Home Energy Audit

$399.00 $299.00

The first step to a comfortable home

A Home Energy Audit is the best place to start before any home improvements are made. Uncomfortable rooms, high utility bills, moisture problems and poor indoor air quality are symptoms of home performance issues. Until comprehensive testing is done we can only speculate why the home is not performing correctly. The Home Energy Audit pinpoints where your house is losing energy and what you can do to increase comfort and save money.

 

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audit with infrared gun seattle insulation installation companyWatch the inspection on a tablethome-auditHome Energy Audit Report

Easy scheduling

 Purchase online

Simply add the item to your cart and purchase through our safe and secure site.

We’ll call you to schedule a service date

We find a time to come out that’s most convenient for you.

What to expect during a Home Energy Audit

Overview

The assessment typically takes 3 hours to complete. After the testing is done, your auditor will create the report and work with one of our home energy specialists to design improvement recommendations that will make your home more comfortable, healthy and efficient. Finally, the Home Energy Specialist will come back to your home to explain the results of the audit and any recommendations so you have a full understanding of how your home performs.

Homeowner interview

You know your home best and we want to start by understanding what your concerns are.  That way we can pay special attention to any problem areas or discomfort you experience in the home.

Utility bill analysis

Determine usage patterns and look for ways to reduce looking at your electric and gas (or oil or propane) consumption.

Attic and Crawlspace Inspection w/GoPro Camera

Want to see what’s going on in your attic but don’t want to crawl around the rafters?  Our home energy auditors place GoPro cameras on their head so you can see the action live on a tablet comfortably downstairs. We will look for sources of air loss, measure current insulation levels, examine vapor barrier, examine ductwork, establish the proper pressure/thermal boundary and note any other issues that may be affecting your homes performance.

Combustion safety testing

Did you know that by turning on the kitchen fan your water heater might backdraft? Combustion safety is a critical component of a HEA. If you have combustion equipment in the home, our auditors will check the CO levels, efficiency, drafting and look for gas leaks. We find a combustion safety problem on approximately 25% on the homes we test.

Thermal imaging of home

Our auditors use thermal imaging cameras that display inefficiencies throughout the home. The cameras allow us to visibly show heat differences. What we often find are areas of missing insulation, major air leaks and duct leakage in the home.

These cameras also perform temperature calculations, which are then put into our modeling software to see how much energy your home is losing.

Blower door test

The blower door test is like a 20 MPH wind hitting the home in all directions at once. This allows us to see where air is coming into the home and how much air is leaving the home through penetrations that go outside. You will feel all of the places that the air you pay to put into the home is going.

Equipment inspection

We examine the overall condition of your heating, ventilation, air conditioning and water heater equipment.

Test out

Should you decide to move forward with an upgrade, we come back to re-measure your energy efficiency to measure the effect of the changes. We save homeowners an average of 21% on their energy use.

Watch our video

In this 5-minute video, follow our Home Energy Auditor Cory as he explores and tests a home during a Home Energy Audit.

FAQ

  • What is meant by "home performance"

    Home Performance looks at existing homes in a completely new way.  Instead of insulating each component of the home, home performance looks at the home as a system.  By looking at the home as a system we can understand why certain things are happening and how they can be fixed.  You wouldn’t buy a hybrid car with a gas leak, right? Well it really doesn’t make sense to upgrade to a high efficiency furnace if that efficient air just leaves the home through air leaks. It makes sense to first seal, then replace the furnace. By using home performance practices our team will be able to ensure that you can choose the improvements that will help your home perform better as a system.

  • What is BPI and why use a BPI Certified Auditor?

    The Building Performance Institute (BPI)  has created a set of nationally recognized standards for these assessments and certifies auditors. The program uses the “house as a system” approach to improving the energy performance of homes. This approach has been proven to reduce home utility bills. The benefit of this testing is that it ensures that energy audit recommendations are based on a particular home’s individual design and components.

  • Where is air most likely to leak in my home?

    The obvious places for air leakage are windows and doors, but you might be surprised how much air and heat can leak from can lights, skylights, bathroom fans, and electrical penetrations. As hot air rises it pushes out of these openings and in comes cold air. This makes your house less comfortable and/or makes your furnace work harder (and less cost efficiently) to provide heat.

  • How do I know I will get the energy savings promised?

    If you choose to use Washington Energy Services to complete your energy upgrades as recommended by the audit, we will retest your home and review the data to ensure that the measures are creating the energy use changes they are supposed to.

  • Are there utility rebates for home energy audits?

    Yes, we participate in the Seattle City Light home energy audit program and PSE’s Home Performance with EnergyStar program. PSE offers up to $3500 in rebates for customers who have a full Home Performance with EnergyStar Audit and complete a minimum of three recommended upgrades. And even if you don’t wish to do three, you can still receive the rebates for the individual products your choose. For Seattle City Light, you will need to apply with them first and get a coupon for an audit; then give us a call and we can honor it. Here is the link on the Seattle City Light website to sign up.

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