Cold Weather Is Better for Energy Audits

It's February and a lot of folks seem to be asking about Energy Audits this week.

 

Now, its easy for someone to tell you that your home is not energy efficient because the fact is that the majority of homes waste energy in some way. Seldom is there one particular item that contributes to the waste of energy, and some items might not be so very obvious.

 

You can employ an energy auditor to assess your home and provide you with a list of things you can do to make your home more energy efficient. We've found that most homeowners can save from 5% to 30% on energy consumption by making the changes recommended by an Energy Audit.

 

 

One of the tools we use in Energy Audits is the blower door. Your house will be closed up except for one door where a special apparatus is installed in the opening. A fan is mounted inside the apparatus that blows outward. This creates a vacuum inside the building and air rushes in at the places with the least resistance.

 

Blower doors are typically used when the weather is cold outside so that the results are more evident and easier to find, which is one of the reasons that February is a great time to book your Energy Audit.

 

 

With the use of handheld units and still cameras, thermography provides a picture of where the cold air enters a building. These devices "see" heat in a spectrum of colors or in a range from white to black.  White is warm and black is cold, so it's pretty easy to see where the largest amounts of very cold air come in.

 

The infrared scans are usually conducted inside the home in conjunction with the blower door, but under certain conditions they can be on the outside to indicate where heat or cooling is escaping.  Windy weather makes it extremely difficult to get good results when checking on the outside.

 

Generally, thermographic scans are conducted in the winter in colder climates and in the summer where the weather is predominantly hot. To obtain accurate results, there should be at least a 20 degree difference in temperature between inside the home and the outside. A small reason to cheer when its cold outside!

 

Stay warm - Bobby Ferrel, Green Horizon