Pennsauken / South Jersey Heating & HVAC Contractor | Alber Service Company

Reducing Energy Bills in Florence, NJ

2025-09-18T16:15:16.05Z

The energy audit found several contributing factors. First, attic insulation was really inadequate. This was a ranch house so there was attic over the entire living space. Heat was getting right thru the thin layer of fiberglass insulation and reaching the ceilings below. As the ceilings heated up they radiated heat down into the rooms well into the night until the attic cooled down. Second, the client had added (15) recess lights throughout the house to make it brighter. They looked great but each was a 6-in hole in the ceiling that allowed cool indoor air to migrate out of the house and into the attic. The air that left the house was replace by hot, humid air that leaked in thru the basement and any other pathway it could find.

The third source was the biggest culprit. The return duct system included lots of "panning". Panning is an old technique to create a pathway for air to move by placing sheet metal between wooden framing members and using the cavity formed to move air from the house back into the duct system. The problem is panning is never air tight so it draws air in from any leak in the cavity. It's really bad when the panning is in the attic, though. The air that is drawn in to be cooled and circulated back into the rooms is super-heated, humid attic air! You can see how black the insulation is in the pictures attached. Duct leakage was confirmed with a blower door test that pulled air into all the panning leaks. You could feel attic air coming out of the ductwork when the blower door was running.

The solution was to first remove the old, filthy insulation with our vacuum truck. We then proceeded to seal the framing of the house as well as the recessed lights with spray foam so there was no connection between the living space and the attic. All the panning was replaced with well insulated, air tight flex ducts. Last added 16-in of our TruSoft cellulose insulation to take the attic insulation value from the previous R-7 to a new R-60. We also sealed the basement rim joist in this house to make them less leaky. This helps keep the basement ductwork from sweating in the summer time.

The client reports her bills are not only much lower but the house is more comfortable and quieter. Comfort and energy reduction always go hand-in-hand. If you improve one, the other will automatically be better. The sound reduction comes from the cellulose which is much denser than fiberglass.

It's Getting Hot in Here!

2018-05-11T00:00:00.05Z

Spring is Awesome! The world renews itself before our eyes and we’re renewed as well after a harsh winter. The sun warms everything it sees: the grass, the birds, the ponds, and the roofs. Especially the roofs!

Hot second and third floors are common when air conditioning season rolls around. But sweating in bed is not an unavoidable misery. The physical phenomena that stack heat at the top of a house can be overcome with a little building science.

Does warm air rise? Yes. It’s less dense than cool air so it floats to the top of your home. Does the heat in the attic affect upstairs temperatures? Of course. It is usually 30 degrees warmer in the attic than it is outside on a sunny day. Heat always moves from more to less and your upper floors, as hot as they feel, are cooler than the attic. Sunlight through glass and air leaks from outside also stack the heat at the top of your home.

Comfort in every room of your home does not require a separate air conditioning system for upstairs and, in fact, this is a last resort. Who wants their ductwork and air handler in a 125 degree attic? It does require some work to keep heat from entering. This means properly sealing air leaks between the house and the attic and adding insulation to slow the transfer of heat from the attic through the ceilings. It is not unusual for an upper floor to need 60% less air conditioning once this step is finished.

Sometimes fixing the house is not enough and changes to an existing duct system are required. Moving the heat out of the upper rooms and moving conditioned air in overcomes the “hot air rises” problem. This can be accomplished without chopping up the house to run more ducts.

Our Energy Audit includes a detailed plan for improving summer comfort while reducing energy consumption. It’s tailored to fit your budget, takes advantage of the $4000 rebate NJ is offering, and can be financed at 0% interest if needed. Call us today for your FREE audit!

Why Head South for the Winter?

2018-01-04T00:00:00.05Z

Living in an old house during weather like this can be an uncomfortable and expensive proposition.

Escaping to the Caribbean is a tempting choice but it’s only temporary. And sitting at home bundled up in layers while the gas meter spins like a helicopter is a double indignity. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

You feel cold when your body loses heat. And you lose heat three ways. The first is conduction: you transfer heat to any cool surface you touch. This isn’t a biggie since we tend to avoid cold objects in the winter. The second is convection: you transfer heat to the cool air around you. This is a biggie especially if your home is drafty.

And third is radiation: you transfer heat directly to cold surfaces without heating the air around you. Think of the sun on a winter day. If you stand in the sunshine you feel warmer than you do in the shade. Yet the air is the same temperature in both locations. The sun’s radiant energy heats you directly.

