My First Energy Audit

This morning I had my first energy audit on my house. I live in a smallish townhouse I purchased almost 9 years ago. It was built in the early seventies and has its share of problems.

To get started I went to my local utility’s website (my local utility is Owen Electric). I filled out a form showing my interest in an audit. After a few days they gave me a call and sent someone out.

The first thing they do is look at our bills and tells us where they think something is wrong. In our case, we live much cheaper than other people in our utility, unless it is cold outside and then we live way more expensively. Our heat-pump has been on the fritz for a few years now and we are finally having it replaced. So good and bad news.

He went on to give us a few ideas on how to make the house more comfortable in the stronger weather. Little things like redirecting the airflow away from the windows which is where it’s designed to go.

With the windows, I was thinking that they are a big problem and need to be yanked out and replaced. Actually that is not the case for us. He recommended leaving the windows for later. They do need to be replaced but can wait for a while. He did recommend using blinds in the summer and curtains in the winter to help keep the heat and cool air in and out when you want it.

After that we moved up to the attic where there seems to be quite a few problems. I have two patches that are essentially uninsulated letting lots of cold and hot air into my house. The insulation itself is insufficient for my area and needs more added on top of the existing. I have to figure out if I want to do it myself or pay to have it done after I fix the problems.

Next we went down to the basement where we talked again about the furnace that is being replaced and he recommended insulating the walls with celotex board.

At the end of the day I have a few ideas, a prioritized list and what needs to be done, and an incentive in the form of rebates form my electric company to get these things done.

Check with your local utility to see if they give free audits and sign up.

Here is my new list of green priorities for my home:

1.     Replace the Heat-pump (weather permitting I’ll do this tomorrow)

2.     Board up the space above my stairs in my attic and board up a hole that was originally a cold air return that was never used.

3.     Insulate over the patches in the attic and add at least an additional 6 inches of insulation to my attic.

4.     Insulate the door to my attic.

5.     Insulate my basement walls.

6.     Replace my windows with the minimum of double pane.

7.     Replace my other appliances with energy star models: television, refrigerator and so on.

I’ll get started tomorrow…