Energy Audit: What it is and why you need to do one

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These days it is very important to be as energy efficient as possible. Many people have made adjustments to their lifestyles to reduce their carbon footprint. They have put a lot of effort into making a positive impact, but is that effort working? The only way to know is to do an energy audit. 

An energy audit is an investigation into how you use energy to see if there are ways that you can be even more efficient when it comes to using fewer resources. This is done by a team of experts who can evaluate your usage and either find areas where you can improve or say that you are already doing great. In this article, we will go over what an energy audit entails.

The evaluation

The first step is to have a team of experts from a company such as Attic Pros come in and do a walk-through. They will keep an eye out for potential problem areas. There are some likely culprits that could be derailing your energy reduction efforts. 

The first place they will look is in the attic. They will try to see if the insulation is enough in terms of coverage and also the type used to be able to keep your heat in the house and the cold out. 

HVAC units are notorious energy hogs and can be very inefficient. They will check out the type of unit that you have and how it is being used to evaluate if you need to make any changes. 

Air tightness test

Your house likely has a lot more holes in it than you realize. It isn’t a bad thing to have some airflow in the house as you don’t want to have mold problems since the house needs good circulation to prevent it. 

However, a test needs to be done to see how much air is getting into and out of your house that could be causing you to need far more resources to keep it warm or cool. This test will pump air into your house to see what the pressure is like and see if there is a significant amount of air moving out of the house. 

Your doors will be sealed and then a large pan will be brought in and turned on. The force of the air will pressurize the building and reveal cracks and leaks where the air gets out. 

Then they will give you recommendations to seal those cracks so you can keep the house at the right temperature without using too much energy. 

Can you do it yourself?

You can do a less intense version of the audit yourself by checking for air leaks in the house. Start by inspecting the windows and doors using a feather to see if the air is passing through. Check out your attic space looking for areas where there is no insulation coverage. Lastly, upgrade any old appliances so you can save energy.

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