A home energy assessment, also known as a Home Energy Audit, is the first step to assess how much energy your home consumes and to evaluate what measures you can take to make your home more energy efficient. An assessment will show you problems that may, when corrected, save you significant amounts of money over time.

Learn about the steps and benefits of a comprehensive home energy assessment in this video.

During the assessment, you can pinpoint where your house is losing energy. Energy assessments also determine the efficiency of your home's heating and cooling systems. An assessment may also show you ways to conserve hot water and electricity.

As professional auditors we use a variety of techniques and equipment to determine the energy efficiency of a structure. Thorough assessments often use equipment such as blower doors, which measure the extent of leaks in the building envelope, and infrared cameras, which reveal hard-to-detect areas of air infiltration and missing insulation.

                                  An Energy Audit's Purpose

Energy auditors visit residential buildings and talk to owners and residents. They inspect, test, and measure to decide what energy-efficient ret­rofits are practical and cost-effective.

Specific purposes of an energy audit are to:

•Identify the type, size, condition, and rate of energy             consumption for each major energy-using device.

•Recommend appropriate energy conservation, operation, and maintenance procedures.

•Estimate labor and materials costs for energy retrofits.

•Project savings expected from energy retrofits.

•Note current and potential health and safety problems and how they may be affected by proposed changes.

•Explain behavioral changes that will reduce energy waste.

•Provide a written record of decision making.

Computerized energy audits help set retrofit pri­orities by rating the cost-effectiveness of each ret­rofit, as well as analyzing the entire building retrofit proposal.