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Air Leak Detection - Leak Testing - Leak Stopping

In lockstep with gas prices, energy costs keep rising. As a result, the typical American household’s budget is facing ever-increasing pressures, making cost-cutting a necessity in order to make ends meet. One of the areas where cost-cutting can potentially carry the highest yield is energy costs (i.e. heating, cooling, and electricity bills). The amount of energy you use to heat, cool, and power your house can be drastically reduced with a bit of due diligence. If you want to make energy efficiency a reality in your house, the first thing you have to do is find out which parts of your house use the most energy. With a home energy audit, you will be able to pinpoint these areas and find the most effective ways to cut your energy bills (like learning how to better conserve hot water). It’s likely that you will detect problems that, if corrected, may save you significant amounts of money over time.

You can either perform your home energy audit yourself, or call an independent energy auditor for a more thorough assessment. Just keep in mind that this is nothing that you can’t do yourself. Here’s what you need to be paying attention to.

How much money do you spend on energy?

First things first! You have to know your energy bills because if you don’t understand where your money is going, it’s going to be that much harder to know where you can reasonably expect to cut costs. So those dreaded bills contain valuable information, and can prove very useful when it comes to comparing your energy bills month by month, and for as many years as possible. The purpose of this exercise is to spot trends and/or big changes, and identify their causes. You can get copies of your older bills by requesting them from your utility companies’ customer service.

One other thing to keep an eye out for is how many kilowatt hours you’re using and the amount you’re being charged per kilowatt-hour. As it turns out, that amount is generally greater during the day. So whenever possible, it’s generally a good idea to shift consumption to those times of the day when electricity is cheaper.

Air Leak Detection And Testing

First, test your home for air tightness. On a windy day, hold a lit incense stick next to your windows, doors, electrical boxes, plumbing fixtures, electrical outlets, ceiling fixtures, attic hatches, and other locations where there is a possible air path to the outside. If the smoke stream travels horizontally, you have located an air leak that may need caulking, sealing, or weatherstripping.

Air Leak Sources

Air infiltrates into and out of your home through every hole, nook, and cranny. Warm air leaking into your home during the summer and out of your home during the winter can cost you a lot of (wasted) energy dollars. Simple leaks can sap home energy efficiency by 5 to 30% a year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Here’s a rundown of the major culprits:

Stopping Air Leaks

Here’s an excerpt from the U.S. Department of Energy’s website on “Tips For Sealing Air Leaks”

Caulk and weatherstrip doors and windows that leak air.

Caulk and seal air leaks where plumbing, ducting, or electrical wiring penetrates through exterior walls, floors, ceilings, and soffits over cabinets.

Install rubber gaskets behind outlet and switch plates on exterior walls.

Look for dirty spots in your insulation, which often indicate holes where air leaks into and out of your house. You can seal the holes by stapling sheets of plastic over the holes and caulking the edges of the plastic.

Install storm windows over single-pane windows or replace them with doublepane windows.

When the fireplace is not in use, keep the flue damper tightly closed. A chimney is designed specifically for smoke to escape, so until you close it, warm air escapes—24 hours a day!

For new construction, reduce exterior wall leaks by either installing house wrap, taping the joints of exterior sheathing, or comprehensively caulking and sealing the exterior walls.

Take a close look at places where two different building materials meet, such as corners, around chimneys, where pipes or wires exit and along the foundation. Make sure good seals form around doors and windows, and that no mortar is cracked. Any gaps or holes should be plugged and/or caulked, such as penetrations for faucets, pipes, electric outlets, and wiring. Look for cracks and holes in the mortar, foundation, and siding, and seal them with the appropriate material. Check the exterior caulking around doors and windows, and see whether exterior storm doors and primary doors seal tightly.

As you can see from the introduction, the initial scope of this post was “Home Energy Audits” in general, meaning air leaks, insulation, analyzing heating and/or cooling equipment, analyzing appliances, minimizing “vampire power“, and opting for energy-efficient lighting. But then I realized two things. First, this is too broad a topic to address in one post! And secondly, I covered 2 of the topics in previous posts. So I just finalized the air leaks angle of the topic. I’ll look to cover the other topics, and then put it all together as a roundup post on Saving Energy and Money… Until then, have a nice day!

Air Leak Detection - Leak Testing - Leak Stopping

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