DIY Home Energy Audit Checklist: Free Step-by-Step PDF Guide

Your utility bills keep climbing and you know your home is bleeding money through gaps in insulation, inefficient appliances, and outdated systems. But you don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for a professional energy audit when you can spot most problems yourself with the right checklist.

A DIY home energy audit helps you walk through your home room by room to find where energy escapes and money disappears. You'll inspect everything from your attic insulation to your water heater, from air leaks around windows to the efficiency of your cooling system. Most homeowners who complete this process find ways to cut their energy bills by 20 to 40 percent.

This guide gives you a complete step by step checklist for auditing your home's energy use. We'll walk you through each area to inspect, what to look for, how to spot problems, and which improvements deliver the biggest savings. You can download our free PDF checklist to print and carry with you as you work through each section of your home.

What a home energy audit checklist covers

A comprehensive home energy audit checklist breaks your house into six major inspection zones that account for nearly all energy use. Each zone requires specific measurements, observations, and tests that reveal how much energy your home wastes. You'll document baseline conditions like current utility costs, temperature readings, and visible damage before you start making changes.

Six core areas to inspect

Your checklist starts with building shell components including walls, windows, doors, and foundation areas where air leaks and poor insulation cause the biggest losses. You'll check attic spaces, crawl spaces, and basement areas where temperature control often fails. The second area covers heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems that typically consume 40 to 50 percent of your energy budget.

Water heating systems make up the third inspection zone because they account for 15 to 20 percent of home energy costs. Fourth, you'll audit lighting throughout your home to identify outdated bulbs and fixtures that waste electricity. The fifth area examines major appliances like refrigerators, washers, dryers, and dishwashers that run constantly. Finally, you'll assess plug loads from devices that draw power even when turned off.

A systematic home energy audit checklist helps you prioritize improvements based on which changes save the most money relative to their cost.

Each zone on your checklist includes specific measurements to take, problems to look for, and immediate fixes you can make during the audit. You'll also note which improvements require professional help versus what you can handle yourself.

Step 1. Note your bills, comfort, and goals

Start your home energy audit checklist by gathering baseline data that shows exactly where your energy dollars go and which problems bother you most. You'll collect at least 12 months of utility bills, document every comfort issue you notice in your home, and set specific targets for energy savings. This foundation helps you prioritize improvements and measure results after you make changes.

Gather your utility bills

Pull your electric, gas, and water bills for the past full year so you can identify seasonal patterns and calculate average monthly costs. Mark the months when bills spike highest because these reveal when your heating or cooling systems work hardest. You need this 12 month view because a single month's bill doesn't show the full picture of your energy use patterns.

Calculate your average monthly cost for each utility by adding all 12 bills and dividing by 12. Write these baseline numbers at the top of your audit checklist because you'll compare them against future bills to measure your savings.

Document comfort problems

Walk through every room and write down specific comfort complaints like rooms that stay too hot in summer, drafty areas in winter, or spaces with poor air circulation. Note which rooms require space heaters or fans to stay comfortable because these indicate failures in your central systems.

Your comfort problems often point directly to the biggest energy waste in your home and help you prioritize which repairs to tackle first.

Record temperature differences between rooms using a basic thermometer. If your bedroom reads 5 degrees warmer than your living room, you've found an airflow or insulation problem worth investigating.

Set measurable goals

Establish specific savings targets rather than vague aims like "use less energy." Write down goals such as "reduce summer cooling costs by 30 percent" or "cut annual utility spending by $600." Your home energy audit checklist works best when you know exactly what success looks like and can track progress with concrete numbers.

Step 2. Inspect your home shell and insulation

Your home's outer shell acts as the primary barrier between indoor comfort and outdoor temperature extremes. Gaps in this barrier and inadequate insulation waste more energy than any other single problem. You'll need a tape measure, flashlight, stick of incense or smoke pencil, and notepad to document what you find during this inspection.

Check attic insulation depth and coverage

Climb into your attic on a cool day and measure the depth of insulation between the floor joists using your tape measure. Most homes need between 10 to 14 inches of fiberglass insulation or 10 to 13 inches of cellulose to meet current efficiency standards. If you can see the tops of your joists poking through the insulation, you need more coverage.

Look for gaps, compressed areas, or missing sections where insulation has shifted or settled over time. Pay special attention to the edges where your roof meets the walls because contractors often skimp on insulation in these hard to reach corners. Check the attic access door itself because an uninsulated hatch loses as much energy as a 3 square foot hole in your ceiling.

Record the insulation type, average depth, and percentage of coverage on your home energy audit checklist. Note any areas with water stains that indicate roof leaks because wet insulation loses all effectiveness.

Test for air leaks around windows and doors

Close all your windows and doors, then hold a lit stick of incense near the frames while watching the smoke pattern. If the smoke blows horizontally or swirls, you've found an air leak that needs sealing. Test every window and door in your home because even small gaps add up to significant energy loss.

A 1/8 inch gap around a standard door lets as much air leak through as a 2.5 inch hole punched in your wall.

Run your hand along baseboards, electrical outlets, and switch plates to feel for drafts on windy days. Cold air flowing from these spots indicates gaps in your wall cavities. Mark each leak location on your checklist with notes about severity because you'll seal the worst offenders first.

