Perform A Home Energy Audit

Before starting your home remodeling project, it’s a good idea to evaluate your current energy use so that you can identify the areas that need efficiency improvements. You can perform your own energy audit or you can hire a professional contractor to help.

If you are going to audit your home’s energy use yourself, start by collecting the past year’s energy bills, including electric, gas, and water. Evaluate your monthly averages and identify peak usage times and then compare that with your regional climate. 

For instance, if you live in Phoenix, you would expect to use more energy in July, or if you live in Montana, you would expect to use more energy in January. If you spot irregular peaks in energy usage, then try to identify what is causing the unusually high bill. 

Next, compare your energy usage per month to other homes of roughly the same size, age, and location. You can do this by contacting your utility company and requesting monthly averages for different house categories. 

The purpose behind the home energy audit is to see how your home compares to others like it in energy usage and also to begin isolating energy problems. This way you can also evaluate cost effectiveness. If you know you spend X dollars a month heating water, and it costs Y dollars a month to install a solar water heater, and Y is lower than X, then it makes good economic sense to invest.

Before hiring your own contractor, check with your utility company, as many offer free or discounted professional energy audits of your home. When weighing whether to do it yourself or contact a professional, keep in mind that a contractor will be able to apply special tools when auditing your home, like blowers to test duct, window, and door leaks and infrared cameras to identify insulation problems. Inevitably you are going to get more accurate information with these tools at your disposal.

The Whole House Approach

To maximize energy efficiency when remodeling your home, it is best to take a “whole house” approach, meaning that you analyze and improve multiple factors that contribute to your home’s energy usage. The following list is not complete but includes the most important factors:

1. Insulation. Improving your home’s insulation is cost effective and can drastically reduce heating bills.  Depending upon the age of your home, you may have little or no insulation.  Particular areas of concern are attics, around chimneys, and around windows and doors.  Not only does insulation improve your home’s heat/cooling retention, it helps keep all rooms and equal temperature and even deadens outdoor noise, making your home quieter.  If you have problems with one or more rooms consistently colder or warmer than others, then insulation is likely the answer to your problem.
2. Duct sealing. You can reduce heating and/or cooling bills by as much as 15 percent just by sealing your home’s ducting. The ducts are the metal box-shaped tubes that carry hot or cold air from your furnace or air conditioning unit to the floor and wall vents throughout your home. Holes and leaky joints in this duct system cause you to lose the air you just spent money heating or cooling before it ever gets to its destination. Also consider vent locations. Some homes, built by a contractor trying to cut corners, locate only a few vents in corners of large rooms. Consider adding more vents, and make sure they are located in the floor or baseboard.  A heating vent in a room with a vaulted ceiling located six feet off the floor does you absolutely no good, since all you heat is the empty space above your head.
3. Windows and doors. These are the primary culprits of home heating or cooling loss. Seal existing windows and doors effectively, or better yet, install new energy efficient windows and/or doors.
4. Install energy saving lighting. Also consider adding more natural lighting with new skylights or expose existing windows to solar energy by replacing overhangs and awnings and removing landscape obstructions.
5. Buy new energy efficient appliances. Furnaces, air conditioning units, and all your household appliances, especially if they are over 10 years old, can be replaced with a much more efficient newer model.  For tips on how to make your existing appliances more efficient check out the links on this Energy Efficiency Advisor post.

Add Renewable Energy

Now that you have spent the time and the money to remodel your home and maximize energy efficiency, the time is ripe for investing in renewable energy. An energy efficient home means that you can support all or most of your energy needs with a home solar or wind energy system, or a combination of the two. Depending upon where you live, you may even be able to turn your meter backwards by dumping extra energy produced by your home back onto the power grid, meaning your home is working for you while you are away.

Tax Incentives and Rebates

Also, you may be eligible for a variety of tax breaks, rebates, and special rate mortgages to finance your energy efficient home remodeling project.

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