Let’s start with a well-known fact: the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that the average American household spends roughly $2,060 per year on energy bills. Your home’s output from the money you invest includes heat, the energy that powers your appliances, and the lighting in your rooms. At the same time, some aspects of homeownership are entirely out of a homeowner’s control, such as the fuel you use to power your home (electricity, oil, gas, or even wood in your fireplace) and the price you pay the utility company to provide it.
You can take steps to improve the energy efficiency of your home. You can start to notice significant changes where it matters, namely in your monthly energy bills, by taking steps to make the parts of your home that are under your control more energy-conscious. This article talks about the energy efficiency Certified Home Inspection in Virginia and everything you need to know about it.
Reason To Have An Energy Efficiency Home Inspection
A quick and easy energy home inspection could help you save a tonne of money, and who wouldn’t want that? An energy-efficiency home inspection in Virginia would be useful in this situation. You may either perform this kind of home inspection yourself or hire a specialist to perform an energy audit on your house. Making your house more energy-efficient is the objective in either case. You can find out how to get there from an auditor by asking them what actions you should follow.
How a Professional Auditor Conducts an Energy Efficiency Inspection
Depending on the size of the house, professional energy audits can take as little as an hour or as many as four hours to perform. You may anticipate the inspector to look into every nook and cranny of your house, beginning with a review of the outside. In the attic, they will check the insulation, electrical wiring, and any draughts after inspecting the windows, walls, and any leaks.
The inspection will look at the weather stripping around your windows and doors and suggest upgrades that are inexpensive and simple to undertake on your own. To reduce your energy expenditures, you can make a simple adjustment by weather-stripping your doors and windows.
Your furnace and water heater will be examined by a professional who will note whether any needs to be upgraded for the best energy efficiency. The auditor will examine the ducts in your basement to look for any probable places where leaks and heat loss are occurring. Upgrading your water heater or furnace will cost a lot of money.
Although these improvements will undoubtedly increase your home’s energy efficiency, they come at a hefty price when moving on with the subsequent measures to make your home more energy efficient; keep these items in mind.
The lighting in your house is another thing the inspector examines. CFLs, or compact fluorescent lights, are another way to save money. You may easily save your energy expenditures by upgrading from conventional incandescent light bulbs to light-emitting diodes, or LEDs as they are more popularly known.
Blower Test
For energy efficiency, a Professional Home Inspection in Stafford, VA, will involve some testing. One of these tests, the blower test, uses a blower door as part of the apparatus. Your home will be completely sealed up during the blower test so the inspector can see whether and where air leaks occur.
A fan in the blower door shroud draws out the inside air, reducing the pressure in your home. The inspector marks the areas of the house where heat loss, air penetration, and draughts are occurring using smoke pencils or a thermography scanner.
Thermography Scan
A thermography scanner will be used by the inspector to gauge the surface temperatures of various parts of the home. This high-tech tool, which is often a camera or a video camera, makes the infrared spectrum, which is normally invisible to the human eye, visible. The thermography scan may be carried out independently of the blower test or with it.
A thermography scan aims to evaluate the effectiveness and coverage of your home’s insulation. The scanner can determine whether walls, corners, windows, and other areas have cooler temperatures, which may indicate inadequate or nonexistent insulation leading to air leaks and the energy inefficiency of your home.
Many homeowners are unaware that certain areas of their homes lack the crucial insulation that would encourage maximum energy efficiency because they lack access to the equipment and information that a thermography scan may offer. You may reduce your monthly energy costs with a straightforward, inexpensive improvement.
Next Steps to Energy Efficiency
After a professional assessment or one you’ve performed yourself, there are actions you can take on your own to help make your home more energy efficient. You can now take the following steps when an inspector (or you, if you performed a DIY assessment) has identified the issue areas in your property.
Sealing Leaks
One of the most frequent concerns in a home with energy efficiency issues is leaks. The most common places for air leaks to occur are where there are walls, ceilings, doors, windows, and electrical outlets. You are pouring heat—and money—out of these cramped locations since they are prone to leaks and energy loss. You can inexpensively seal them with a suitable weather stripping kit from your neighborhood hardware shop, the appropriate caulking, or, if necessary, by purchasing rolls of insulation to pad draughty portions of your home like the attic or underground spaces.
Light Bulbs
The previously stated light bulbs are another simple, inexpensive solution. Make life simple by switching out old incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient LEDs whenever they run out of power. You may slowly alter your home using this method while seeing your electric cost drop.
Appliances
Unbeknownst to you, outdated appliances are significantly increasing your energy costs. Any homeowner cannot afford to upgrade and replace them at once because doing so would be expensive. However, replacing just one appliance, such as a fridge, dishwasher, or freezer, with an Energy Star-certified one can help you save hundreds of dollars annually. That investment is more than worthwhile, given the amount you would save.
Being proactive is key to becoming energy efficient. Even though a do-it-yourself inspection is a step in the right direction, having a professional energy-efficiency certified home inspection in Stafford, VA, is the best way to fully discover which home components need attention, replacement, or upgrading. An expert will be able to pinpoint precisely where heat and energy loss are happening, and by making improvements to your home, you can reduce your energy costs by 5% to 30%.
Making a home more energy efficient can seem intimidating to many homeowners, but even the most minor changes can significantly impact your monthly power bill. You can save money every year by using even the tiniest LED light bulb, putting weather stripping to your doors, or getting an Energy Star dishwasher. An energy-efficiency house inspection should be your first move toward greater energy efficiency.