What You Need to Know About Home Energy Audits
Filed Under: Do It Yourself, Susatainable Living on June 22, 2009
Spec Ops Energy Audit?
If you’re a homeowner, you no doubt are regularly thinking of ways to improve your home in value and livability and how to save money doing so. When most homeowners think of home improvements for energy savings, they think of solar panels, windmills, more efficient appliances, and so forth. These are the “big changes” that are often the ones that get all the glory in our minds.
Think of those energy improvements as the “special forces” of the energy savings world. The ones who get all the attention, make the splashy headlines, and gain all the glory. Behind every spec ops team, however, is a silent crowd of support troops: the cooks, the transport crews, the people who make the special operations possible.
While big (and costly) improvements like new appliances or PV panels can make a huge dent in your home’s energy use, these are pointless unless the support troops, the lower-cost little improvements that nobody notices, are done. Things like improved insulation, better lighting, repaired seals around window frames, attic fans, and all the other quiet heroes of home energy efficiency boosting.
A home energy audit is the best way to get an idea of the overall efficiency of your home. Even a brand new home, just constructed, could have a lot of leaks and inefficiencies. In fact, the older the home, the more likely it is to be efficient in its base construction.
Don’t bother with an online energy audit–like the ones most utility companies offer on their sites. These can be informative, but like most computer software, they’re only as good as the information you can give them. “Garbage in, garbage out,” as they say. If you don’t know the exact R-value of your home’s insulation, the pitch of your roof, the age of your appliances, etc. then you won’t get good output or suggestions from the site.
Getting An In-Home Audit
I wish this rotated the other direction...
No matter your situation, you’ll likely benefit from a professional, in-home audit by someone who is trained and knowledgeable in this. Some utility companies offer to pay for some or all of an audit–especially if your home is an older one.
Even if you have to pay for it out of pocket, it’s not likely to be a huge expense. A good auditor will charge between $500 and $750 for a thorough audit (in most areas). This will include thermal readings, electrical testing, a complete look at your home from top-to-bottom (including in crawl spaces and attics) and more. The final report will be detailed and have strong recommendations for improvements.
A thorough energy audit like this will take most of a day as the auditor crawls through every nook and cranny of your home, sets up equipment to test various appliances, outlets, and so forth, and does a night-time thermal reading of your home to find the major leak areas for heat.
In the end, you’ll have a step-by-step game plan for making improvements to your home to lower your utility bills and to make your home much more efficient.
Finding a Good Auditor
To find a good home energy auditor, you’ll need to do more than just open the phone book. All auditors are not the same and all audits don’t have the same information either. In fact, different auditing services can be had, so if, for instance, your concern is merely your home’s thermal loss, you can likely get just that audit done.
Most utility companies will have a list of recommended energy auditors for your area as will many state energy offices and even realtors. Your best bet is to call your local gas, electric, etc. companies and ask them for their lists. Then compare lists and narrow your choice by who appears on most or all of the lists you’ve received. In my area, for instance, the power and gas utilities are separate companies, each with a unique list. The state Department of Energy has another list, all three of which have only a couple of names in common.
Tests and Audits
Once the auditor is scheduled to come to your home, be sure to be clear on what tests will be performed, how long they will take, and what the fees will be in total. A basic inspection should at least include testing for leaks from combustion appliances (furnaces, gas stoves, etc.) to be sure you aren’t sending carbon monoxide into your home from them. It should also include a basic check of your major appliances such as your water heater, climate control equipment, etc. Visual inspections of most areas of the house, including doors and windows, are also a part of this.
Not only is a thermal image informative, it's a great keepsake too!
Other tests include thermal imaging (which can be extremely valuable) and blower doors that can determine the amount of loss your home is experiencing over all and even pinpoint where most of those losses occur. Interior thermal imaging can pinpoint leaks and insulation weaknesses within the house as well as other potential problems.
Common Recommendations and Improvements
Your energy audit’s outcome is likely to recommend several things, which will probably center around improvements at your windows, doors, and possibly the chimney (if you have one). These are the most common areas for leaks, but simple improvements can be made that don’t require thousands of dollars in new windows and doors.
Adding insulation and sealant around the windows, for instance, will greatly improve their efficiency, no matter how old. Doors and their frames can see huge draft losses that simple door sweeps and added insulation behind the frame will repair. These improvements are inexpensive, easy to do yourself, and don’t require more than a weekend to accomplish. They can drop your climate control bills by relatively large percentage points too.
Improving attic insulation and air flow are two things that many homeowners also undertake after an audit–and with great results. Installing an attic fan or two or adding more insulation to the attic can be done for less than $1,000 in many cases and can give better than 10-20% improvement to your home’s thermal qualities.
Lots of other improvements can be done, many you may not have thought of. What’s under your house, for instance? Should those pipes be insulated? How about that air duct? When was the last time you changed your furnace filter?
Home energy audits are well worth the money spent and can provide you with a concrete list of improvements that you can make, knowing they’re all contributing to the increase of your home’s efficiency. So before you spend $10,000 on new windows, why not spend a few hundred bucks making sure you really need them?
