Home Energy Audit in Oaks, PA – What you need to know
The first step to a more energy-efficient home in Oaks, PA is getting a Home Energy Audit. This process provides homeowners with the information necessary to make informed upgrades, avoid potential complications, and greatly improve living conditions.
Understanding how energy moves through your home requires inspecting the building envelope and ductwork, crucial steps for reducing your energy footprint. As HVAC systems account for an estimated 40% of household energy usage, they often become the primary emphasis, particularly in older dwellings where efficiency gains are most notable.
When it’s time to get a home energy audit in Oaks, PA
If your energy bills have been higher than expected or keep on rising, it might indicate the need for a home energy audit. A detailed home energy audit in Oaks, PA will explore your home’s energy efficiency, assessing areas like insulation, HVAC system, and more.
What are the benefits of conducting a home energy audit?
A home energy audit can also make your home a lot more comfortable. The comfort enhancement comes from the improved operation of your heating and cooling systems and from ensuring that the insulation in your home is up to standard. This results in the elimination of cold and hot spots or the uncontrollable drafts that often afflict older homes equipped with outdated systems.
You can also find problems early before they become more expensive and damaging to your home. Leaking ducts can introduce excess moisture, which could cause water damage. The most concerning aspect is that, without an inspection, issues remain undetected until they escalate into significant problems.
You can find duct leakages that are notorious for spreading toxic mold and other allergens throughout your home. The time and cost spent on an energy audit should be seen as a significant investment that protects your home’s value and the people living in it.
A home energy auditor will give you the full picture behind your home’s energy efficiencies. To fully examine every part of your home, you must trust in the expertise of professionals trained to use an assortment of high-tech equipment. It’s nearly impossible to find energy inefficiencies in your home without the expertise and the expensive tools specifically used for conducting audits.
Exploring the Unknown: What’s Behind Your Walls?
Thermal imaging, a key feature of a typical energy audit, scans your walls to identify any hotspots, suggesting air leaks and potential chances to enhance energy savings. Their role in checking your home’s insulation is critical. Cold spots could indicate the presence of cracks, which let in cold air and cause your HVAC system to operate more than necessary. The home energy auditor in Oaks, PA will carry out a thorough physical inspection of your property, checking the windows, doors, and additional areas for effective sealing.
What is a blower door and duct leakage test?
A blower door test can tell you everything you need to know about air exchanges in your home. By setting your home’s pressure to 50 pascals below the outside pressure, it draws air through leaks, thereby enabling the calculation of the volume of untreated air entering the home.
A duct leakage test checks your ductwork, instead of your building envelope. Installing a duct blaster on an HVAC unit or a main return and sealing off the remainder of the system provides an enclosed space for accurately measuring ductwork leakages.
Conducting a home energy audit for an older home
If you have an older home in Oaks, PA, there’s a high chance there are energy inefficiencies like gaps in your insulation and broken seals. In a typical home energy audit, assessing the effectiveness of your attic’s insulation and considering better alternatives for energy bill savings is a key component.
WIn an older property, accurately identifying energy loss areas can be difficult. By getting a home energy audit in Oaks, PA, you can uncover and isolate these issues, focusing your energy improvement efforts in the areas that need it the most. This is another strategy by which auditing your home contributes to cost savings.
What do you do after your home energy audit?
The conclusion of your home energy audit in Oaks, PA will equip you with knowledge in three areas: assessing your home’s energy efficiency, identifying areas for improvement, and determining the best solutions for these issues. In the process of improving your home, this information will serve as a key resource to inform your choices, helping you secure the most favorable scenarios with advice from experts.
The energy audit will uncover potential repairs and improvements for your home, with the auditor providing a clear explanation of the costs for each. You could also be entitled to benefits and incentives that promote energy efficiency in your home, alleviating the financial burden associated with these improvements.
The process of a home energy audit?
The diagnostic tools we use for a home energy audit are a blower door test and a thermal imager. It’s usually hard to spot leaks, but a blower door test, which depressurizes your home, will cause outside air to enter more assertively, highlighting these leaky spots. Air infiltration from leaky windows and doors will be palpable. We then proceed with a thermal imaging walkthrough to measure temperature discrepancies throughout the home. This method enables us to rapidly uncover issues in the home and provide recommendations for fixing them. Although a home energy audit is conducted in roughly two hours, the positive outcomes can extend throughout the homeowner’s lifetime.
How much does a home energy audit cost?
For $390, we provide a comprehensive package that includes using a blower door to depressurize your home, conducting a thermal image inspection, pinpointing problem areas, and offering improvement suggestions.
For an additional fee of $250, a duct leakage test can be included in your audit.
Get your home energy audit now
If you need a home energy audit, your search is over! Local Energy Audits is a veteran-owned business that takes pride in offering customers quality care and full-service home energy inspections. Call us during our regular business hours or contact us online to schedule your appointment. We’d be delighted to enlighten you about the potential benefits of a home energy audit and the process it involves for your home.
Local Energy Audits: Your Building Efficiency Ally