Exploring Energy Audit for your home

Energy audit of your home is the first step to find out if installing any kind of alternative energy is a good investment for your house. This assessment tells you how much energy do you use in your home and what can you do to conserve energy in your home.

Conserving energy might mean either assessing the efficiency of energy systems in your setting (leakage, waste etc.), finding out which appliances use most energy, and/or if your house is built in a way that one part uses more energy compared to the rest of the house.

Residential energy audit is also helpful since it enables one to learn about energy usage in Kilowatt Hours (KWH) and how much you pay for it. These can also help you understand your energy usage and the money you spent on energy bills specially if you bought energy efficiency appliances in the recent past.

Check out this department of energy video to see an example of how this process is done:

Various technologies such as a thermal imaging gun are used in conducting this audit. It allows the energy auditor to see the temperature difference due to a leaky wall, outlets, and other places, which might not be visible to naked eyes.

There are various options available for energy assessment in your house. You can use the Do it yourself (DIY) method which is helpful to begin with and will allow you to possibly find the following ways in which you can make your house efficient:

1) Locating air leaks: This is the most common way in which a house becomes 5-30% less energy efficient. The air leak (also know as draft) can come from window frames, attic hatches, wall or window-mounted air conditioners, baseboard and so forth.

2) Heating/Cooling Equipment: Checking the filters in your forced-air furnace, ductwork for dirt streaks, and replacing equipment that is more than 15 yrs. old will help you conserve energy in this category.

3) Lighting: Most people know about energy-efficient lamps that can reduce the 10% share of your electric bill. However, what most people don't know is that we can benefit by going lower on wattage size of the bulbs since the area may not need high wattage bulbs.

Please look into federal tax credits, if you are interested in installing renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, or geothermal to reduce the energy consumption in your house

The DIY process is a good place to start but they go so far only specially if you are interested in reducing your energy consumption significantly and/or considering buying a new home. That is where commercial energy auditors come in and provide a comprehensive audit.

Many utility companies offer the services of free energy auditors and may provide more information that the DIY audits. Commercial energy consultants provide the most comprehensive audits that include the following tests:

1) Thermal imaging or smoke test (most common test)

2) Blower door test to find leakage in the house (see the video)

3) Insulation tests for walls, attic and foundation

4) Evaluate water heater energy usage

5) Carbon Monoxide and Flue test

However, commercial energy consultants will cost you anywhere from $100-$300. The benefit comes in the fact that they not only provide details information about energy assessment in your house but also make recommendations for future energy usage reduction.

In the future, low-cost and easy-to-deploy devices technologies will be available that can be used to measure the energy consumption in a dwelling without having to spend a lot of money or install elaborate instruments.

See this video showcasing Dr. Shwetak Patel's work (MacArthur Foundation Fellow, 2011) where he shows how technology improvements and make it easy to measure energy consumption.

An energy audit not only informs you about your current usage but it enables you to make informed choices, specifically if you plan to talk to your utility company about installing renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and/or geothermal energy and having the utility company buy the power back from you.

Do you have any tips to do energy audits !!

Have you tried doing energy audit in your house? Do you have any tips or a great story? We would love to hear about it. Share it with the rest of the world by writing your own page

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