Energy Audit

Nothing like neglecting the old "to do" list and starting right with the fresh stuff. Yesterday afternoon I had my energy audit performed. I set up my laptop at the kitchen table and actually got some work done at the same time, which I was very proud of. The energy audit took about 3 hours, and involved the auditor walking around the outside of the house and looking at every single room, closet, and corner of the house, taking notes and drawing up a floor plan. He measured every window and noted the location of every light switch. He poked around in the attic, he visited the garage. Then he set up a blower/sucker contraption to the front door, which Luna thought was very intriguing. It's a vinyl piece of material stretched over adjustable frame that fits within the door frame so it's airtight, or mostly. Must be pretty darn close to airtight, since that's the whole point. The vinyl has a special hole for a large fan (about 2.5 feet in diameter) that is hooked up to a computer, and basically it takes readings on how much air loss the house has when the fan is sucking air out of the house. The auditor performed the test and then left the fan on as we walked around the house, feeling all the drafty places where we've been essentially throwing money away by heating the outdoors. The fireplace could have knocked you over, the draft was so severe (not even the main chamber itself, but these weird vents on the side of the chimney). The light switches blow air, as do the electrical outlets. The attic door is like a (cold) hair dryer. All the windows, even the vinyl window in the bedroom that I thought was new. The light in the upstairs bathroom, which the auditor said probably wasn't even insulated. (Which means we've potentially been pumping hot, humid shower air up into the space above the ceiling and below the roof...not good.) It was quite astonishing to me how drafty it all is.

The audit cost $400, $325 of which is reimbursed by the state program. We'll end up with a report that lists potential energy saving improvements we could do to the house, and supposedly it will be ranked in order of cost effectiveness. Re-insulating the attic? Probably pretty high on the list. Increasing the thickness of the outside walls by pulling off the house siding and adding extra insulation and wood? Probably not too high on the list. The state program will reimburse up to $10,000 of improvements, so long as they're on the list and help our house get from it's current energy star rating (auditor said we might rank a 2 star out of 5) to a higher rating. I don't think that's going to be a problem. I think the problem will be deciding where to stop. Is this when we decide to re-do the second story, push out the wall that is currently over the middle of the garage, and add a real pitch to the roof? And re-do all the siding? If we decided to do that, it would obviously be more than $10,000, but we'd likely get $10,000 toward that work, and we'd be in construction mode anyway...that kind of thinking. I need to relax until this report shows up and then let my mind wander on all the possibilities, but it is certainly an exciting prospect nonetheless.

Don't worry, I'll keep you posted (har, har).