The Cool Thing the Auditor Did

By Doug

About 3 weeks after I scheduled the home energy audit visit, the auditor arrived on a very hot and humid midsummer day, the auditor arrived. I had to book a couple of hours off work to accommodate his lengthy visit.

I went out on the driveway to greet Cliff, a certified energy advisor with Green Tech Services Non-Profit (How did we choose them? Read here).

He made sure all windows and doors were closed throughout the house; then he hooked up a machine through the (open) front door; expandable square that fills up the doorframe with tent material, and he attached a big air pump there.

It started sucking air out of our home, its dials indicating how much air is getting into the house from outside.

While it ran (about 20 minutes), Cliff and I walked around the inside of the house again and he checked, by hand, to see where drafts were – around baseboards and outlets and around windows.

I felt some of the spots, too, and I could feel sight breezes – nothing too dramatic, especially spots like outlets in upstairs bedrooms.

Exterior

Cliff walked around our house for about 15 minutes. I waited inside, and when he came in, he told me he was checking out the types of wndows, our A/C unit, roof ventilation holes in the soffets.

As well, Cliff told me some surprising news about our home’s exterior material. Heather and I have always been proud of the fact that our ’50s house is double-brick (”you don’t see that in construction these days!”) but Cliff said this feature is not in our favour when it comes to insulation. If insulation is insufficient, it is harder to get it between the walls with double brick.

Main Floor

Inside our house, Cliff started his walkthrough on our main floor, writing stuff on his clipboard as he went. All our windows are original and Heather really wants them replaced. Cliff told me you don’t get much money back from the government for replacing windows (something like a lousy $80 each, same for doors) and that they do not improve the insulation factor nearly as much as other things we can do. (Heather is not going to like that!) Cliff even said that he has the same age of windows in his home and he chose not to replace them, but to re-seal them instead.

Upper Floor

He then journeyed upstairs to our 1/2 storey – where two bedrooms are – checked windows there, and the sloping walls that hide the attic. You cannot get inside our attic, so he could only make deductions on what the insulation and ventilation is like inside the attic, based on the age of our house. Cliff said that from the outside, it looks like we have air coming into the attic, but not going out.

Basement Level

Downstairs in the basement – home to a large rec room, bathroom, bedroom (Hayden’s), and laundry room – Cliff checked out our water heater, furnace, and electrical panel. We talked a lot more about the value of insulation, this time for basements. He concluded that at least half of our basement is not insulated – the front half, Hayden’s bedroom and the laundry room. Cliff also recommended that we completely seal off the (unused) cold cellar at back of the laundry room.

The guy was nothing if he wasn’t thorough, and he promised that our Home Audit Report would be mailed to us within a couple of weeks. We’re cranked!