Making an effort to save energy at home can lower your monthly utility bills, reduce your carbon footprint, and create a more comfortable living environment for your family. Many homeowners want to reap these rewards of living in an energy efficient home, but they aren’t sure where to start, so they turn to home energy experts for help.

Home energy experts are professionals that are trained to conduct home energy audits, which are assessments of how energy is consumed in a home. If you want to improve your home’s energy efficiency, getting a home energy audit is the first step. An audit can help you identify problem areas that need to be addressed in order to reach your goal of living in an energy efficient home.

What to Expect During A Home Energy Audit

The five steps involved in the process of a professional home energy audit are:

• Homeowner Interview

• Review of Energy Bills

• Home Inspection

• Testing

• Home Improvement Recommendations

Homeowner Interview

You will begin the energy audit by discussing your unique energy needs and concerns with the home energy expert. Help the energy expert understand your lifestyle at home so they can get a better idea of how your family uses energy.

Review of Energy Bills

Next, the energy expert will review some of your most recent utility bills. This helps the professional understand how much you are currently spending on energy and how much room there is to save.

Home Inspection

Then, the professional energy auditor will begin the assessment by inspecting your home. The auditor may inspect various areas of your home, including the exterior, interior, roof, and air conditioner. During the inspection, the auditor will take notes on the condition of each inspected area.

Make sure the auditor can easily access these areas so they can collect the information they need to complete the audit.

Testing

The auditor may perform a number of different diagnostic tests to learn more about how your home’s energy consumption. 

For example, a blower door test may be conducted to evaluate your home’s air tightness. A duct blaster test may also be performed to determine whether or not there are leaks in your air ducts. 

These are two of the many types of diagnostic tests that a professional may choose to perform as part of the audit.

Home Improvement Recommendations

After the inspection and testing is complete, the home energy expert will create a list of home improvement recommendations based on their findings. In other words, the energy expert will provide you with a list of changes you can make to improve the energy efficiency of your home.

For instance, the audit may reveal that there are air leaks in your ducts. In this case, the auditor may suggest sealing the air leaks to improve your home’s energy efficiency.

How Much Does A Home Energy Expert Charge?

The cost of hiring a home energy expert to conduct an energy audit can vary depending on many factors, including your location and the size of your home. But in general, home energy experts typically charge between $250 and $650 for their services. 

However, home energy experts may charge more for conducting advanced energy audits, which include blower door tests, moisture testing, infrared scanning, and more.

How Long Does A Professional Home Energy Audit Take?

If you are thinking about hiring a home energy expert, it’s important to know how much time you may need to block off in your schedule for your energy audit.

Every home energy expert is unique, so the amount of time that they will take to complete the audit will vary on a case-by-case basis. But in general, professionals usually take between one to three hours to conduct a simple audit. If the audit is advanced, which means it involves various types of tests, it could take between three to six hours to complete.

How to Conduct A Free Home Energy Audit

Performing a home energy audit is beneficial, but getting a professional to conduct this audit is time-consuming and expensive. Fortunately, there is another option for homeowners. You can perform a fast and free energy audit using the Benefyd app.

The Benefyd app will ask you a series of simple questions to learn more about how you use energy at home. Some examples of questions you will need to answer include:

• What temperature is your thermostat set on?

• How old is your refrigerator? 

• Do you have low flow faucets in your bathroom?

It takes as little as five minutes to answer these questions. Then, the app will formulate a list of personalized home improvement recommendations based on your answers to the questions. The app will even tell you how much you can save by completing each home improvement project on the list of recommendations.

Use Benefyd to experience all of the benefits of a professional home energy audit without spending a time or sacrificing hours of your time!