What to Expect from a Maryland Home Energy Audit

A comprehensive home energy audit in Maryland can guide you to greater comfort and set a clear path for your next home improvement project. 

We hear about too many home energy audits that fall short on the overall customer experience.  A home energy audit should be interactive and enlightening.  It should uncover ways in which you can improve comfort, energy efficiency and indoor air quality and incorporate the best practices and techniques when planning new projects around the house.

If you had an home energy audit or plan to get one, you should be able to identify with several if not all of the following take-aways:

• The technician explained the home energy audit process
• You will know how much insulation you have and how much you need
• The technician answered all of your questions
• The technician showed you something that you did not realize about your home
• Parts of the audit were interactive
• You part ways with your auditor feeling smarter about your home and more in control
• A clear priority list begins to emerge with both wants and needs addressed
• At least one do-it-yourself tip that will make an immediate impact on your energy usage/comfort
• You remember the blower door test!
• You felt a leakage point somewhere inside your house
• Your home was left in the same way it was prior to the auditor arriving!

These are all signs that you have had an excellent home energy audit in Maryland!

It is no surprise that with today's "plug and play" culture, there are many things around the house that we assume are working properly.  A home energy audit assesses the house as a complete system and it illuminates things that occupants of the home may not pay a lot of attention to, but they are actually quite important.

Hidden Leakage Locations
Let's take the bathroom exhaust fan as an example.  A home energy audit in Maryland includes looking at the home's overall ventilation and indoor air quality.  The fan in this photo from an actual Maryland audit is located in an upstairs bathroom.  A properly installed fan must have a duct connected to it for the air to be properly moved to the "outdoors".  Not only does an improperly vented fan cause moisture build-up in the attic, the fan also proved to be a gateway from the attic to inside of the house wreaking havoc on the energy bill and bathroom comfort. 

A home energy audit will uncover this problem when it exists in a home.  Often times, for very little investment, a problem like this can be fixed saving you ten times as much as you spend for the fix. 

A home energy audit is great because not only does it help identify ways to save energy and evaluate indoor air quality but it also provides testing to help identify health or safety issues around a Maryland home.

Gas Leakage Testing
One example of a health and safety test that can be a big help to unsuspecting homeowners that have gas appliances is gas leakage testing.  Many gas appliances use older gas line connections that have not been touched or inspected in as many as fifty years!  A gas leakage test can help uncover gas leakage points that are not only costly, but also potentially dangerous as well.

Take look at this detected and confirmed gas leak during a home energy audit in Maryland. 

Look for the rising bubbles confirming there is a leak.

Combustion Safety
A home environment is subject to many different dynamics including pressure.  Pressure inside a home varies from house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood.  When a combustion appliance, such as a hot water heater or furnace is running, the conditions in the house could change the way the appliance runs.  If the change is too much for the system, it could cause a hazardous situation inside the home to unsuspecting inhabitants.  

Combustion safety testing for gas fueled houses is a key benefit of a comprehensive home energy audit in the state of Maryland.  The house is tested in the worst possible conditions so that the homeowner can feel comfortable and confident when using appliances during normal conditions.

Additionally, a home energy auditor is checking for CO (Carbon Monoxide) on all floors of the home during the audit for any irregular readings as well as at the combustible appliances.

Another important part of a comprehensive home energy audit in Maryland is having the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) inspected by a trained and certified building analyst.  Properly identifying where the supply and return plenum are located in relation to the rest of the home are important in determining possible recommendations for improvements.  

Venting systems are visually assessed as other systems, such as the hot water heater are tested for proper ventilation and flue configuration.  Ducts and chimneys are visually assessed for the correct pitch and for any holes or cracks in the ducts..

Prioritized repairs can be recommended if any of the tests performed yield less than passing results.  

Duct Leakage & Insulation
HVAC duct leakage can account for as much as 30% of a residential building's energy waste in the state of Maryland so any opportunity to properly seal joints, holes and other cracks/crevices in the air ducts are important for an energy auditor to identify.  A comprehensive home energy audit will include an HVAC duct inspection to identify leakage locations and prescribe treatment. 

A home energy audit will include a thorough investigation of the entire "envelope" of your Maryland home.  This means that the auditor will inspect the insulation effectiveness in all of the areas around the home where insulation is required.  During that process, ideas will be developed about cost effective ways to improve the situation wherever an opportunity presents.

A highly trained auditor will appropriately describe the techniques in which improvements to the thermal boundary will be made.  An energy auditor will also consider the whole-house approach to offering solutions including considering attic ventilation and what current system is in place, how the system could be improved and in some cases how the system can be integrated into the overall solution if none presently exists.

Most homes have some form of a thermal boundary in place.  Insulation usually exists in some form in all of the important places, however more than 50% of the homes in Maryland are insufficiently insulated. 

Air Barrier Assessment
Critical to a properly conducted home energy audit is an investigation for an air barrier or pressure boundary.  A properly installed pressure boundary typically only exists in about ten percent of the homes in Maryland - therefore there is a very good chance you do not have an air barrier.  Insulation is not nearly as effective as it states on the package unless there is an air barrier in place.  It is critical to stop the flow of air for insulation to work properly.  An auditor can take note of this during the inspecting and recommend ways to introduce an air barrier to the existing insulation and before adding any new insualtion.

Proper Air Sealing

Air barriers throughout a house are tested during a blower door test and it is not uncommon for many of them to fail in Maryland residential buildings.  The higher the measurement of the airflow the sensor in the blower door fan reads, the larger the leakage area around the house. 

For every cubic foot of air that leaves the house through the fan at the door during a blower door test a cubic foot of air replaces it from all of the holes and cracks in the foundation, walls, ceiling, inefficient windows and doors as well as many other places around the home that you may not be aware are connected to the outside. Once the test is running and the sensor is connected to the meter for pressure and air flow readings, it is best to walk around the home with an energy auditor and perform a physical inspection to find air leakage and determine the most effective treatment for the problem. 

A blower door test as part of a comprehensive energy audit is the "icing on the cake".