An audit you will welcome: It can save money

The word audit usually conjures up images of men in black carrying briefcases embossed with the dread I.R.S. logo. But not all audits are as scary, and some might result in the sound of more change jingling in your pockets.

When we interviewed Lilias Morrison about her LEED house, she mentioned another service her company was starting — home energy audits. Morrison calls her audit company OBX Energy Audits with the motto “Zap Killer Watts” a play on words to help homeowners zap kilowatt hours through energy efficiency.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a rating system for efficiency.

Brian Smith is the certified analyst for this arm of Real Escapes, and his credentials are from the Building Performance Institute (BPI) to perform energy audits. BPI is one of the leading certification programs in the country for energy audits and weatherization of homes, similar to LEED in its requirements. We found some communities, including San Francisco, that offer rebates to homeowners for energy audits only if the analyst is BPI certified.

Certification requires 70 hours of course work, a field test, a written exam, and an on-site audit with all results required to be produced within a two-hour time limit.

Morrison and Smith described the process as a holistic approach to improving a structure’s energy efficiency. Commercial and residential properties can be audited.

An example of a holistic approach might be if a homeowner needed to replace an existing heating/air conditioning unit. One might decide to purchase an expensive geo-thermal unit. If the house is allowing heat or air conditioning to escape, the owner will not realize the savings on their electric bill justifying the expense of more efficient HVAC (heating, ventilating, air conditioning) units.

For a typical 2,000-square -foot home, an audit costs about $350. The written report provides the owner with two levels, or phases, of improvements. Phase one includes much work homeowners can perform themselves, such as caulking windows, weather stripping doors and sealing other air leaks.

Using a small device that produces puffs of smoke, Smith demonstrated how much air loss occurs behind switch plates and electrical outlets on exterior walls.

Pointing an infrared device at ceilings shows recessed canister lighting such as “eyeball” flood lights producing an amazing, starburst display of heat loss. A blower test, where an exterior door is removed and a fan mounted on a temporary door, depressurizes the house and measures air flow loss.

The typical phase one improvements might cost homeowners $1,500 and they would usually recover their investment in three to five years.

The phase two report concentrates on more extensive areas of heat loss, particularly windows and doors. Most often, this phase is implemented when the owner is making repairs or simply wishes to improve the looks of the house.

If one is going to replace windows or doors, the audit report will lead the homeowner to choose the most energy-efficient products. Morrison estimated the cost for these improvements (for the same 2,000-square-foot home) to run $10,000 to $15,000 with a 10-year time line to recoup the costs, assuming the repairs were not required in the first place.

At the highest level– phase two is where replacing the HVAC system would come into play. While most homes built before 1995 can greatly benefit from improvements suggested by the audit, HVAC involves some decisions.

Many experts consider the most efficient system to be geo-thermal units. Geo-thermal is costly; a system can run $25,000. However, current state and federal tax credits can lop that bill in half, and those credits run until 2016.

But geo-thermal will save you pennies instead of dollars unless the structure is properly sealed. Otherwise, much of savings is escapes through window jambs, doors, floors, the roof and along exterior walls.

If tax credits bring the cost of a geo-thermal unit down $13,000 or so, the energy audit will provide the owner with a roadmap to obtaining the biggest bang for the geo-thermal buck. Here, it might make sense to replace those windows, improve ceiling and wall insulation and make all of those phase one repairs and improvements.

The most appealing aspect of the energy audit, apart from knowing where energy waste is occurring, are the options the audit provides. Homeowners can use the audits to make their own repairs, hire outside contractors, make small improvements or wholesale upgrades, and most importantly, when faced with a forced improvement (a failed HVAC system or new windows) make choices based on their budget while helping the planet.

For $350, that is one inexpensive insurance policy.

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Video highlights:

Brian Smith demonstrates the blower door test. This office space shows air escaping at more than twice the ideal rate.

The smoke test shows air leaks around outlets, doors and center window jambs. Smoke blowing in or taking off outside the window reveals a problem. Many of these repairs can be performed by the homeowner.

The infrared camera shows where air escapes. Any dark spots on the infrared screen shows a loss of inside air. It looks most dramatic on the yellow and red screens when aimed at the switch plate, but is noticeable along the entire length of the center window jamb as well as the corner walls and ceiling.

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