Alber Service Company

This homeowner had lived in this house for 8-years when we first met her. For 8-years she had experienced an uncomfortable 2nd floor in the summer time. The back of the house was ok but the front of the house where her children slept was always much hotter than her bedroom in the back. Her air conditioning company would come every year and tell her her system was running fine and they couldn't help her. But she was lucky enough to get referred to Alber Service Company by friend.   Our inspection revealed the air conditioning equipment was properly sized and was in fact working correctly. But her duct system was a nightmare! The sheet metal ducts had no insulation around them and only 1-in of fiberglass insulation inside the duct. Attic temperatures can easily exceed 130-degrees in the heat of summer. That heat teals the "coolness" from the ductwork before it ever gets into the rooms below. The air coming out of the ceiling registers in the room at the end of the long duct run was 12-degrees warmer than the air coming out the closest ceiling register! And the poorly sealed return air ducts were drawing in hot attic air that then needed to cooled before it leaked back out into the attic thru the supply duct leaks. That will never work.   The solution was to first install balancing dampers so air flow can be adjusted between rooms. And most importantly, the ductwork was encapsulated with high density closed cell spray foam. This raised the insulation value from R-4 to R-19 while at the same time it sealed the ducts air tight. The losses thru this ductwork were reduced by over 70%!   The second floor is now cool everywhere regardless of how hot it gets outside. And the utility bills will be much lower during the cooling season. A Big Winner!

This old house needed some love. The attic was a mess of 100-years worth of attemps to insulate it. Despite those efforts, the homeowner had high energy bills and an uncomfortable second floor in the summer. Rather than try to fix all the air leaks under the old flooring and walls, the client elected to encapsulate the attic. Alber service Company sprayed high density closed cell spray foam under the roof deck and rafters to provide an air tight R-39 insulation. No more leaks from outside. No more hot second floor. And no more killer utility bills!

After 20-years it was time to replace this electric water heater. But the homeowner wanted to fix a nagging problem as well: long waits in the kitchen for hot water to reach the sink. The house was built on a concrete slab floor and the water pipes were buried in the concrete. This meant that every time the hot water was turned off, the hot water pipe lost it's heat to the concrete. Getting hot water to the kitchen sink meant draining all the cold water out of the pipe in the slab before the kitchen tap would run hot. Very frustrating!   So when we installed a high efficiency Bradford-White water heater we also installed a Taco Hot-Link recirculation system. This system includes a pump at the water heater and a special valve installed under the kitchen sink. The pump circulates hot water thru the Hot-Link valve under the sink where it returns to the water heater tank via the cold water line. When the valve sensing hot water has arrived, it closes so the hot water does not fill the cold water line. It's a simple solution. The homeowner now gets hot water instantly at the kitchen tap. Frustration is defeated!   Photos of the under the sink valve are available in our Photo Gallery.

this homeowner grew very tired of her 30-year old oil furnace. It was loud, dirty, and cost a small fortune to operate every winter. She decided to hire Alber Service Company to replace it with a 97% efficient American Standard two-stage gas furnace. It operates at either 100% output or 50% output depending on how cold it is outside. This results in long, even heating cycles instead of blasts of hot air followed by long "OFF" cycles like the old oil furnace delivered. The variable speed blower in this super efficient furnace uses 67% less electricity than the old blower so it saves money on the electric bill as well as the gas bill.   You can also see we sealed all the ductwork with brush-on duct sealant. This keeps the system from drawing in basement air, conditioning it, then blowing it back into the basement. It was much easier to balance the air flow to all the rooms once the ducts were sealed. Comfort and efficiency beautifully installed!