What's an Energy Audit?

A thorough energy audit is the best place to start in making a home more comfortable and energy efficient . An audit helps determine how much energy the building uses. A home energy tuneup or home energy audit generates a list of the measures needed to improve the energy efficiency. The improved efficieny may help you save money on your energy bill, improve your comfort in your home, increase your home's value, reduce your homes carbon footprint and ultimately improve the environment for everyone.

A professional home-energy auditor often uses a variety of techniques and equipment to determine the energy efficiency of a home. Equipment like calibrated blower doors, which measure the extent of leaks in the building envelope, and infrared cameras, which reveal hard-to-detect areas of air infiltration and missing insulation.

A blower-door test is a common meethod for evaluating the airtightness of a building envelope and for testing the effectiveness of sealing air leaks. Though flexible, blower doors do have their limitations. There are many things that a blower-door test cannot detect. Often the best way to detect some conditons is by the use of a Infrared Thermal Imaging camera either alone or in combination with the blower door.

The energy performance of a home is impacted by many related factors. An energy audit can help identify the most important factors that contribute to energy waste in a home. It can also help with making the home more comfortable to the occupants. An audit can help with identifying factors that affect the health and safety of the occupants.

An Energy audit by itself won't save energy or money. The goal of the energy audit is to determine practical repairs or upgrades that are most likely to improve the comfort and performance of the home while simultaneously decreasing the energy used.