Energy Audits Get Hot Again

With soaring heating costs this winter, more people and businesses are turning to a simple tool that can reduce utility bills

After decades as a staple tool for making quick and often inexpensive fixes to home or business energy use, home energy audits are gaining popularity -- thanks to spiking energy costs as winter rolls in. One Midwest utility is reporting a doubling of the waiting time for an audit this year -- from four to six weeks to as much as 12 weeks -- and a Virginia-based energy consultant says his audit business has quadrupled.

Jon Sorensen, a 48-year-old spokesman for the Albany-based New York State Consumer Protection Board, just decided to invest in his first home energy audit. He uses natural gas to heat his 1839 farmhouse, which previous owners restored more than 15 years ago. When he saw "scary forecasts of energy prices," Sorensen figured it was worth paying $350 for advice from the Troy (N.Y.)-based consultant Enhanced Living.

SPENDING TO SAVE. Two of their experts came to his house in recent weeks and spent an afternoon testing it in various ways. They put a machine against his door that sucked air out of his house, so it could measure the amount that leaked back inside through the cracks. They looked at the insulation in his attic, which had settled, and suggested replacing it.

After they had performed all their tests, they advised Sorenson to spend about $8,000 in improvements that they said would eventually lead to energy savings he could pay off within years. He could use Enhanced Living to do the improvements but plans to shop around for price quotes from others as well.

"I can't recall the precise numbers, but it's well worth the investment," Sorenson says. "There's also my old bones that need to be kept warm and cozy."

OLD HOMES, NEW TECH. It's clear what's driving interest in audits. Even after a recent sell-off, Henry Hub natural gas spot prices have traded this week at around $11.18 per million British thermal units (BTUs), compared to $5.88 million for the week of January 7, 2005. Heating oil is now priced at around $1.59 per gallon, compared to $1.22 during the first week of 2005.

Putting that into consumer terms, the Energy Dept. is forecasting that the average household will spend $306, or 41%, more for natural gas this winter compared to last year. The agency also thinks households will likely spend $325, or 27%, more for heating oil this winter.

"People with older homes are getting them fixed," mainly due to improvements in consumer awareness, technology, and revisions to building codes, says Terry Logee, who works in Energy's Office of Building Technologies. The average U.S. household now consumes 101.3 million BTUs, compared to 106.4 million five years ago, according to estimates in Energy's Buildings Energy Data Book for August, 2005. In 1980 the average household consumed 124.8 million BTUs (see BW Online, 9/20/05, "This Cold House" and "Does Your Home Burn Money for Fuel?").

THE RIGHT TESTS. Some people are putting more effort into these improvements than others. On the cheaper end of the spectrum, a wide range of information is available on how to do a home energy audit yourself. Bruce Hahn, for example, will e-mail you a free checklist explaining where to look for the leaks in your house if you write him at ahf@americanhomeowners.org.

Hahn, the president of the American Homeowners Foundation -- a nonprofit in Arlington, Va., with only a couple people on staff -- says he has gotten so many requests that he recently had to work about 12 hours a day and also on the weekends just to keep up with fulfilling them. You can find similar information from the Energy Dept.

A do-it-yourself test can range from noticing the cold draft blowing in your attic to checking the insulation in your wall by probing it with a stick. But such methods can only go so far. To find out precisely how much your walls are insulated, you need to know how to use expensive equipment such as infrared scanners that can see and measure the temperature variations in your building.

SEALED TOO TIGHT. Lee O'Neal, the president of the Chantilly (Va.)-based energy consultancy Nspects, says the high-precision energy audits he provides for between $300 and $500 are key. If you do the audits yourself the wrong way, he says you can end up trapping carbon monoxide into your home and poisoning the occupants as a result.

O'Neal says he saw a house last week that the homeowner had already sealed up so tightly, the air inside felt as moist and humid as in summer. Instead of advising further sealing for the house, O'Neal told the homeowner to put in more ventilation. But he says most of the houses he audits end up reducing their energy consumption by 25% to 30% after they carry out his recommendations. He has seen a spike of 130 requests for home energy audits during the past month, compared to only around 30 during the same period of last year.

The amount of savings you're going to get in return for your investment in an energy audit depends on you and your home. If you want an educated guess on this question, you can use Energy's online Home Energy Saver tool.

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