Home Energy Audit in Charlestown, MD – All you need to know

A Home Energy Audit serves as the foundation for improving your home’s energy efficiency in Charlestown, MD. It enables homeowners to acquire the knowledge for strategic home improvements, avoiding future problems, and significantly elevating comfort.

To grasp the energy workings of your home, initiating with the building envelope and ductwork inspection is critical for individuals aiming to reduce their energy footprint. Considering the fact that HVAC systems constitute approximately 40% of energy consumption in homes, they often become the central concern, particularly in older homes where the scope for efficiency improvements is most significant.

When it’s time to get a home energy audit in Charlestown, MD

Have your energy bills been unusually high or persistently increasing? It may be a signal that you should get a home energy audit. A home energy audit in Charlestown, MD will comprehensively evaluate your home’s energy efficiency by examining your insulation, HVAC system, and several other elements.

What are the benefits of conducting a home energy audit?

A home energy audit can also make your home a lot more comfortable. The audit enhances comfort by improving how well your heating and cooling systems work and by verifying that your home is properly insulated. Consequently, this eliminates the discomfort of cold and hot spots or the uncontrollable drafts that often plague older homes with outdated equipment.

You can also find problems early before they become more expensive and damaging to your home. Leakage from ducts may result in an overabundance of moisture, which can lead to water damage. The biggest issue is that without a thorough inspection, you wouldn’t realize there’s a problem until it becomes severe.

You can find duct leakages that are notorious for spreading toxic mold and other allergens throughout your home. The investment of time and cost in an energy audit is crucial for maintaining your home’s value and protecting your loved ones.

A home energy auditor will give you the full picture behind your home’s energy efficiencies. Conducting a deep assessment of your home necessitates relying on trained experts equipped with advanced technology. Without the necessary training and access to expensive auditing tools, identifying energy inefficiencies in your home is virtually impossible.

Exploring the Unknown: What’s Behind Your Walls?

The process of a standard energy audit includes using thermal imaging to analyze your walls for hotspots, which are telltale signs of air leakage and possible energy optimization opportunities. They are crucial for examining your home’s insulation; cold spots may signal cracks that allow cold air in, making your HVAC system work harder. Your home energy audit in Charlestown, MD includes a comprehensive physical inspection, where the auditor checks windows, doors, and other parts of your home for adequate seals.

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. By securing a duct blaster to an HVAC unit or main return and sealing the rest, an enclosed area is created, offering precise measurements of any leakages within the ductwork.

Conducting a home energy audit for an older home

If you have an older home in Charlestown, MD, there’s a high chance there are energy inefficiencies like gaps in your insulation and broken seals. Part of a standard home energy audit is to evaluate how well your attic is insulated and to suggest better insulation options that could lead to savings on your energy bills.

WDetecting the sources of energy waste in an older home can be a demanding task. With a home energy audit in Charlestown, MD, finding and isolating these problems becomes possible, enabling you to focus your efforts on the areas that matter the most. This demonstrates another avenue through which a home energy audit can reduce your expenses.

What do you do after your home energy audit?

Your home energy audit in Charlestown, MD will yield three significant insights: the energy efficiency rating of your home, the improvement-needed areas, and the top strategies for problem-solving. 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 might also access benefits and incentives for enhancing your home’s energy efficiency, thereby making the economic aspects of these improvements much more bearable.

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. Leaky areas are usually tough to identify, but a blower door test, by depressurizing your home, makes the entry of outside air more forceful and noticeable. The influx of air from leaky areas like windows and doors will be discernible. We complement this with a thermal imaging walkthrough to assess temperature differentials. By employing this strategy, we can efficiently locate issues in the home and recommend solutions to fix them. The investment of roughly two hours in a home energy audit can pay off with benefits that last a lifetime for the homeowner.

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.

Opt to include a duct leakage test with your audit for an extra charge of $250.

Get your home energy audit now

If you require 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’re at your service to elucidate how a home energy audit could serve you and to describe the process for your specific home situation.

Local Energy Audits: Your Building Efficiency Ally