About

Our Mission is to provide expert guidance and services to home owners who are interested in improving their home’s efficiency and reducing their personal environmental impact. By doing this work we make their home more efficient, comfortable throughout the year and a healthier place to live.

We are different than your average contractor that may come into your home and insist that a client needs window replacement, a new furnace, or new insulation because that is what the contractor sells, we at AHE are not trying to sell a product, we are trying to find a solution to your concerns. We look at the house as a whole system with interdependent parts and we understand the many factors that affect the buildings comfort, health and efficiency. So the end result, is that we may find that the answer is a much more simple cost-effective solution, or we may find a major safety and health issue that would be compounded by the work another contractor wants to do. We really don’t claim to have the answer upfront because every house is unique and every homeowner has different concerns. We really listen to the concerns of the homeowner and use building science to find the solution that will best resolve those concerns.

Our Method is to use diagnostic equipment to test the current efficiency of the building. We use a blower door to measure how leaky the house is, an infrared camera to identify issues in the walls, a duct blaster to find leakage in the furnace duct work. These tools along with many others are integral in helping us determine how the house is functioning right now. Then as we do the work we can test our progress and make sure we are using our time well and making a difference. We stop once we have reached our target. This process which we call testing-in and testing-out is analogous to a doctor’s visit where the doctor does a complete physical, makes a recommendation, then a health care solution is implemented, and the progress is monitored until the treatment has worked. So you have a testing-in, implementing a solution, and then testing out. A house like your body is a system with interdependent parts: the building shell, the furnace and air conditioner, the duct delivery system, the lighting system, and so on. By looking at all these parts we can figure out how to make the entire system work effectively and efficiently.