Comprehensive Home Energy Evaluation

Contact us to schedule your Comprehensive Home Energy Audit today.

Our experience at Home Energy Raters of Illinois, LLC. has taught us that proper information and analysis coupled with existing available technologies will save energy, save money, increase occupant comfort, and increase occupant safety. Our goal is to always adhere to this tenet.

It is important to us that you, our client, understand a few basic rules of energy efficiency, in order that you can appreciate the importance of the individual steps which are required to produce an accurate and reliable home energy audit and rating. This is the starting point in designing your home energy improvement plan.

Summary of services included in our Comprehensive Home Energy Audit:

By far the average home uses the bulk of its energy requirements for climate control (heating and air conditioning). Heat (or cooling) energy which escapes through the building shell is gone forever, and must be repurchased from the utility companies. This energy leaves your home in one of two important ways:

By thermal conduction through the building materials (inadequate R-value), and
By the heat content of air that escapes through holes, gaps, cracks, leaking ductwork, etc.

Usually the cheapest and most environmentally responsible upgrades to make to a home are those that improve its thermal boundary. (Air sealing and increasing the thermal R-value of the surfaces that come into contact with the outside.) In order to gain a complete definition of the thermal boundary of your home, we undertake the following steps:

Measure, define, and evaluate each surface of your home that comes into contact with ambient weather conditions. In this regard we measure the wall area along with its R-value, the doors and windows, including their solar heat gain coefficients, R-values, and sun shading characteristics; each ceiling surface which comes into contact with an unconditioned area, including its construction type and R-value; each floor surface and foundation wall which comes into contact with external conditions, its construction material, depth below grade (if applicable), and its R-value.
In order to identify any anomalous problem areas, we conduct a thermal scan of all walls and ceilings. This can include missing, damp, or poorly installed insulation.

Identifying Air Leakage:

Having gained a complete and accurate picture of your building shell, we input the data into a computer modeling analysis program. We then turn our attention to air leakage (the second way in which valuable energy leaves your home) by:

Conducting a blower door test of your home. We depressurize your home which forces outside air into the home through any gaps, pathways, holes, etc. The home is rescanned thermally at this point with the house depressurized. This identifies any areas where outside air is entering/leaving your home, carrying with it valuable energy.
Conducting a duct leakage test if indicated. This test often identifies large areas of energy waste if your home has ductwork which is located in an unconditioned area such as an attic or a crawlspace. These repairs, if required, can be very inexpensive and save massive amounts of energy.
The results of these tests are quantified and entered into the analysis program.

Heating and Cooling Evaluation:

We then turn our attention to the condition, efficiency, and size of your heating and cooling equipment, hot water heater, and other appliances. After identification and evaluation, these results are entered into the software. We conduct a flue gas analysis to evaluate burn efficiency and relative state of repair of your heating plant and hot water heater.

Appliance Safety Check:

Finally we conduct an appliance safety check of your home. This includes carbon monoxide monitoring, making sure that the atmospheric pressure levels in your home are at a safe level to prevent appliance flame rollout or chimney/flue back drafting. We then conduct a test for natural gas leakage at all accessible combustion appliances and piping.

This completes the on-site portion of your audit, rating, and improvement plan. The site visit will have taken approximately three to four hours.

Your Comprehensive Home Energy Audit Report and Home Improvement Plan will be delivered in approximately 1 week.

Home Energy Audit After approximately one week, you will receive a written report, with a list (in order of importance) of the cost-effective energy upgrade recommendations. This list can be tailored to your budget, or can be open-ended. Each listed upgrade will be accompanied by an estimated cost of performing the upgrade along with the energy savings to be gained, and a payback period. In some instances, upgrades should be retested upon completion. If upgrades of this type are made, we will revisit your home free of charge once to retest, thus insuring the efficacy and safety of the work that was performed. As a further service, we will provide you with a list of governmental (state, federal, or local) or utility company financial assistance programs under which your upgrades may qualify. If you are seeking energy improvement financing for your improvements, we will complete all HUD or VA forms which may be required by your bank. (See our list of extra charges for this.)

The completed report will provide you with an accurate and scientifically derived picture of the relative energy efficiency of your home, both as-is, and as-improved. You will rest assured that your energy improvement project is being undertaken in an intelligent systematic way, and that you are not wasting money on making improvements that are not needed or that will not yield the anticipated results.