How Stuff Works: How a home energy audit works
If you own your own home or pay for the energy used in a rental, you know that it is easy to spend a lot of money heating and cooling your space. Bills of several hundred dollars per month are not uncommon, especially in the winter. The money typical pays for electricity, natural gas and heating oil.
With the cost of energy rising, along with federal (energysavers.gov) and power-company programs to provide incentives, home energy audits have become one tool that home owners can use to cut energy costs and save big. Let’s take a look at how a home energy audit works.
One of the most effective tools in a home energy audit is thermographic imaging. Using a special temperature-sensitive camera, the operator can actually see changes in temperature. The camera needs a 15 to 20 degree temperature difference between the interior of the home and the outside air temperate. Then, when the operator points the camera at a wall, it is almost like looking at an x-ray of your home.
Every place in your walls, floors and ceiling that have poor insulation show up on the camera in bright colors that make problems easy to see. The cameras are so sensitive that they can see the wood hidden in the walls, because wood conducts heat at a different rate than the cavity on either side of the wood. With the latest cameras, even the inidual nails holding up the drywall become visible, because the metal …
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Good intro. When it comes down to it, the important thing about home energy audits is that they should be accurate and actionable. We’ve put together a short video highlighting some of the key elements to look for. http://greenhomesamerica.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/home-energy-audit-video/
Best,
Mike