Home energy evaluation and stove usage?

[FPX Dude]

Local electric co. (SMUD) is doing a home energy evaluation on my house next week. It's a $99 assessment where they cover all aspects of heating/cooling and do some kind of "pressure test" to test for leaks, etc. Has anyone done this (?anywhere?) and did they have any recommendations for stove usage after such an eval?

 

[tickbitty]

I would do it in a minute if offered, but I need some insulation in my house, etc that I want input on. I posted about it in the DIY forum once, search for something like "energy assessment" and it should come up. Around here nobody is offering them for a reasonable price like that.

 

[laynes69]

We had a free energy audit done from the local electric co-op. It's a very helpful tool to find some trouble spots in the home. Since we had ours, I sealed the areas that had high air infiltration or most of them. Fast forward to this year, there's a night and day difference in the comfort of the home. Also we should see a decent drop in wood usage.

 

[burnt03]

We had a free energy audit done from the local electric co-op. It's a very helpful tool to find some trouble spots in the home. Since we had ours, I sealed the areas that had high air infiltration or most of them. Fast forward to this year, there's a night and day difference in the comfort of the home. Also we should see a decent drop in wood usage.

Which spots showed the highest infiltration problems?

 

[egclassic]

Our energy provider has been offering these for a couple of years. The only problem is, they want to do them during the day while I'm at work, limited Saturday appointments. I did get on the Saturday list, but have not heard back yet.
I consider myself pretty good at detecting problem areas for weatherization, but what I really need is the apparatus that attaches to the front door and creates a vacuum (negative pressure) in the house. I already have a "contraption" to put liquid smoke in and go around the house (outside) to detect air infiltration. I was thinking about trying to use the new whole house fan I installed this spring to create the negative pressure I need for the smoke test. If all the windows/doors are closed and the fan is turned on, when I open an out-swing door, the negative pressure from the fan pulls the door closed fairly forcefully.

 

[laynes69]

For us the basement is a killer, as well as a couple of half bare rooms with lathe showing. We took care of half the attic before the audit. I found 32 open interior wall cavities equal to a 6'+ diameter hole. All top plates, electrical and duct penetrations were sealed in the attic, then 12" placed on top of the 3" of cellulose. It's going to take spray foam to tackle the basement. The living space had leaks behind paneling, around base moldings, electric outlets etc. There's still a decent room for improvement, but so far it's a night and day difference. Our home is 150+ years old and I was floored when they told us a new home down the road had higher I filtration levels. Currently we are around .8 natural air changes an hour.

 

[laynes69]

I've heard of some placing the smoke machines in a house and checking outside. It's easier to reverse a few box fans in the windows. Walk around with a wet hand, they will be detected quickly. In our audit there were places I thought were leaky and they were tight. It's the places I didnt expect. It takes out the guess work, if it's cooler out a infrared cam is the ticket.

 

[egclassic]

For us the basement is a killer, as well as a couple of half bare rooms with lathe showing. We took care of half the attic before the audit. I found 32 open interior wall cavities equal to a 6'+ diameter hole. All top plates, electrical and duct penetrations were sealed in the attic, then 12" placed on top of the 3" of cellulose. It's going to take spray foam to tackle the basement. The living space had leaks behind paneling, around base moldings, electric outlets etc. There's still a decent room for improvement, but so far it's a night and day difference. Our home is 150+ years old and I was floored when they told us a new home down the road had higher I filtration levels. Currently we are around .8 natural air changes an hour.

During winter time, one way to tell if you have enough insulation in the attic or excessive heat leakage from the living space is to look at the roof after a snowfall.
If there are melted spots, then you have heat leaking into the attic. It is amazing how many houses I see that have splotches of areas that the shingles are showing, or the entire ridge is exposed and the rest of the roof is covered with snow. Most Cape cod types houses retain no snow on the roof, not enough room for the required r-value.
I had a couple of spots where the snow would melt, so I blew in another 6" of insulation last fall. No spots now.

 

[Treacherous]

I've had pretty good luck with this thermal leak detector.

http://www.blackanddecker.com/power-tools/TLD100.aspx

 

[Jaugust124]

Had one done back in August. Didn't cost a dime due to NYS program that was being offered. Took about 4 hours to complete. As someone else mentioned, there is a thread over in the DIY forum. The big issues that came up for us were the amount of insulation in the house and doing some air sealing. Its a 1971 colonial with original windows w/storms and about an R-30 in the attic. About 2 weeks after the evaluation we were sent a complete list of recommendations and costs to get everything taken care of. The total was just about $9000, but there would be a 10% rebate if we had the work done by a certified installer.
I really don't want to spend $9000, so I am doing what I feel comfortable tackling little by little, such as insulating the receptacles, hot water pipes in the basement, air sealing the rim joist, and so on. I keep going back and forth about the whole attic thing. Lowes and HD have R-30 rolls of unfaced fiberglass for about $10 a roll. I could put that in the attic to make it an R-60. Don't know if that will get done this year or not. I have some Lowe's coupons, so I am thinking about doing it. I also want to insulate the attached garage wall with 1" rigid foam. It will have an added R-value of about 6ish as I recall.

As far as stove usage is concerned, there is a note at the bottom of the energy audit we received that states, "As you use wood for supplementary heat the savings for this improvement in the report are somewhat exaggerated."
The savings, if we had all the work done is projected to be $1070 annually. So, without wood heat, there would be an approximately 8 year payback. I don't heat 24/7 with wood. Last year was my first year burning and I figure I shaved about 1/3 off my winter heating expenses going through only 1-1/2 cords. So obviously, heating with wood will cut down on your yearly savings and make for a longer payback at least as far as the energy audit is concerned. In the end, I'm glad I had it done and I highly recommend it. Good luck!

 

[woodchip]

During winter time, one way to tell if you have enough insulation in the attic or excessive heat leakage from the living space is to look at the roof after a snowfall.

Round here, the seagulls all sit in lines on the roofs of uninsulated houses.

Although since we had the woodburner installed we have noticed a few cosying up on ours too..... ;-)

 

[peakbagger]

When the auditor did a recent test on my house, she asked that the woodstove be out and the damper closed. They shoot for a target infiltration rate, which is suspect is set so that there is adequate air leakage so stoves and furnaces still work without external venting. For someone going for a zero energy house, that is too loose but unless you have an air to air heat exchanger, too tight is a bad thing. I plan to have the work recomended for the audit done in a month and will see how much it impacts my heating equipment. Worse case is I will hook up and outdoor air source and switch it open when the equipmentis running.