Energy audits boast a multitude of benefits: in addition to providing a roadmap for greater energy efficiency, they help you understand how your house works.
An energy audit is a fundamental first step toward reducing utility bills in a big way. By analyzing a building’s major components including the building envelope, combustion equipment, chimneys, attics, crawlspaces and more, as well as the interrelationship of these various components, a comprehensive energy audit provides a big picture overview of how a building works.
This is effective for reducing utility bills, because sources or air leakage and heat transmission are located with precision so they can be eradicated cost-effectively.
But this isn’t the only benefit of a comprehensive energy audit. Additionally, an audit puts your home, residential property or commercial property, or business on the path to:
Greater Comfort.
Energy efficiency and comfort go hand in hand. Improving your building envelope by air sealing and increasing insulation; installing window films and shades and radiant barriers, and high efficiency heating and cooling systems means a more comfortable home for a lower operating cost. Improving the performance of your home with efficiency upgrades also means more evenly distributed heat throughout the home — so you don’t have to worry about drafts, or rooms that are hot or cold.
Improved Indoor Air Quality.
Poor indoor air quality can contribute to allergies, asthma, and more serious long term health problems. Caused by everything from pet dander to mold spores, from cigarette smoke to toxins from common building products, and compounded by insufficient ventilation, poor indoor air quality presents a potentially serious health threat. During a whole house energy audit, building science experts analyze your home’s ventilation to assess whether it’s adequate — and what can be done to increase the amount of fresh air entering your home, and improve your home’s air quality for you and your family.
Better Health & Safety.
Related to indoor air quality is the larger issue of health and safety in the home. Could your combustion equipment be backdrafting? Does your home have radon? Are dangerous carbon monoxide fumes from your attached garage entering your home through air leaks? These are all questions that a qualified whole-house energy auditor like those on the 1st Choice Energy team are trained to answer.
Greater Building Durability.
One of the core principles of the whole-house building science approach to energy efficiency is to promote building longevity and durability. After all, a building is neither energy efficient nor cost-effective if it’s constructed poorly and fails before its time. By controlling moisture infiltration from the outside of the home by improving the building envelope, and moisture build-up from the interior of the building by air sealing the building envelope and adding adequate ventilation and moisture control strategies, building science best practices can ensure greater durability. The audit is the first step in this process.
Higher Resale Value.
In an era of increasing energy prices, volatility in the energy markets and increasing concern about man-made climate change and the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to it, energy efficient buildings are enjoying an increased demand in the otherwise slouching housing market. Investing in energy efficiency improvements will ensure that your home fetches a higher resale value down the road.
