Home Energy Audit

Home energy audit will help you to reduce your residential energy bills.

Keeping my Home Comfortable

My home is my castle. It protects me from unwanted intruders, it protects me from storms, rain, snow, hail and other meteorological phenomena.

The temperature we would like to have indoors is usually not the outdoor temperature. It takes energy to cool our home to a convenient temperature (summer time). It takes energy to heat up our home to a convenient temperature (winter time).

Heating and Cooling tips

Here are a few low cost methods to cut our cooling and heating energy consumption

• Heat (or cool) only these rooms where people stay
• Set up the thermostats to a convenient temperature, not above it if you heat up
• Set up the thermostats to a convenient temperature, not bellow it if you cool down
• Make sure hot air is not leaking inside your home when you try to cool it down
• Make sure hot air is not leaking outside your home when you try to warm it up

Look for those Leaks

There are typical places where hot air can leak outbound or inbound. Doors, windows, chimneys, walls, cellars, etc. Take advantage of the new windows and doors tax credit provisions

You can run your own inspection and do a descent auditing job

You can also find a home energy auditor that will run a thorough inspection and find out where are the leaks. Then, you can get a price quotation from a contractor to seal off the leaks, usually you will see the return on your investment very quickly.

The auditor will use one of two tools (or both)

• A blower door tester. A powerful blower fitted to the entrance door that sucks air out from the house. External air leaks into the house through the leaky soft spots (wherever they are). The auditor detects these weak spots using visible smoke.
• Infrared Thermograph. Cameras that take still pictures at infrared range that show the “map” of the temperatures in the house. Ideally you would expect an homogenous distribution of temperatures, leaks however will show as hotter or cooler areas (depends whether the outside temperature is hotter or cooler respectively)

How can you find a home energy auditor?

• Call your gas utility and electricity utility for their auditors’ data base relevant to where you live
• Search in the Yellow Pages
• search in this external link
• or search in this external link