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Home Energy Audit
from:One of the easiest ways to determine what you need to do to your home to make it more energy efficient and save on your energy costs is to have an energy audit done. With an energy audit you will be able to determine what problems there are with your house and can show you how much money you could save by correcting these problems. It can also show you the specific places where your house is losing the most energy. Heating and cooling system efficiency can also be assessed during an audit. Home energy audits can be done yourself or you can hire a professional to come and do the audit for you. Sometimes a professional can do a more thorough examination and find problems that you may not see yourself.
Doing a home energy audit yourself is very easy. You simply walk through your house, but you need to do this with care and attention to all the little details. By doing this home walkthrough, you can indentify many of the problems in your home. During your home audit, you should keep a checklist handy and mark off the areas that you have inspected and the specific problems that you have found. The list will help you make decisions on what needs to be fixed or upgraded and you can decide what to do first.
One of the most important and often most obvious problems in a home are air leaks and drafts. If you reduce the air leaks and drafts in your home you can potentially save between 5-30% a year in home energy costs. Reducing the leaks and drafts can also make your home more comfortable for you and your family. You should check along baseboards and edges of flooring and at the connections of walls and ceilings. These are the most common places for indoor air leaks.
Check your windows and doors for air leaks around them. If you can rattle them, this is a good sign that air leaks could be a problem. If you have doors or windows that you can see daylight around the edges of, there are problems with air leaks. It is easy to seal up these areas that leak. You can simply use caulk or weather stripping for this. It is also important to check all of your storm windows. They should fit correctly and should not be broken.
It is also important to check the exterior of your house for air leaks. You should check all the areas where two types of building materials meet each other. Some of these areas include exterior corners, areas where siding and chimney meet, and all areas where the foundation of the house and the bottom of the brick or siding meet each other. All holes and areas where faucets, pipes, wiring, or electrical outlets are placed should be plugged and sealed. If there are any holes or cracks in your foundation or siding you should seal these with material that is appropriate for these areas. Caulking should be checked and replaced as needed around exterior windows and doors.
Insulation is another very important factor in home energy efficiency. You can lose a substantial amount of heat if your ceiling and walls are not insulated with the recommended minimum levels. Depending on the age of your home, it may have had the proper amount of insulation when it was built but, with rising energy prices and with age, the level of insulation may no longer meet the minimum requirements. Also, carefully inspect your attic and add insulation as needed to maintain the minimum requirements.
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