For one, he asks what makes for a successful audit. Is it a "thank you" and a check from a homeowner? Or would it entail something more fulfilling - say, a call from a customer a couple months down the road discussing the improvements she has made and their effects on her utility bills and the comfort of her home? The latter, Rabenau concludes, is much better. He even takes an extra step in his business model by incorporating a follow-up audit into the upfront cost of the work - sort of like a buy-one-get-one-half-off model that gives homeowners an extra incentive to do something that we can't emphasize enough: getting the work done.
We think Rabenau's firsthand insights are as illuminating for homeowners considering an energy audit as for energy auditors looking to increase their business. We firmly believe that home energy audits are the best first step toward whipping your house into shape. Energy audits reveal problems that could otherwise lay hidden forever, and provide you with a concrete, prioritized list of potential improvements ranked according to cost effectiveness. But we'd also, as an addendum to our shameless promotion of the home energy audit, like to reiterate Dave's point: an audit report is a blueprint. It's beautiful, it's useful, it's illuminating; but it's lifeless until you pick up that caulking gun and get crackin' (or hire a contractor to come over and get crackin').
Comments
I had a home energy audit last Spring, just before it got too warm for the Infrared pictures to work. Now that it is cold again, I can tell that my efforts during the summer are paying off ... in spades.The audit found numerous leaks -- some obvious, but many not. We found areas where the previous insulators had just missed. By taking advantage of a great program offered by our gas utility (NationalGrid) we were able to get work done for a very small cost. We bought a Chimney Balloon. We Made a cover for our whole house fan (for about $20). We covered up a basement bulkhead door for the winter. These were the bigger holes And we caulked all over the place -- around windows, baseboards and so on to plug up all the smaller holes. The cost was minimal, and there are tax breaks available for some of the expense.But does it work? Yes, and here's how I know.We have our programmable thermostat set to turn on the heat at 5:30 am so the house is warm by the time we get up an hour or so later. This morning it was freezing out, and I heard the heat go on, but realized that the house was warm within 20 minutes -- last year it would have taken at least 60 minutes. Not only does the house stay warmer at night (when the heat's off), it takes less time to heat up in the morning. It's simple math: the burner uses the same amount of gas whenever it's on.This morning, the gas burner was on for 2/3 less time than it would have been last year, so I used less than half as much gas, and had less than half the expense. Last year we spent around $1,900 for natural gas, mostly heat. While I doubt I'll be able to reduce my costs by 2/3 for the year, if I can reduce the cost by 1/3, I will have mostly paid for all of the costs, both of the audit and of the weatherization efforts we did. Solar panels are great, but many people are turned off because they have a 15 year payback. For us, the projects should have something like a 12 to 18 month payback.And not to be overlooked -- the house is tremendously more comfortable, and not just in the cold seasons -- in Summer we never turned on our air conditioner (although there was a stretch of a week here in Boston where it was miserable, humid, hot and ... miserable) -- our house was cool and comfortable then, except for the last day (but I was too hot to install the AC just for a day :-).What's not to like?And to the point of this article: if I hadn't had a "supportive" wife who made sure I "was able to" get everything done, I wouldn't have had the benefit now. In fact, I would have been sleeping in the "dog house", which is a cold place indeed :-)Tom
Posted by tomharrisonjr on Oct 27, 2009 4:37amThanks Tom. Our experience is very much like yours. We're only part way towards fixing the many "opportunities" identified during our energy audit, but already we're seeing improvements. The programmable thermostats have made for a more comfortable house--cool and thrifty at night but perfectly warm when everyone wakes up--and, best of all, they're completely automated. We don't think about it and, most importantly, we flawed humans no longer have the chance to forget. It's a beautiful thing. Similar to you, even just a little bit of air sealing work--some but not all our rim joists, some leaky doors and windows, the service penetrations--has reduced our overall leakage (this was confirmed by a second blower door test).
Posted by energycircle on Oct 27, 2009 1:46pm