GREENEST ENGINEERING IN CHICAGO

Greenest Engineering Home Energy Audit - What are you waiting for?

Blower Door Test

 A key step to understanding how you use energy in your home is doing a home energy audit.  An energy audit usually means you walk through your home and analyze all the systems that impact how you use energy.  There are two ways to approach a home energy audit: finding a professional or doing your own.
 The U.S. DOE has a nice section related to doing your own home energy audit.  The main strategies they list for people doing their own home energy audits are finding air leaks, looking at insulation, inspecting HVAC equipment, and looking at lighting efficiency.  TheDailyGreen has a nice post on the DIY home energy audit that include a nice checklist to use as a guide (although it leaves off lighting!).
While you can learn a lot from doing your own home energy audit, you gain a lot more by having an energy audit done by a professional.  There are probably three things that a professional brings to the home energy audit that most people just can't do on their own:

• Experience - professionals have done this many, many times, so they know how to make the biggest impact
• Blower Door tests - equipment that measures how air flows through your home
• Thermographic Scan - equipment that shows where heat leaves your home (the high-tech home equivalent to the Black and Decker home leak detector
  

For obvious reasons it is a must that a professional energy auditor have the required experience, but you should question them if they dont have the second and third requirements.  In addition a professional home energy auditor will develop a detailed report for you detailing his/her findings.  While it's hard to verify, chances are a professional energy auditor will save you more money in energy savings than what  their services cost.  It's like a personal trainer; sure, you could do it yourself, but you'd benefit that much more from an expert!
Energy Circle, which is a site with very similar goals to Greenest Engineering, had a great blog related to the top ten lessons learned in doing energy audits.
An energy audit usually only takes a few hours and provides a great understanding of what you're doing well and what needs improvement.  I would recommend doing an energy audit once a year, if not more.  It is important to benchmark how you use energy so you will know how to improve.
If you aren't ready to hire a professional home energy auditor that's fine.  At least take a few moments and walk around your home while thinking about where your energy dollars go.  Energy audits are like a car inspection, they help you see how you can perform better, save more energy and save more money!