Home Energy Audit: Outlining Findings and Recommendations for Improvements and Cost Saving Measures
If you’re looking to save money on your home energy bill you will need to get organized and create a plan. Making the necessary improvements is all about knowing what products are out there, the rebates and discounts are attached to them, and what you have to do to get them.
The first step in formulating that plan is a residential energy audit. It will answer all your basic questions, then test your home for energy efficiency so you can prioritize your needs. Once you have that home energy assessment, you can make the best choices, and upgrade both your energy efficiency and your lifestyle in the process.
What Happens During a Professional Home Energy Audit
The term audit might sound somewhat ominous, but the home energy assessment process is actually the opposite. When you contact a company like Revise, Inc. for a home energy assessment, you’ll be greeted by a friendly representative who’s both trained and highly qualified and intent on helping you.
The first thing that home energy assessor will probably do is go over your home energy bills. There’s no judgment in this process—the goal is simply to identify two things:
- Costs that are too high
- Expenditures that can easily be lowered
The conversation about those two topics will also include some back and forth about your budget. There are a wide range of products available to help you lower your home energy costs, and the initial outlay from the cheapest to the most expensive covers a fairly broad range.
The Inspection Process: The Key to Becoming Home Energy Efficient
You may think you know your home inside and out when it comes to possible energy savings, but the simple truth is you might not know as much as you think. Your home energy assessor will be able to test your home to find out because they look at your home differently than you do.
So what are they seeing? On the outside, they’re looking at your windows, walls and eaves to see if they can find weak spots that might represent possible leaks.
The attic will also be a key spot during the inspection, if you have one. The idea behind looking at your attic is to assess how much insulation you have and whether that insulation is doing its job when it comes to making and keeping you energy efficient.
The holes where your utility lines enter your home will also be a point of emphasis, and the plumbing that enters your home via the foundation will be similarly examined. Any junction between the roof, walls and foundation can be a leak source, as can your windows and doors.
Examining Your Equipment During a Professional Home Energy Assessment
Once the structure of your home has been evaluated, home energy assessors will turn their attention to the equipment that heats and cools your home, along with the appliances you use as part of your daily life.
This examination will start with your furnace and hot water heater. If they’re older, they may be a good candidate for an upgrade, but the good news is that there are plenty of ways to get an upgrade, and you can get a lot of savings in the process.
How much savings? Because your home energy audit is sponsored by Mass Save®, you can get over $10,000 if your home energy auditor recommends a heat pump.
Heat pumps are the latest leading-edge technology when it comes to heating and cooling systems, and while the initial outlay is somewhat large, they will pay for themselves as you save money on your home energy bills.
Your ductwork will also be part of the equipment inspection. Many people are surprised by the amount of heat they’re losing through their ductwork, and that loss is often equaled or surpassed by the loss of cool air from your central AC unit during the summer.
Your Energy Auditor Will Also Do a Door Blower Test
The inspection for your home energy assessment will also include an important test called the blower door test. This test is exactly what it sounds like—your front door will be opened, and a large fan will blow air throughout your home to pressurize it.
This will reveal the source of any heating or cooling leaks the home energy assessor can’t find during a visual inspection. It’s a key part of the process, but there is another test that’s just as vital.
This “test” is an inspection of your home’s structure using infrared cameras. These cameras provide a detailed picture of how much heating and cooling power you’re losing in these areas, and what it will take to fix it.
How Your Professional Home Energy Auditor Can Help With Recommendations
It might feel slightly alarming to have so many home energy efficiency shortcomings revealed during your home energy assessment, but there’s no reason to worry.
Once the inspection and tests have been completed, your home energy assessor will make some recommendations to help you improve your home energy efficiency.
Some of these recommendations will be amazingly simple and inexpensive to implement. Under the terms of Mass Save®, you may even be able to fix the air leaks in your home for free, and you can get as much as 75 percent off when it comes to upgrading your insulation.
Other recommendations will include purchases, but the good news is that these come with significant discounts and rebates, and sometimes the cost is incredibly low.
Let’s take smart, programmable thermostats as an example. These devices are inexpensive to begin with, and they can save you a lot of money on your home heating and cooling costs.
On top of that, Mass Save® is offering discounts for these thermostats, to the point where you’ll nearly be getting them for free. It’s a small purchase that can generate big savings immediately, and all you have to do is follow the stipulations of the Mass Save® program.
If you want to go big with your home energy efficiency rating and the savings you can get, there are larger purchases that also come with more serious rebates and discounts.
We’ve already mentioned heat pumps, but you can also buy energy efficient furnaces, hot water heaters and appliances that will save you more money and make you even more energy efficient.
Mastering the Paperwork Process to Become More Energy Efficient
There is another part of the savings process that you need to stay on top of to become more energy efficient—the paperwork that goes with getting Mass Save® rebates and discounts.
There’s no need to cringe at the word “paperwork,” though. Your home energy assessor is trained and qualified to help you get it done quickly and efficiently once you’ve made your home energy upgrade choices. Avoiding any mistakes is a major factor in getting your savings in a timely manner.
Your assessor is also trained to give you an accurate timeline for those savings. Some savings happen nearly instantaneously when you make a smaller purchase that comes with a major discount under Mass Save®, but others can take anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months.
It’s also important to identify the right products to purchase, and your home energy assessor can do that for you as part of the auditing process.
The brands that are covered under Mass Save® are high-quality products that come with an excellent energy rating, and home energy assessors are trained to know which ones qualify so you don’t accidentally buy a brand that doesn’t measure up.
There’s no reason not to start the process of becoming more energy efficient in your home immediately. You can save money on cooling during the summer and heating in the winter, so there’s no better time to do it than the present.
You can also do a DIY audit at home prior to your professional home energy assessment if you’re reasonably savvy about home energy issues. It will give you some idea of what’s coming when your home energy assessment takes place, but it’s by no means necessary.
Get a Residential Energy Audit from Revise, Inc. to Become More Energy Efficient
At Revise, Inc., we’re committed to doing everything we can to help make your home more energy efficient and educating you about your home and what you can do to maximize savings under Mass Save®.
We’re proud to be a designated contractor under the Mass Save® program, and we’ve helped hundreds of customers save thousands of dollars while improving their energy efficiency.
We make the process as simple as possible. Our home energy assessors are professionals who are extensively trained to evaluate your energy needs, and we’re happy to answer any questions you may have or explain anything from the assessment. We want you to understand that it’s a lot easier to increase your savings than you think, and we can show you how to do it.
To start the process, call us at 800-885-7283 (SAVE) or visit our website, www.callrevise.com. We’ve got some great information about savings there, so it’s an excellent place to start if you’re curious and you want to get some background material about how to spend less while making your home more energy efficient.
