Conducting a Home Energy Audit
Chances are your home is leaking energy, a lot of energy and a lot of money. Conducting a home energy audit is a smart way to cut your utility bills. What is a home energy audit? You may know, but not long ago only a few people knew what it was. A home energy audit is a way of testing your home to assess how much energy your home uses, and how efficient it is in its energy usage.
The purpose of a home energy audit is to make your home more energy efficient. An energy efficient home is going to result in reduced utility bills now and for years to come. A typical energy audit will identify an average energy saving of 30% of a home’s energy use! Therefore depending on the size of your utility bill, auditing your home can save you thousands or tens of thousands of dollars over the years.
Often the first step in making your home more efficient is a home energy audit. That is because an audit can help you assess how much energy your home uses and evaluate what measures you can take to improve efficiency. But remember, audits alone don’t save energy. You need to implement the improvements that are needed.
Home energy audits identify drafts and leaks around doors and windows or in the ductwork through which heated or air conditioned air flows. They can also determine whether a home has adequate insulation in its walls, ceilings, attic, and foundation. Audits can then highlight ways to conserve on heating, hot water and electricity costs.
You can easily conduct a home energy audit yourself.
When starting a home energy audit yourself, it’s helpful to know what you’re dealing with. Gather your energy bills from the last couple of years and compare them month-by-month to look for trends. Spikes in energy usage during specific times of the year can offer clues about your consumption. This is a way to benchmark how much energy your home currently uses and will help determine what measures you can take to make your home more energy efficient.
The first step to taking a whole-house energy efficiency approach is to find out which parts of your house use the most energy. A home energy audit will help pinpoint those areas and then you can determine the most effective measures for cutting your energy costs.
With a simple but diligent walk-through, you can spot many problems in any type of house. When auditing your home, keep a checklist of areas you have inspected and problems you found. Check the insulation levels in your attic, exterior and basement walls, ceilings, floors, and crawl spaces. Other places where air flow can be detected are around window frames, fireplace dampers, and wall mounted air conditioners. Also look for gaps around pipes and wires, electrical outlets, foundation seals, under baseboard or at the junctures of walls and around mail slots. Check to see if the caulking and weather stripping are applied properly, leaving no gaps or cracks, and are in good condition.
If you’re having trouble knowing how to find leaks, close any doors, windows and fireplace flues. Turn off combustion appliances, such as the water heater and furnace. Then turn on your bathroom and stove exhaust fans to pull air from the outside and make leaks more obvious. By using the smoke from a stick of incense and holding it at different places around the windows and doors etc. you will see exactly where and how much the air moves.
Next time I will give you a detailed list of what to look for and how to actually do your own energy audit.
Energy audits are a must if you hope to fight off rising energy costs and be more green in the way you live. Fortunately, common sense steps can help you do this and save you a ton of money.