If the walls, ceilings, and windows in your home are cold, then you become a mini-sun and “shine” your radiant energy onto these surfaces. Living comfortably in your home requires the surfaces around you to be warm so you don’t “shine” as much.

Getting a professional Energy Audit that includes blower door testing and thermal imaging is the first step towards living comfortably. A blower door test locates the major sources of drafts so a plan to seal them can be made. Thermal imaging reveals cold surface temperatures, problems with insulation, and any moisture issues.

Our Energy Audit includes a detailed plan for improving comfort while reducing energy consumption. It’s tailored to fit your budget, take advantage of the $4000 rebate NJ is offering, and be financed at 0% interest if needed. Call us today for your FREE audit!

The House Whisperer's Dilemma

2017-08-25T00:00:00.05Z

Hi, my name is Bill, and I am a recovering House Whisperer. Used to be, give me any address and I could coax the house to reveal its secrets to me. Then I would go tell the client what I learned using my wonderful tools and technological brilliance. Then, more likely than not, I would hear the client say, “That’s an awful lot of money. I have to think about it” as they showed me the door and then declined to answer my follow up calls and emails.

On the way to the car my mind would be screaming; “Think about it? What is there to think about? I just dazzled you! I proved to you that your home is a wheezing geriatric mess, but I can make it sing opera! Open your *&@% checkbook!”

Houses are so messed up, and fixing them does so much good for people. However, usually a big canyon stands between what the house tells me it needs, and what the people who live there actually want and would be willing to buy from me. If the house would just tell me, what its family wanted I could close that gap and this job would be so much easier.

My recovery started at an ACCA Home Performance Conference when I heard a speaker from Dr. Energy Saver say: “We have never had a house write us a check.” In a moment of clarity I realized that I was doing the right things, I was just doing them backwards. If I first focused on getting the homeowner to reveal their secret list of what they want to be different in their house, the house itself would be powerless to stop me from discovering exactly how to get the owners exactly what they want. Brilliant! Like beer in a bottle!

The problem is that whispering to houses is a heck of a lot easier. You see, the house does not really care what order you follow, or where or how you choose to poke, prod, peek, and pry to learn its secrets. People on the other hand are entirely different. They get confused if you do not follow a logical path. They generally object to poking, prodding, peeking, and prying. But once they tell me what they really want, like ‘make the upstairs warmer’, ‘please stop the ice dams’, ‘make my heating bills lower’, I can always figure out exactly what I can do to make that happen. They are thrilled to learn the truth about what was keeping them from what they wanted. When you compare that to the often-sobering kitchen table experience of my earlier House Whispering days, delivering my comprehensive list of discoveries that the ‘audit’ revealed, there is no question about it: talking to people first and houses second pays a lot better!

This sounds a lot simpler than it turned out to be. Developing a sales process for one product or service that meets one problem or need is easy. Nevertheless, every home performance project is a complex puzzle of both problems and solutions. In addition, since home performance is built upon the solid premise of building science, where the house-as-a-system causes each separate assembly to affect other parts of the house, it is dangerously easy to over-sell the results that theory indicates may be achievable.

As an owner of a recovering House Whispering business, with a team of former House Whispering disciples, I knew this was going to be a hard change to make happen. Every part of our marketing and sales culture needed to be retooled and retrained. Fortunately, for my employees, and me the systems and processes that have been developed and proven by Dr. Energy Saver are a perfect fit for us.

After 55 years of heating and cooling, and nearly 10 years trying to master home performance as a way to expand my HVAC company’s reach into our customer’s homes (and wallets), my company is now finally evolving into my ultimate vision. We are becoming the respected home performance authority in our community and we are now a home performance contractor that specializes in making homes more comfortable with a multitude of products and services that happens to include heating and cooling products. Before my recovery, we were an HVAC company that offered free audits so we could go have a hopeful chat with your house.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have to admit, when nobody is watching, I still love getting houses to tell me their secrets. And I always will. Now the questions we are asking and the diagnosis and prescription process we are following is creating many more sales of much bigger and more profitable projects. We are changing the lives of the people in those houses and making a lot more money doing it. I did not stop listening to the house, but I did start listening to the people who live in them first. In addition, I learned how to tell them what the house told me in a way that feels a lot more like friendly advice than the high-pressure sales techniques we were trying before.

Recovery is a good thing!

Your House Is a System!

