heat drains out through sash and frame as moisture condenses on the interior surfaces. For this reason, aluminum windows are not very energy efficient.

Composite window frames
These are frames made from more than one type of material so that the manufacturer can make the material fit the task. As an example, the inside of a frame could be made of wood so it can be painted or stained to complement the home’s interior design. The outside could be made of a more weather resistant material such as vinyl or aluminum. These frames are more expensive than a vinyl window, but less than a wood frame. The composite frames have excellent long-term durability and are very energy efficient.

Fiberglass window frames
These are very durable and energy efficient frames requiring very little maintenance. These frames can be painted to match your décor and will resist deterioration. However, they are more expensive than frames of other materials.

The window industry has a frame and window style to meet your every need. Depending on your priorities, there is a frame that will give you the look you are going for and meet the cost and energy efficient priorities for you and your family.

Glass

Many of you have asked, “How can I conserve energy and still have all the wonderful light and beauty that windows let into my dream home?”

We all know that glass is not as good at conserving energy as an insulated wall. The most effective method available today to help minimize a window’s energy loss is insulating glazing.

Insulating glazing typically has two, and sometimes as many as three, panes of glass sealed together in one window. Between these panes either air or argon gas is trapped to act as an insulator.

In addition to the insulating glazing, you can further improve the energy efficiency of your windows by one of the following means:

Low emissivity glass
Also referred to as low-E glass, this glass has an imperceptibly thin metallic film which is applied to one of the glass surfaces, or is suspended in between the panes. This lets light in, but prevents some solar rays from being transmitted into your home. This keeps your home cool on a hot day by not letting the heat in and prevents the heat from escaping on a cold day. The coatings also block ultraviolet rays reducing the fading of floors, floor coverings, drapes and upholstery. Windows manufactured with Low-E coatings typically cost about 10%-15% more than regular windows, but they reduce energy loss by as much as 30%-50%. Dept. of Energy

Tinted glass
Using a bronze or gray cast, tinted glass cuts the glare and heat from the sun, but only slightly reduces the amount of light let into your home.

Reflective glass
Appearing like a mirror from the outside, reflective glass reduces glare and heat from the sun coming into your home.

Windows provide your home with light, warmth, and ventilation as well as a view to the outside world. Utilizing some of the energy-efficient techniques detailed here, you can have both beauty and energy efficiency in your dream home.

A tight building envelope:

• Holds up the building
• Keeps out the rain, groundwater, wind and moisture vapor
• Keeps out soil gas, such as radon
• Removes moisture vapor from the inside your home
• Keeps the heat in during the winter and out during the summer thereby reducing heating and air conditioning costs
• Prevents insect and vermin infestation
• Prevents condensation inside a building’s foundation, walls and roof assemblies.

Air tightness is extremely important when reducing a home’s energy usage. As much as 40% of a home’s heating and cooling loss is due to air leakage.

Products that can provide you with a tight building envelope benefit the comfort and health of you and your family as well as decrease the impact on the environment by reducing your energy cost.

Vinyl

Today’s unique vinyl manufacturing processes can replicate the look and texture of tile, stone and wood grains, providing you with a beautiful floor at a very reasonable price. Vinyl is manufactured in one of two ways and comes in sheets that are six or 12 feet wide as well as tiles from 12 to 18-inches in size.

Inlaid - This process uses solid colored vinyl chips laid on top of a carrier sheet which are then bonded through the use of heat and pressure. The process is generally used to produce geometric patterns and designs. A clear “wearlayer” is placed on top of the chips for ease of care and maintenance.

Printed, or rotogravure - A pattern is printed on the vinyl’s core layer and then a clear “wearlayer” is applied.

For both the inlaid and printed vinyl flooring, you are walking on the wearlayer, not the patterned layer. This wearlayer is vital to the performance of your vinyl floor. When shopping for vinyl, look for a urethane or enhanced urethane wearlayer. These both hold up best under foot traffic.

Asphalt driveway sealers, Kool-Aid, plant food and marking pens are just some of the items that can really stain a vinyl floor which has a low end wearlayer. Buying a vinyl floor with a better wearlayer will benefit you for many years to come.

Vinyl flooring has the flexibility of being able to be installed over many different surfaces such as plywood sub floors and concrete as well as over existing floors of wood or linoleum. Whatever the surface, it needs to be smooth and free of bumps, seams and raised nail heads.

Linoleum

This flooring has been around for more than a century and has a natural resistance to bacteria which makes it a logical choice for bathrooms, kitchens and children’s rooms. It comes in a wide array of bright and lively colors and is an excellent choice for an active lifestyle. The color goes entirely through the material making it more resistant to noticeable wear. Linoleum can be purchase in rolls which are six to 12 feet wide or in 12-inch square tiles.

Like vinyl, linoleum can also be installed over many different surfaces such as plywood sub floors and concrete as well as over existing floors of wood or old linoleum. Whatever the surface, it needs to be smooth and free of bumps, seams and raised nail heads.

Both vinyl and linoleum are excellent options for flooring in your dream home. They bring an almost endless variety of patterns and colors to the design table while offering you a cost effective option.

Benefits

The benefits of picking carpeting as your flooring are many:

Warmth - Carpeting is warm to the touch as well as an insulator for your floors.

Sound absorption - Noises are deadened on carpeting, providing you with a restful and relaxed atmosphere in your home.