Inspect basement and crawl space areas

Check your basement walls and crawl space for exposed foundation and missing or damaged insulation. Foundation walls should have at least R-10 insulation in most climates to prevent heat loss through concrete. Look for daylight showing through rim joists where your floor meets the foundation because these spaces often lack proper sealing.

Examine any exposed pipes running through unconditioned spaces and verify they have insulation jackets. Uninsulated pipes in cold areas waste energy heating the surrounding space instead of delivering hot water efficiently. Document the condition of all basement insulation and foundation sealing on your checklist for future improvements.

Step 3. Check HVAC, ventilation, and hot water

Your heating, cooling, and hot water systems consume 40 to 60 percent of your total energy budget, making them the most important systems to audit on your home energy audit checklist. You'll inspect equipment age, check filter conditions, test airflow patterns, and measure water heater settings. These systems often hide problems that waste hundreds of dollars annually without obvious symptoms.

Inspect your heating and cooling system

Write down the age and model number of your furnace, air conditioner, or heat pump from the nameplate on each unit. Systems older than 15 years typically run at half the efficiency of modern equipment and should appear on your replacement priority list. Check your last professional service date because systems need annual maintenance to operate at peak efficiency.

Pull out your air filter and hold it up to a light source. If you can't see light through the filter material, you need an immediate replacement because clogged filters force your system to work harder and waste energy. Filters should be changed every 30 to 90 days depending on your home conditions and filter type.

Walk through your home and check every supply and return vent for blockages from furniture, curtains, or debris. Feel the airflow coming from each register with your hand and note any vents with weak output. Blocked vents create pressure imbalances that reduce system efficiency and create hot or cold spots throughout your house.

Test ventilation and airflow

Turn on your bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans to verify they actually pull air outside rather than just recirculating it inside. Hold a tissue up to each fan and watch whether it gets pulled toward the vent. Poor ventilation traps moisture that damages insulation and reduces its effectiveness.

Systems that don't properly ventilate moisture-heavy areas like bathrooms force your HVAC to work harder removing humidity while simultaneously damaging your home's thermal envelope.

Check your attic ventilation by looking for soffit vents along the eaves and roof vents near the peak. Adequate airflow through your attic prevents ice dams in winter and reduces cooling loads in summer. You should see at least 1 square foot of vent area for every 300 square feet of attic floor space.

Examine water heater efficiency

Locate the yellow Energy Guide sticker on your water heater and record the estimated annual operating cost. Compare this figure against your actual energy bills to spot inefficiency. Check the age using the serial number because water heaters older than 10 to 12 years lose efficiency and risk failure.

Set your water heater thermostat to 120 degrees Fahrenheit using a thermometer at a faucet after running hot water for three minutes. Higher temperatures waste energy and increase scalding risk without providing benefits. Feel the outside of your tank for warmth because hot surfaces indicate missing or degraded insulation.

Inspect all visible hot water pipes for insulation wrap. Uninsulated pipes lose heat as water travels from the heater to your faucets, forcing the system to reheat water more frequently. Add these findings to your home energy audit checklist with notes about which improvements offer the fastest payback.

Step 4. Audit lighting, appliances, and plug loads

Lighting, appliances, and electronics account for 30 to 40 percent of your home's electricity use after heating and cooling. You'll walk through each room counting bulb types, checking appliance ages, and measuring standby power draw from devices that never truly turn off. Your home energy audit checklist helps you identify quick wins that cut costs immediately.

Count and replace inefficient light bulbs

Walk through your home and count every light bulb by type, recording how many incandescent, CFL, and LED bulbs you currently use. Incandescent bulbs waste 90 percent of their energy as heat rather than light and should be replaced first. Write down which rooms have the most bulbs because high-use areas like kitchens and living rooms offer the biggest savings when you switch to LEDs.

Calculate your potential savings by noting that a 60-watt incandescent costs about $5 annually to operate while an equivalent LED costs under $1. Multiply your bulb count by these differences to see total savings.

Test major appliances for energy waste

Check the age and model of your refrigerator, washer, dryer, and dishwasher because appliances older than 10 years use significantly more energy than current models. Look for the yellow Energy Guide stickers that show estimated annual costs. Your refrigerator alone can cost $100 to $200 annually if it dates back more than 15 years.

A refrigerator manufactured before 2010 typically uses twice the electricity of a modern Energy Star model while providing the same cooling capacity.

Measure phantom loads from electronics

Use a plug-in electricity monitor to measure standby power draw from televisions, computers, and cable boxes. Devices in standby mode can draw 5 to 20 watts continuously, costing $50 to $100 annually across your home. Document which devices consume the most phantom power and add power strips to your shopping list.

Wrap up and next steps

Your completed home energy audit checklist now shows exactly where your home wastes energy and which improvements deliver the biggest savings. Start with the quick fixes like sealing air leaks and replacing light bulbs before moving to larger projects. Many homeowners discover that ventilation improvements offer the fastest payback on investment. If you found that cooling costs dominate your energy bills, a whole house fan can cut those expenses by 50 to 90 percent while improving indoor air quality throughout your home.