2017-08-24T00:00:00.05Z

Everyone knows their body is a complex system. All the parts work together to produce a healthy, vibrant you – until they don’t! Poor health results in discomfort (physical, emotional, financial) as well as lower energy and productivity levels. A diagnoses by a doctor and a change in nutrition, medication, and/or exercise is often the first step to restore your health.

Your home is also a complex system whose parts all work together. The health and safety of a home are intertwined with home comfort and energy efficiency. Changing one of these aspects will always effect the others. For instance, sealing a home to save energy dollars will automatically improve comfort throughout the house.

But it could negatively impact health and safety by trapping moisture that causes mold. Or it may reduce the amount of air available for your heating and water heating equipment. This can result in carbon monoxide entering the house instead of going up the chimney.

Insulating a house also improves energy efficiency. But it can result in comfort problems. Why? Because now the heating system is too large so you get blasts of heat and long, cold off cycles during winter. In the summer the air conditioner doesn’t run long enough to properly dehumidify your home so it feels “clammy” inside even though the thermostat is satisfied.

Personal health is a step by step process. You don’t begin an exercise program when you’re sick! Your home should be treated the same way. Step one is to have your home diagnosed for any health and safety, comfort, or energy efficiency problems you’re experiencing. Second, work with your “Doctor” to develop a step by step plan to address health and safety items first, comfort issues second, and energy efficiency last.

And third, be sure to ask about incentives from the New Jersey Clean Energy Program. All homeowners in the state are currently eligible for up to $4000 in Rebates and 0% Financing for 7-years for any project that saves energy and improves safety.

Yes, you can have it all – a home that is healthy, safe, comfortable and efficient! Our Free Home Energy Audit is the first step.

Insulation for All Seasons

2014-02-10T00:00:00.05Z

The right insulation and HVAC system can keep your New Jersey home comfortable year-round

When insulating your home, there are many types of insulation to choose from. A professional contractor can help you choose the best insulation based on where you need to add/install insulation and the recommended R-values of the areas you want to insulate.

Most people only think about insulating their homes when mornings turn frosty. Unfortunately, that’s just when many insulation contractors are their busiest and least likely to get to your job in a timely way. Nor will you find them as receptive to negotiating their rates as during the non-heating season.

Winter, however, shouldn’t be the only time you think about insulation. In summer, with roof and attic temperatures soaring, insulation is critical to keeping your home cool and cooling costs low. In fact, in many regions of the U.S., insulating to keep the heat out is more important than insulating to keep heat in.

Another reason to insulate now, regardless of the season, is that doing so will prepare your home for when you decide to upgrade (or must replace) your HVAC equipment. It makes little sense to install a new furnace, boiler, or central AC system until you’ve brought your home’s insulation levels to the R-levels recommended by the Department of Energy. The payback on every dollar spent on conservation is much quicker than for dollars spent on HVAC equipment, regardless of how efficient it is!

Oversized HVAC equipment and inadequate insulation reduces heating & cooling efficiency

Adding insulation does more than reduce the amount of fuel and electricity you’ll need for heating and cooling your home. It also reduces the loads (peak demands) your HVAC equipment will need to meet during extreme winter and summer weather. This may translate into less wear and tear on existing heating and cooling equipment as well as a cost break on new HVAC equipment when you upgrade.

Some homeowners do not understand that furnaces and air conditioners that are too large are less efficient than their smaller, right-sized counterparts. The smart approach to bringing your home to peak efficiency and comfort levels is to insulate and properly seal air leaks and only then have your HVAC contractor calculate your home’s heating and cooling loads. The BTU capacities of your new equipment should be based upon this calculation – not on the capacity of the old equipment being replaced.

Insulate first, then install the right size HVAC equipment

Regardless of the time of year or where you live, upgrading your HVAC system and insulation improvements go hand in hand. If you are contemplating a new furnace or central air conditioning system, let Alber Service Company maximize your insulation first.

It's smart to have your insulation inspected and to make the necessary improvements to your insulation before upgrading your HVAC equipment. Otherwise, you may end up buying more capacity than you need -- and cause your new HVAC equipment to run at lower efficiencies than projected by the manufacturer.

We are Southern NJ's experts when it comes to maintaining a comfortable, energy-efficient home. We know the right type of insulation to install and where to install it. We can also replace your old heating and cooling system with an energy-saving option.

