February 6, 2024
6 Reasons Why You Should Schedule a Home Performance Audit
A home performance audit, commonly known as an energy audit, is a professional and comprehensive assessment of your home’s energy efficiency. The energy auditor will use advanced tools and technology to perform a series of tests and evaluate how well your home performs according to current energy efficiency standards.
The audit will reveal inefficiencies and problem areas, including poor ventilation, damaged HVAC ductwork, and ineffective insulation. Our certified energy efficiency specialists at Scott-Lee Heating Company will work with you to create an action plan addressing these issues. The many benefits of accurately identifying problems and implementing effective corrective measures are more than enough reasons to schedule a home performance audit.
1. Lower Your Utility Bills
The cost-saving potential is the leading reason most homeowners schedule home performance audits. The energy auditor looks at all the possible ways your household is wasting energy and, in the process, losing money because you have to pay higher utility bills.
Implementing the recommended strategies for minimizing and even eliminating energy waste in your home will slash your electricity expenditure. Depending on the number and extent of the energy inefficiencies identified and addressed, you can significantly reduce your energy use and realize significant cost savings.
2. Shrink Your Carbon Footprint
Implementing measures to improve your home’s energy efficiency will ensure you use less fossil fuel and make your home eco-friendly. If you reduce energy waste in your residence, the environment will love you for it. It may not seem like much, but any way that you can reduce your carbon footprint counts.
3. Improve Your Home’s Comfort
Drafty doors and windows, inadequate insulation, and damaged ductwork can result in air leaks in your home. These air leaks allow moisture to seep in and conditioned air to seep out of your spaces, leaving your house feeling uncomfortably dry in the winter and too muggy for comfort in the summer. Drafty windows can also leave you with uncomfortable cold spots throughout your home.
Upgrading your home’s insulation is one possible improvement. Sealing the doors and windows and applying weatherstripping are some of the ways your energy efficiency specialist may recommend to eliminate air leaks. After implementing the recommendations, you can expect a dramatic improvement in the comfort of your home. Family members and visitors alike will be happy to spend time in your home if the atmosphere is pleasant and they don’t have to deal with drafts, chilly spots, and sweltering rooms.
4. Enjoy Better Indoor Air Quality
Problems with your home’s ventilation and the overall air circulation in your spaces will adversely affect indoor air quality. Increased humidity levels in your home due to letting in air from outside and losing too much-conditioned air increases the risk of mold and mildew growth. This growth can reduce indoor air quality, exposing your family to various health risks. The air from outside may also carry allergens and contaminants.
Following your home performance audit, recommendations will focus on addressing airflow problems and improving air circulation. This expert advice will ensure you enjoy cleaner and fresher air throughout your house, from increasing ventilation to installing indoor air quality systems such as dehumidifiers.
5. Extend Your HVAC System’s Useful Life
Energy inefficiencies throughout your home will strain your HVAC system and force it to work harder all year round. This continual stress on your HVAC equipment will increase your energy consumption and shorten the equipment’s life span. This shorter lifespan will be marked with frequent breakdowns that will inconvenience you and leave an empty spot in your wallet.
You can make your HVAC more efficient by implementing recommendations following an energy audit. It will be running like new for a long time. In addition to not worrying about breakdowns every couple of months or so, you will also enjoy peace of mind knowing it will be a while before you have to worry about HVAC system replacement costs.
6. Increase Your Home’s Value
Energy efficiency is a big deal for today’s homebuyers. You may have come across home energy scores in property listings on some real estate portals, and rest assured that potential buyers pay attention to these numbers before making an offer.
Investing in a home performance audit and making the necessary improvements can increase your home’s resale value. These energy efficiency upgrades take money, but the expected return on investment is quite attractive, given that you can confidently ask for more when you put your home on the market. Buyers love highly efficient homes, and following recommendations from the energy audit can help you find a buyer for your property more quickly.
What to Expect During a Home Performance Audit
Now that you understand why you should schedule a home performance audit, it is also essential to get a glimpse of what this audit entails. Our highly qualified home energy auditors leverage their special training and years of combined experience to carry out all the steps required in a professional home performance audit.
The auditors will start from outside and inspect your home’s foundation and exterior walls for air leaks. These experts will also check the seal on windows, doors, baseboards, plumbing fixtures, fireplaces, and other openings and edges throughout your home. You can expect a thorough whole-space inspection of areas in your home considered more prone to energy loss, including the attic, crawl spaces, and basement. Our team will also perform blower door testing using thermal imaging when your home is depressurized. This critical test assesses how well your home holds air and the severity of air leakage, whether from ductwork leaks or other problems.
Following this home evaluation, the auditor will share targeted recommendations to improve your home’s efficiency. When working with the experts, you can confidently look forward to getting recommendations for a wide range of solutions that will work together to address efficiency issues and improve your home’s performance.
At Scott-Lee Heating Company, we make it our business to develop a comprehensive home performance plan. However, we understand that you may still have some questions, even with the level of detail our auditors get into in the documented plan. Our team is ready to answer all these questions during the audit and afterward so that you clearly understand what issues your home faces, how to address these issues, and what benefits you can expect when you enhance your home’s performance.
Schedule Your Home Performance Audit
The energy specialists on our team at Scott-Lee Heating Company are qualified and experienced to conduct a thorough home performance audit. We also have the tools for the job and use the latest technology during the process. We make your problems our own and are committed to providing an independent evaluation followed by a comprehensive and detailed plan of exactly what you need to do.
Contact us at Scott-Lee Heating Company today to schedule a home performance audit. As a trusted local HVAC company since 1978, we will not only perform the assessment and recommend improvements, but you can also rely on our technicians to do the work needed. In addition to residential and commercial HVAC installation, maintenance, and repair services, we are pleased to offer indoor air quality, metalwork, and geothermal services throughout the St. Louis area as well as parts of Illinois.