Energy Audits: What Homeowners Need to Know

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Also, many local and regional energy providers, such as your electric utility or fossil fuel provider, maintain a list of qualified energy auditors. Other sources of information about energy auditors can be your local nonprofit builders, such as Habitat for Humanity, and your local agencies that provide weatherization services or energy assistance. Once you have assembled your list of trained and qualified energy auditors in your area, it is very advisable to ask them for references (past clients) and proof of insurance. A good auditor will produce happy clients, so don’t skip this step.

What’s involved in an energy audit?

A quality energy audit should always include testing of combustion appliances and combustible gas lines. Those air leaks may have actually been keeping you alive and sealing them up without knowing if your appliances are spilling combustion products could be disastrous. Your audit will also involve measuring the residence and noting the condition of all external features, including the doors and windows. The type, age and expected efficiency of the heating/cooling/water heating equipment should be noted. Other large energy-consuming appliances should also be documented, such as refrigerators, freezers, stoves/ovens, dishwashers and such. Ceiling fans, lights and other obvious energy users should also be noted. Your energy auditor will be all over your attic and basement/crawl space and should perform an air infiltration test to locate leaks and to give you a baseline by which to measure improvements.

Once the data is gathered and analyzed, either by hand calculations or via computer, the energy auditor can then provide improvement and/or replacement suggestions to the homeowner based on a variety of factors: payback, comfort, health, safety or condition.

What kind of tests can an energy auditor do at your home?

Other than the basic arsenal of tools that energy auditors carry, such as a flashlight, clipboard and camera, the most commonly used testing device is a blower door. A blower door is a calibrated fan mounted inside an expandable cloth and frame that can be placed into a door opening and used to pressurize and/or depressurize a building (see Image Gallery for photos). The energy auditor can either determine manually, or by using a computer, the total amount of air that is entering or leaving a building in relationship to the amount of air pressure being applied by the door. This total amount of air that is moving from inside to outside the building indicates the total number of air leaks, cracks, gaps and missing or defective dampers in the building’s shell or envelope. A blower door can help determine the average air changes per hour, or ACH, of a home. The blower door can also be left running in the “cruise” mode so that the auditor can locate the air leaks using his/her hand, a smoke stick or other device.

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