Do-It-Yourself Energy Audits

Do It Yourself Audits

A home energy audit is the first step to assess how much energy your home consumes and to evaluate what measures you can take to make your home more energy efficient. An audit will show you problems that may, when corrected, save you significant amounts of money over time. During the audit, you can pinpoint where your house is losing energy. Audits also determine the efficiency of your home's heating and cooling systems. An audit may also show you ways to conserve hot water and electricity. You can perform a simple energy audit yourself, or have a professional energy auditor carry out a more thorough audit.

A professional auditor uses a variety of techniques and equipment to determine the energy efficiency of a structure. Thorough audits often use equipment such as a blower door, which measures the extent of leaks in the building envelope, and an infrared camera, which reveals hard-to-detect areas of air infiltration and missing insulation.

Energy Saving Tips

Energy Saving Tips

You can easily conduct a home energy audit yourself. 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. This list will help you prioritize your energy efficiency upgrades.

Locating Air Leaks. First, make a list of obvious air leaks (drafts). The potential energy savings from reducing drafts in a home may range from 5% to 30% per year, and the home is generally much more comfortable afterward. Check indoors for air leaks, such as gaps along the baseboard or edge of the flooring, and at junctures of the walls and ceiling. Check to see if air can flow through these places:

Electrical outlets
Switch plates
Window frames
Baseboards
Weather stripping around doors
Fireplace dampers
Attic hatches
Plumbing access panels and chaseways
Wall or window-mounted air conditioners

Also look for gaps around pipes and wires, electrical outlets, foundation seals, and mail slots. Check to see if the caulking and weather stripping are applied properly, leaving no gaps or cracks, and are in good condition.

Inspect windows and doors for air leaks. See if you can rattle them, since movement means possible air leaks. If you can see daylight around a door or window frame, then the door or window leaks. You can usually seal these leaks by caulking or weather stripping them. Check the storm windows to see if they fit and are not broken. You may also wish to consider replacing your old windows and doors with newer, high-performance ones. If new factory-made doors or windows are too costly, you can install low-cost plastic sheets over the windows.

Insulation. Heat loss through the ceiling and walls in your home could be very large if the insulation levels are less than the recommended minimum. When your house was built, the builder likely installed the amount of insulation recommended at that time. Given today's energy prices (and future prices that will probably be higher), the level of insulation might be inadequate, especially if you have an older home.

Attic Insulation. Before you insulate, determine whether openings for items such as pipes, ductwork, and chimneys are sealed. Seal any gaps with an expanding foam caulk or some other permanent sealant.  If the attic hatch is located above a conditioned space, check to see if it is at least as heavily insulated as the attic, is weather stripped, and closes tightly.   If you do not air seal the attic before you insulate, you may never realize the energy savings you expect from the insulation.  Even small voids in insulation can significantly lower its effectiveness.

While you are inspecting the attic, check to see if there is a vapor retarder under the attic insulation. The retarder might be tarpaper or Kraft paper attached to fiberglass batts. If there does not appear to be a vapor retarder, you might consider painting the interior ceilings with vapor retarder paint. This reduces the amount of water vapor that can pass through the ceiling. Large amounts of moisture can reduce the effectiveness of insulation and promote structural damage.

Make sure that the attic vents at soffits and ridge or gable ends are not blocked. You also should seal any electrical boxes in the ceiling with flexible caulk (from the living side or attic side) and cover the entire attic floor with at least the current recommended amount of insulation. In Pennsylvania the recommended minimum attic insulation is R-38 in all counties.

Wall Insulation. Checking a wall's insulation level is more difficult. Select an exterior wall and turn off the circuit breaker or unscrew the fuse for any outlets in the wall. Be sure to test the outlets to make certain that they are not "hot." Check the outlet by plugging in a functioning lamp or portable radio. Once you are sure your outlets are not getting any electricity, remove the cover plate from one of the outlets and gently probe into the wall with a thin, long stick or screwdriver. If you encounter a slight resistance, you probably have some insulation there. You could also make a small hole in a closet, behind a couch, or in some other unobtrusive place to see what, if anything, the wall cavity is filled with. Ideally, the wall cavity should be totally filled with some form of insulation material. Unfortunately, this method cannot tell you if the entire wall is insulated, or if the insulation has settled. Only a thermographic inspection (with an infrared camera) can do this.

Basement and Foundation. If your basement or crawlspace is unheated, the floor of the living area above should be insulated. In Pennsylvania, an R-value of 19 is the recommended minimum level of insulation in the warmer counties.  The minimum for the colder counties is R-30. The insulation at the top of the foundation wall and first floor perimeter should have an R-value of 13 or greater. If the basement is heated, the foundation walls should be insulated to at least R-13 (R-19 in the colder counties). Your water heater, hot water pipes, and furnace ducts should all be insulated.

Heating/Cooling Equipment. Inspect heating and cooling equipment annually, or as recommended by the manufacturer. If you have a forced-air furnace, check your filters and replace them as needed. Generally, you should change them once every month or two, especially during periods of high usage. Have a professional check and clean your equipment once a year.

If the unit is more than 15 years old, you should consider replacing your system with one of the newer, more energy-efficient units. A new unit could greatly reduce your energy consumption, especially if the existing equipment is in poor condition.

Check your ductwork for dirt streaks, especially near seams. These indicate air leaks, and they should be sealed with duct mastic. Insulate any ducts or pipes that travel through unheated spaces. An insulation R-Value of 6 is the recommended minimum.

Adjusting a home thermostat can also bring substantial annual savings. You can estimate how much you can save by adjusting your thermostat here.

Lighting. Energy for lighting accounts for about 10% of your electric bill. Examine the wattage of the light bulbs in your house. You may have 100-watt (or larger) bulbs where 60 or 75 watts would do. You should also consider compact fluorescent lamps for areas where lights are on for long periods of time, and automatic controls such as photocells and timers. Your electric utility may offer rebates or other incentives for purchasing energy-efficient lamps.

For an online audit tool, which can give you no cost and low cost home improvement tips please click here.

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