Hiring a Professional for a Home Energy Audit

by George Karonis

A home energy audit is an important step in making your home as energy efficient as possible. This type of audit allows you to find out how much energy your home uses and details the measures you can take to improve its efficiency.

After the audit is conducted, recommendations for improving the efficiency of your home are made., and those recommendations need to be made in order to improve and ensure the efficiency of your home. Once implemented, your home will be more comfortable, you will enjoy lower utility bills, and you will greatly reduce your carbon footprint.

Hiring a Professional
Though you can perform an energy audit on your home yourself, often referred to as a DIY home energy audit, hiring a professional to do it is highly recommended. By using various techniques and the proper equipment, a professional provides you with detailed recommendations to improve the efficiency of your home.

Some of the equipment that a professional home energy auditor will use to determine how your home uses energy includes:

  • Blower doors, which determine if there are any leaks in the house.
  • Infrared cameras, which show areas of air infiltration and missing or improper insulation that are otherwise difficult to detect.

In order to hire a professional energy auditor, the first thing you can do is contact your utility company. Your utility company should be able to tell you if there are auditors who provide free or discounted services for the customers that the company serves.

If your utility company doesn’t know of any companies that provide free or discounted rates, they can provide you with references to professional auditors who are certified Home Energy Star Raters. You can also research and hire an auditor on your own; however, if you take this route, do make sure that the auditor you hire is certified.

Common Recommendations
Recommendations that are commonly made to improve the energy efficiency of your home include:

  • Installing windows and doors that are properly insulated and will thus decrease energy loss.
  • Installing new or more insulation to reduce the amount of energy that your home releases.
  • Installing an attic fan to draw out hot air from the attic.
  • Installing a whole house fan to lower summer air conditioning bills.

By having a professional conduct an energy audit, you can greatly improve the efficiency of your home. In today’s economic and ecological climate, an audit can prove to be very valuable to both your pocket and the environment.

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