Efficiency Audit

[hiker88]

Good morning everyone,

I have a efficiency audit scheduled for next weekend (2/11/2012). The gentleman comes very well recommended. This afternoon I'm creating an access hatch to my "attic" for the home inspection part of the audit. He's also going to do thermal imaging, heat loss calculation and the over pressure test. He says about 3-4 hours for the initial visit and then about an hour visit after that to go over results\ recommendations.

I'm just wondering if there are any questions I should ask him etc. Any recommendations are appreciated. Thank you.

 

[DaveBP]

I would like to know how he interprets the blower-door test in terms of proportion of total heat loss.

In other words, is it possible to give a good estimate of what proportion of the total heat loss of the building is due to air leaking out of the building and what proportion is due to heat conduction out of the walls and windows.

And does it change much under different outdoor temperatures and wind conditions?

 

[bigburner]

You can't hide from the blower door!! Ambient conditions are the only variable. The thing to ask is what to fix and to return and retest after the repairs, adding insulation to and attic is the only simple insulation upgrade, Which could be a % of infiltration depending what you have currently.

 

[ALASKAPF185]

When you say the gentleman comes highly recommended, I hope there are certs and licenses to back this up. Unfortunately in our area 1% of the auditors are actually energy auditors and only some of those are actually qualified. Most around here are just trying to spend the Obama money granted for the area and are cramming things were they are not needed. A group of hud homes recently were found to have 4' of attic insulation, yes thats feet not inches. Good Luck and hope you have a great one and good info to digest. The IR camera is the truth detector. A good sign of a competent inspector.

 

[bernard]

this past spring i had an energy audit done the company was reffered by the effiency maine program.i think he did a very through job i recieved a report of the current conditions and recomenditations as to tighten things up . i did some of the work my self plus hired them to do the rest plus the program paid for 30 % of the bill. according to the test out report the house will use 37% less energy to heat i know this has not been the coldest winter but the house heats alot easer no more drafts and heat loss i heat with an eko-40 and storege. i think it was money well spent good luck. dave.

 

[hiker88]

I'm hoping to take advantage of the same program. I'm at least going to check it out. My concern is that my home seems pretty efficient already so I hope it works out.

I have a cheap oil burner that the contractor put in though. It's temperamental as hell, and I want to burn wood instead of oil anyway, and just keep the current oil as a backup instead of upgrading it. I'm hoping to use the efficiency Maine program to help me get the boiler and storage.

The guy I'm using for my audit was actually recommended by the company I'd be getting the wood boiler through. They say this guy has worked with them before and is pretty reasonable (just passing along second hand info here - but the boiler company said some of the efficiency auditors (esp. those approved by Efficiency Maine, are pretty close-minded to anything but more insulation)). From what I understand, what the auditor says has a big impact of whether or not I can qualify, so we'll see. If it doesn't work out as far as the loan goes, that's OK, I'll at least have some hard numbers to work with as far as knowing heat load if by BB is properly sized and what size boiler to get, storage etc.

I finished my "attic" access yesterday and I was happy with what my untrained eye saw. It looks like a huge pink pillow up there. Two layers of bats (sp?) pushing maybe 20 inches or so of loft I would guess. The house was built in 2006 and we've never burned a lot of oil, but since I started learning about all this stuff in the last 6 months or so, I was kind of wondering what I might find up there.