Scheduling a professional energy audit improves your knowledge of your home’s performance in “real time,” offering key insights into energy inefficiencies such as locations where air leaks occur and areas where insulation isn’t getting the job done. Three primary components make up a professional energy audit; these three parts combined will give you the tools you need to make your home more comfortable and lower your energy bills.
Part 1: The interview and inspection
First, the auditor will sit down with home occupants to discuss lifestyle factors, comfort preferences and home usage patterns to determine need. He or she will want to look at your energy bills for the past year as well. The auditor will also visually inspect the home’s envelope, or the outer shell, to identify potential problems, while performing additional tasks such as testing HVAC efficiency and looking for issues on the home’s exterior.
Part 2: The blower door test
The blower door test measures the home’s overall air leakage rate, or how much air infiltrates through the home’s structure. To test air leakage, the auditor connects a blower door device into the frame of an exterior door. The device covers the expanse of the doorway. When the fan runs, blowing air outward and depressurizing the house, air will try to flow back into the house through any openings or cracks. The device’s pressure gauges will show how much air is moving through the leaks.
Part 3: The thermographic scan
Most auditors run a thermographic scan with the blower door test running to identify where leaks are occurring, as well as see areas where insulation isn’t performing. The scan offers either still images or video of air movement (for air leaks) and heat movement (for insulation), as heat can move through building materials that don’t have sufficient insulation.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive way to determine the energy efficiency of your home, consider an energy audit. Donald P. Dick Air Conditioning is happy to help homeowners in the greater Fresno area with quality heating and cooling services. If you’d like to schedule a professional energy audit, contact us today.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Fresno, California area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about energy audits and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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