Do It Yourself Home Energy Audit
Posted on Nov 27, 2007 - 11:04 AM
By: Adam Beazley
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. An energy audit will generally alert you to problems in your homes efficiency, and when those problems are fixed correctly, you can save huge amounts of money on your energy bills. During an energy audit, you will be able to pinpoint each problem area where you home is loosing energy, which is generally in the form of air and heat loss from the house.
Home energy audits can be done by professionals or you can do them yourself. There are benefits to each, a do-it-yourself energy audit is basically free, however a professional will generally do a more thorough job. You should also consider hiring a professional if you live in a state that gives rebates to energy efficient home owners, or if you plan on applying for a federal tax credit or an energy-efficient mortgage.
Do It Yourself Home Energy Audit
Pressurization test
To start your home energy audit, you will want to do a pressurization test, where you create a pressure difference between the inside and outside of the house causing air to flow into the house. Before you start the pressurization test, you will need to get a few things: paper, pen, incense, and a box fan (optional).
To create this pressure difference, close all exterior doors, windows and fireplace flues, Next you will need to cut off all combustion appliances such as gas burning water heaters and furnaces, also cut off your air conditioner/s. Now you will need to turn on all of your exhaust vents, which are generally located in your bathrooms and over the kitchen stove. In addition you may want to use a box fan and place it in an open window pointing the air flow to the outside of the house.
The box fan is optional, however it will give you much better results and they can be purchased for a very small amount of money. If you want to get technical, you can use visqueen (plastic sheeting) and tape to make an air tight seal from the edge of the box fan to the window frame, or simply stuff some pillows or towels in the gaps between the box fan and the window frame. This seal will allow for a much better pressure difference making the leaks easier to locate.
Once all of your vents and fans are running, you can now use the smoke from the stick of incense to identify any air leaks. Just hold the burning incense next to any and all wall and ceiling penetrations and look for the air flow to blow the smoke away from the gaps.
Be sure to check all of the following places by running the incense along each:
- Wall penetrations (pipes & Wires)
- Ceiling penetrations
- Attic hatches
- Window frames
- Weather stripping around doors
- Window mounted air conditioners
- Baseboards
- Electrical outlets
- Light switch plates
Be sure to make a note of each and every leak you find, so you can correct the problem later. Now that the pressurization leak test is complete, you can turn off all of the vents and fans and resume normal operation of your other equipment. Now that you have a list of problem areas where air is leaking in, you are now ready to move on to the “Air and Heat Loss” section to see how to fix each particular situation.
Heating/Cooling Inspection
Air Conditioning and Heating Equipment
In general, your heating and cooling equipment should be inspected and cleaned by a professional every year to assure proper working conditions. However, you can definitely keep and eye on the system and change filters on a regular basis to keep the system running at optimum efficiency. Also, if your heating and/or cooling system is older than 15 years, then you should seriously consider replacing it with a new energy efficient system. Even though a new system can be expensive, there are plenty of tax credits, rebates and other benefits to make it more affordable and in the end it will save you a ton on energy cost.
You should inspect the duct work and look for lines of dirt or dust, especially near seams as these are indications of air leaks. These leaks can easily be sealed with duct tape. You should also insulate all ductwork that travels through unconditioned spaces with a minimum of a 6 R-value insulation.
Water Heating Equipment
Hot water heaters should be inspected by a professional every year, however it will not hurt to give your water heater a good once over. Give it a good visual inspection, checking for any signs of rust or leaks. Water heaters have a life expectancy of about 8 to 12 years and should be replaced every 10 years to avoid additional cost of a ruptured water tank.
Touch the side of the water tank with your hand and if it feels warm, then you are loosing allot of energy from heat dissipation and this will need to be addressed. This heat dissipation is usually addressed by insulating, modifying or even replacing your hot water heater.To learn more about insulating, replacing and modifying your hot water heater please go to the page “Efficient Hot Water Heating”.
Lighting Inspection
To inspect your lighting and calculate its efficiency, simply walk around the house and count how many light bulbs you have, noting what type of bulb you are using. Now to increase your homes efficiency by almost 10%, simply replace all incandescent light bulbs with compact florescent bulbs.
Compact florescent light bulbs (CFL) are 70% more efficient than incandescent bulbs which translates into significant savings over time. Also CFL’s now offer the same lighting type that incandescent lights offer while putting out much less heat.
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