“Baby, It’s Cold Outside”: The DIY versus the Professional Home Energy Audit

Snow on the streets of Sacramento?

An afternoon high of 44 degrees and a low in the 20's?

Brrrr......

Winter doesn't even officially start for another 2 weeks but like Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan sing “Baby, it's cold outside.”

Too often our initial instinct is just to set the thermostat a little higher and hope the bill doesn't bankrupt us. But,there are simple things you things you can do to “weatherize” your house and literally stop the money from flowing out. Even small improvements can improve your comfort and lower your bill. What are these small improvements? Air Sealing and Weatherstripping combined with good old fashioned Elbow Grease are at the core of every home energy efficiency makeover.

Think of your house as a jacket. Theoretically; a jacket covers you, it keeps you warm and it keeps you dry. Now imagine that jacket is unzipped or it has a hole in it – every time the wind blows it fills with cold air and you shiver. Common sense tells you to zip it up or patch the hole.... in the energy auditing world we call this “Sealing the Envelope” with the “envelope” being your house. Air Infiltration is the culprit and can account for up to 35% of the heat loss in your home. I won't bore you with the math, but just remember this one fact: FOR EVERY CUBIC FOOT OF AIR THAT ENTERS YOUR HOUSE A CUBIC FOOT OF AIR LEAVES YOUR HOUSE. And the air that is leaving is taking the money you spent to heat it up with it. A typical well-insulated house can still have a complete change of it's ENTIRE volume of air as often as every half-hour because insulation alone is not an air barrier. To extend our envelope analogy- there are two components to aneffective jacket; the windbreaker and the insulation. Your house needs both. (An Example: we tested one old Victorian in Sacramento that had a complete air-change 7 times an hour, which helped to explain the $800 heating bills)

There are many on-line resources available to do-it-yourselfers and I have posted some of my favorite links:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_improvement.hm_improvement_audits

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/energy_audits/index.cfm/mytopic=11160

http://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/saveenergymoney/rebates/weatherization.pdf

When you want to take it to the next level that's where we at E3 NorCal step in. Think of it as putting your house on a treadmill. We bring in $20,000 worth of state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, hunt down the energy wasters in your home and give you a 20+ page report detailing our findings, making cost effective recommendations and a full payback analysis.

If you have any energy related questions please call us at the Green Living Center, it would be our pleasure to work with you.

Tommy Young
E3 NorCal