Colors - Carpeting comes in an infinite variety of colors, tones, patterns and textures to complement the design of your home.

Installation flexibility - ­Sub floors can have irregularities that cannot be covered by hard surfaced flooring. Carpeting covers these with ease, and can go over a variety of sub floors and all grade levels, even concrete slabs in basements.

Economical - While prices range by quality of carpet, it can be a very economical option when compared to hard surface flooring. In addition, the cost for installation is significantly less than for other types of flooring.

Composition - Carpeting is made of synthetic or wool yarn sewn into loops through a backing. The loops can be of varying heights and are often cut to make the carpet’s pile. Some carpets are a combination of cut and uncut loops. The most durable and common synthetic carpeting material is nylon, which wears well and can be quite stain resistant. Other synthetic materials are olefin, polyester, and acrylic. The acrylic is more expensive than the other synthetic fibers and has a texture more like natural wool. Wool has the most pleasant and natural texture, and is also the most expensive carpet material.

Characteristics

When shopping for carpeting, there are six (6) characteristics you should be aware of to help you compare different brands and grades. Your ultimate goal is to buy carpeting that retains for many years the same look it had in the showroom.

• Yarn twist - The tighter the twist, the longer it will be before the carpet begins to crush and matt. So, the tighter the better.
• Shorter nap - The higher the yarn stands above the backing of the carpet, the more likely it is to matt and crush. The shorter the height of the pile, the more crush resistant your carpet will be.
• Stitches per inch -The more stitches, or yarn, per inch, the less likely a carpet is to crush and matt. The closer the yarn is packed in together, the harder it is to crush them.
• Carpet cushion - The carpet cushion, or pad, acts as a shock absorber and spring which helps improve the overall performance of your carpeting, irrespective of its quality. A good quality cushion will extend the life of your carpet. FHA minimums are a 6-pound cushion under standard residential cut pile and 8-pound cushion under a thinner Berber or low pile.

If you have pets or are worried about spills, look for a carpet cushion that is odor-resistant and is designed to block spills from penetrating the pad.

• Continuous filament nylon (CFN) - If this is on the carpet label, it means the carpet has been made from one continuous filament of nylon. With CFN, you do not get pilling.
• Looped carpets - This type of carpet has looped yarn, not filaments that are cut to a specified height. With a looped carpet, you are looking for how dense the loop is and how much free space is beneath the loop. The tighter the loops, the less matting and crushing you will have.

The wide assortment of textiles, styles, colors and textures will allow you to find just the right carpet to match your budget and complement your interior design. Take some time and shop around and you will find the best product for your home.

By nature, heat flows from a warmer area to a cooler area due to the difference in temperature. So in winter, the warm air in your heated rooms will move to the cooler, unheated areas such as the attic, garage, crawl spaces, or outside. During summer, the warm outside air will transfer to the cooler interior of your home because of the higher temperature outside as well as the admission of sunlight. In either case, your HVAC system must work to replace or remove the heat lost or gained. The effectiveness of your insulation will directly impact how hard your HVAC system must work which then directly impact your energy costs.

Insulation’s role is to slow down the transfer of heat. This is measured in its ability to resist air flow, which is called R-value. The higher the R-value is, the greater its resistance to heat. Its R-value will be determined by the type of material it is made from, the thickness of the insulation and the density of the insulating material itself.

There isn’t just one correct R-value for all areas of the country or all areas of a house. Shown below is a table prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy for Targeted Insulation Levels for different areas of the country and locations within your home.

Target Insulation Levels

If you want to know what the R-value of the insulation in your current home is, either look for an “energy label” containing the home’s R-values near the main electric service panel or near the hatch or stairway. If you can’t find a posted energy label, look directly on the insulation for the R-value or measure the actual thickness of the insulation.

In addition to the R-Value, installing your insulation correctly is critical to its effectiveness. There are five (5) common installation problems that can occur:

1. One of the types of insulation is Batts. If it is compressed, it will provide less resistance to heat and can provide a channel for air and heat movement.
2. If your Batts or Vapor Barrier is stapled to the inside of the studs, unwanted air movement can occur between the studs and the insulation. It should always be stapled on top of the studs, allowing the Batt to completely fill the cavity in which it is placed.
3. Not completely filling irregular areas or small voids with insulation can cause heat loss. A void of 1-2% can result in a 25-40% loss in R-value in that area. It is for this reason; different types of insulation may be used in the same home.
4. If you don’t install loose-fill cellulose insulation to its property density, heat loss can occur. The proper density is called fluffing.
5. Heat can be conducted through the studs and joists of your home. This is called short circuiting or bridging the insulation. With careful design and proper installation, this can be minimized.

While your contractor will be looking out for these common problems, it is helpful for you to know what will be affecting your energy costs for the life of your home.

Some areas of your home will have a greater opportunity for heat loss than others. If you have to prioritize which to insulate first, this is the recommended order:

• Attic, including the attic door or cover hatch
• Beneath floors above unheated spaces such as garages, unfinished basements and crawlspaces
• Around walls in an heated basement or unventilated crawlspace
• Around the edges of a slab-on-grade foundation.

As you work with your architect or designer and contractor, ask questions about how your home will be insulated. This planning can save you money in the future as well as protect the earth’s precious resources.