How to Winterize Your Home

2014-02-10T00:00:00.05Z

Put an end to chilly rooms and high heating costs by making the right improvements in the right order

Detection and correction. Our experts use an infrared camera (shown above) to reveal air leaks and missing insulation. Alber Service Company suggests that upgrading attic insulation be a top winterization priority.

No one wants to live in a chilly house, or to have rooms that stay cold even when the rest of the house is comfortable. Along with this discomfort, many homeowners also put up with high winter heating costs.

Winterizing your home can put an end to such problems, so it’s worth learning more about these comfort-enhancing, energy-saving improvements.

The energy improvement specialists at Alber Service Company can inspect your home and provide you with an estimate that includes the most important improvements that will make the biggest difference in comfort and energy savings.

A home's insulation and "building envelope" have a significant impact on interior comfort

The term “winterizing” refers to a wide range of improvements or (in some cases) repairs that can counteract the adverse effects of cold weather. In other words, winterizing aims to maintain comfortable interior temperatures despite frigid outdoor conditions.

Winterizing has another benefit: It reduces your heating costs. In fact, with the right winterizing improvements, it’s possible to cut your heating costs nearly in half.

It’s a common mistake to blame high heating costs and cold rooms on the heating system. This certainly can be true if your house has an old, inefficient furnace or boiler. But even the most efficient HVAC system can’t overcome common “building envelope” deficiencies like inadequate insulation and air leaks.

Poor insulation allows heat to escape from your house by conduction. Air leaks waste energy by convection (air movement). In fact, they do double damage -- allowing warm air to leak out (exfiltration) and cold air to leak in (infiltration).

Sealing air leaks and improving insulation are cost-effective ways to winterize your home

Air sealing and insulation upgrades are often the most important strategies for winterizing your home It’s not easy to pinpoint where warmth is leaking out of your house and where cold outside air is leaking in. That’s why many homeowners decide to have Dr. Energy Saver perform a blower door test and a free energy-saving assessment.

The blower door test will locate big and small air leaks that need to be sealed, and also establish a leakage rate that can be compared to the energy-efficient rates recommended by the Dept. of Energy.

Alber Service Company's free insulation inspection will reveal where insulation upgrades can have the biggest impact on comfort and energy efficiency. We can even use special infrared cameras to show you where air leaks and missing insulation are creating cold spots in your house.

Winterization work to improve the building envelope should always be done before a home’s heating or cooling system is replaced.

A more airtight house with higher insulation levels means that you can replace old HVAC equipment with smaller units, saving on installation cost as well as on ongoing operation costs.

What energy-saving improvements are right for your house? For an expert assessment of your home’s energy profile, contact Alber Service Company. We provide free estimates for adding attic insulation, air sealing and other home energy improvements in Marlton, Cherry Hill, Mount Laurel and throughout the Southern NJ area of New Jersey.

Staying warm this winter with Alber Service Company

2013-12-05T00:00:00.05Z

Just because you enjoy looking at the snow outside doesn’t mean you want the inside of your home to feel like the dead of winter! With just weeks until the frigid season begins, there’s no better time to think about how air sealing and attic insulation can help improve the overall efficiency of your home, save you money, and keep you warm.

During the winter months, the cold air enters through the lower levels of your home, rises to the top as it warms, and then exits through your attic or chimney. This is known as the “stack effect”, the building science phenomenon related to how air flows throughout a home. Not only are you losing that warm air, your heating system is working overtime to keep the temperature regulated. No matter how much you crank that heat, if your home isn’t properly sealed and insulated, you’re fighting a losing battle.

Because air rises, the main area to focus on in your home to improve efficiency is, of course, your attic. One important thing to remember is that you’ll want to air seal before you insulate. There are so many holes and ways for air to leak in and out of your attic – from the tops of walls to wire penetrations to pull down stairs. Once the gaps and voids are filled, the area can be totally insulated.

Improving your home efficiency also does more than improve your comfort levels. It lowers your monthly energy bills as well. Also, New Jersey state residents are eligible for an annual federal tax credit of $300. As Energy Star will tell you, “Adding adequate insulation is one of the most cost-effective home improvements that you can do.”

Bill Alber and his team at Alber Service Company are the trusted professionals in South Jersey to properly identify and diagnose your home's leaks and suggest the best ways to repair them. Give them a call or contact them online to schedule a free home energy inspection. They service Sicklerville, Wenonah, Mullica Hill, Haddonfield, Clementon, Cherry Hill, and surrounding areas!