Like many Bay Area homeowners, you’ve probably taken measures to reduce your home’s water and energy usage, such as installing water-saving plumbing fixtures and switching to LED lighting. However, you may have overlooked another part of your property: your yard. From your garden to your pool, there are several areas where you can save water and energy by improving your exterior efficiency. Read more

When it comes to home improvements, most homeowners tend to focus on living areas like kitchens and bathrooms. However, unoccupied parts of the home also play an important role in the functioning of the whole. Take the attic, which can impact everything from the comfort level of the living areas to the energy efficiency of the heating and cooling systems. That’s why it’s worthwhile to have your attic professionally inspected and invest in recommended improvements. Here are five ways you can improve your attic: Read more

Do you have questions about an upcoming insulation project or insulation in general? Below, we answer some commonly asked questions about residential insulation. Read more

With Yana Carpenter of Water Heaters Only, Inc.

Water heaters have been around for more than a century, but the past two decades have seen a flurry of technological innovation go into these staple household fixtures. What’s more, the pace of innovation shows no signs of slowing down. We sat down with Yana Carpenter, marketing director at Water Heaters Only, Inc., to discuss what’s driving these advancements in water heater technology, what options are available to homeowners and what further innovations might be on the horizon. Read more

One of the biggest challenges in winter is maintaining a comfortable climate inside the home. While this hinges upon having a properly functioning furnace, another critical aspect is your home’s ability to conserve the heat it generates. Heat is an expert escape artist, so the more escape routes your home contains, the harder your furnace will need to work to replenish that lost heat (and the more money you’ll spend as a result). To help you minimize heat loss in your home, we’ve asked seven Diamond Certified Experts to pinpoint some areas that should be addressed. Read more

Here in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, we don’t often suffer the extreme weather conditions experienced elsewhere in the United States. However, we do see our share of hot and cold weather, and unlike the rest of the country, our homes typically aren’t built to ward off either. Few homes in the Bay Area have central air conditioning, so when hot weather strikes, there isn’t much we can do but sweat it out.

One reliable way to beat the heat is to invest in home improvement measures that lower heat gain and increase energy efficiency. Some measures are more costly and intensive than others, but all of them can make your home more comfortable during hot weather.  Read more

I’ll admit, I like being greeted at the front door. For me, the home environment is the hug that wraps me in a warm embrace on a rainy day or the kiss of cold that greets me at the door when it’s over 100 degrees outside. That’s my kind of “welcome home.”

Unfortunately, my home is insulated to 1970 building code standards, so I’d be surprised if it even had insulation in the attic (I’m afraid of the attic, so I’m not going to check). My home’s exterior walls aren’t insulated and the windows are single-pane, aluminum-framed, and leaking air in all the wrong directions. There’s a fireplace but it doesn’t warm the air in front of it. Read more