What is an Energy Audit?

​An energy audit is an assessment of your home as it relates to energy usage.  We consider your entire home, assessing energy usage and potential improvements.  The following items are included in an audit:
 
1.  We sit with you to discuss your home and energy usage, past and present.
2.  We review energy bills to note patterns and discrepancies.  
3.  We perform diagnostic tests of your home and HVAC system.
4.  We visually inspect your home, including the exterior, attic and basement.
5.  We compile a written report identifying the most significant findings.  Our recommendations are prioritized, with our top recommendations based on what we feel offer the highest potential savings.
6.  You can then implement these recommendations, resulting in energy savings and a more comfortable home.
 
Perhaps the most revealing portion of our test is an infiltration test.  This test determines how leaky your home is.  The easier that air escapes from your home, the more it costs you.  We combine this test with a thermal imaging camera, allowing us to identify air leaks, missing insulation and sometimes even moisture, hidden behind your walls and ceilings.

​More insulation is not always the best solution.   Insulation performs like a fluffy sweater while air-sealing is like a windbreaker for the home.  Think of wearing only a sweater on a cold, breezy winter day.  Would you add another sweater, or a windbreaker?  Perhaps both, given the choice, but forced to choose, the windbreaker makes a bigger difference.  The same is true of your home.
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​Windows are rarely the best solution.  While you might feel a draft there, even the best new window is still a hole in the wall.  New windows might help --- but they rarely pay for themselves.
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In the end we'll leave you with many suggestions and a written report of the things which will make the biggest difference for energy usage in your home.  So why wait?  The cost of an audit is small compared with the energy losses you may have.