Archive for January, 2012

Home Energy Audit/Home Energy Assessment

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Cincinnati Energy Solutions has the ability to offer a full BPI Home Energy Assessment/ Home Energy Audit for $195.00 In Hamilton, Boone and Kenton Counties, and $250.00 in all other counties.  The energy audit / energy assessment offered is typically a $400- $500 value .
The energy audit/ energy assessment offered is a very specific process that will provide a detailed holistic synopsis of how your home is using and wasting energy. This is not a representative from your local utility walking through your home with a clipboard telling you to turn down the heat and maybe add some insulation and caulk your windows. It also is not one of the local HVAC companies or local insulation companies that got hooked up with the local DOE incentives and now call themselves a “Home Performance Contractor” only to try to sell you whatever product they specialize in. Now that homeowners are beginning to recognize a home energy audit as a legitimate first step to making energy improvements in a home, there are suddenly multiple ” Home Energy Experts. ” When you look just beneath the surface you discover a company that really wants to sell you a specific type of product instead of providing you a road map to what you actually need. They may provide the results in the form of an actual energy audit/ energy assessment to satisfy then intent of the organizations governing the DOE awarded incentives.
Since its inception in 2009 CES has been dedicated to actually diagnosing you home using a involved scientific process and providing you multiple options, itemized in terms of savings and comfort increase. The energy audit/ energy assessment includes at the least the following steps:
1) Homeowner interview. During this process the CES home energy professional is able to determine the homeowners specific concerns about the home in terms of durability, comfort and indoor air quality. Here the CES Home Energy Professional will also get an idea of what the homeowner knows about the insulation levels in the home.At this time 1 years worth of usage data will be collected to be used in the computer modeling.
2) Combustion safety testing. Here the the CES home energy professional will perform natural gas leak detection, safety testing on any combustion appliance that uses the atmosphere to vent the CO byproduct that is a result of combustion, and efficiency testing. 80% of homes entered have at least 1 natural gas leak.
3) Computer modeling of home/ heat load calculation. This is the most labor intensive and also one of the most important pieces of the energy audit/ assessment. It requires the CES home energy professional to measure each room of the home recording each light blub, each appliance, the size and orientation of each window, the placement of each supply and return duct, the insulation levels in the walls, and ceilings and floors that are adjacent to unconditioned space (outside, attics and crawlspaces and/or garages) and whether or not the duct work is in the home or in an unconditioned area.
4) Blower Door/ IR scan/duct leakage testing. These last but certainly not least items are often performed in conjunction with on another. During the blower door testing the CES Home Energy Professional will block the front door and insert a fan that will depressurize your home or essentially suck all of the air out of your home and let it naturally filter back in simulating a consistent 20 mph breeze outside your home. Doing this and using a pressure measuring device called a manometer, the energy professional is able to determine the amount of air leakage in your home. Then with the blower door running he/she will be able to use the IR camera as a tool to identify where the air leakage is coming from. Also while the blower door is running, using a duct blaster or more often duct pans, the energy professional can determine if you have duct leakage. ( only relevant if your duct work is an an unconditioned zone.)
5) And finally CES will provide you with a home energy assessment/audit report and proposal. The assessment report will show you specifically home your home is using and losing energy. We will also provide a separate proposal with multiple remedies to your homes energy woes, and any financial incentives that may be available in your area. All this will be thoroughly explained in a 1 hour follow up visit.