Energy Audit FAQ's

What is an Energy Audit?

An energy audit is a detailed report of the energy consumption of your home.  This report provides you with real solutions to increase the overall comfort and energy efficiency of your home. The audit involves a "Whole House Approach". This takes into consideration how the "whole house" functions together as one unit. This allows for detailed information on all components of the home giving real facts on how the components function in your home, leaving virtually nothing to "chance."

What is your "Whole House Approach" energy audit approach? 

What this means is that when you make a change to one part of the home such as replacing windows, siding, adding insulation, weather-stripping etc.  Those changes affect the performance of other parts of your home relating to indoor air quality, your furnace and water heater, moisture, and comfort.  By performing the tests on the whole house we can make solid recommendations that will make a difference in the issues you're trying to resolve, and reduce the potential for health, safety, or comfort issues to arise as a result.

What is High Performance?

Home Performance is a term we use to describe how well a home functions in terms of energy efficiency, water consumption, and indoor air quality. Our step-by-step process to evaluate your home utilizes building science to ensure performance.

What is the benefit to having an energy audit completed?

The benefits of a home energy audit are numerous, here are a few of them:

• Actually spending your money on improvements your home needs. Not simply applying a band-aid fix to the issues at hand. Thus saving you guesswork, and money.
• Inspected, tested and documented results specifically pertaining to the issues you're experiencing with your home. Not a laundry list of general items to fix.
• Post improvement visit - at no cost to you- to verify results of the effectiveness, quality and performance of the improvements made.
• Cash back for some of the improvements you may have completed.
• Verification that the improvements you made didn't actually cause additional problems with indoor air quality, moisture related issues or combustion safety.
• Potentially higher selling price for your home due to the additional features you home has and because of the reduced energy consumption - although individual results may vary.
• