Home Energy Audit in Arlington VA – My Greenovation Blog #2

I recommend a home energy audit as the first place to start with any greening project.  If done correctly, it will provide you with information you can use when deciding how to approach future home improvement projects.  It should also provide you with low hanging fruit that you can go after to achieve energy improvements easily and at a little to no cost.  They may vary slightly by region and by auditor.  Below is a high level summary of our experience with a home energy audit in Arlington VA.

Our home energy audit started with a blower door test.  They had us close all the windows and doors in the house.  The blower door fan is temporarily sealed into the front doorway.  The fan is used to blow air into or out of the home to create a small pressure difference between inside and outside.  The home energy auditor can analyze how many times per hour your house is cycling air.  In a tight house they want to find out if your home is getting enough fresh air.  In a leaky home they want to find out how much of the conditioned air is escaping and locate leakage sites.  According to the report, your home needs 1.42 square feet of controlled air leakage, which would exchange the air in your home with fresh outside air 8.4 times every day.  My house only measured 0.88 square feet of air leakage.  This means that my home is only cycling fresh outside air an average of 5.2 times per day.  They determined that our house was slightly too tight.  He said that it was slight enough that I could probably get away with running a bathroom fan around the clock.  Since the audit, I have heard from other sources that this band aid may not provide the results I need.  The air that the bathroom fan is pulling, must come from somewhere.  Do we really want it to force unconditioned air through leaks in my home?  I’ll talk about a better solution we have come up with in a future blog.

The home energy auditor then took photos with an infrared camera throughout the interior of the home.  He took photos to demonstrate which areas in my home were allowing warmer temperatures to permeate on this mild day.  It uncovered the largest area of concern in the audit.  My attic was allowing warm air to enter my home in the summer and cool air in the winter.  This is why our third floor has always been less comfortable.  We have R-30 batts of insulation.  The auditor points out that as of 2006 the Department of Energy recommends R-49.  Another problem is that rolled insulation is notorious for empty spaces between the attic floor and the insulation allowing unwanted air exchange.  We also have canned lights that were also allowing conditioned air to escape and unconditioned air to enter because they are completely un-insulated.  The auditor recommends that we use blown-in insulation to achieve an R-49 rating and to fill in the smaller nooks and spaces between the batt insulation.  If you continue to follow this blog you will learn that we found a better way to achieve the results we were hoping for.

The home energy auditor also took an inventory of the home and provided us with a 26 page PDF report including his suggestions for improvement.  A bulk of the report consisted of photos and template information.  If you would like to see a copy of the report, please send me an email: adam@arbourrealty.com.

This report was completed on 5/15/2008.  We have since decided to recommend a different home energy auditor.  I didn’t want the home owner to be left with nothing but a report to sift through as we were. I feel as though the home owners should be part of the experience and at the conclusion of the audit should have a much deeper understanding of their home, a list of things they have been taught how to improve themselves and a priority list of items they can choose to do over time.  In choosing our current auditor we spoke with almost two dozen auditors in the area.  We finally found one with the total package of experience, knowledge and customer service.  We recommend Chris Conway (a.k.a. The Green Gobbler).  He can be reached at 540-818-2437.

The typical cost of home energy audits range from $250 to $450 depending on the type and size of your home.  In many cases Arbour Realty will subsidize the cost of the audit for our clients.  Our house is 3000 square feet, spread across 3-levels and cost us $350.

Please let me know what questions you have about out home energy audit experience. I would also like your feedback about whether you think that home sellers should provide a home energy audit.

-Adam Gallegos

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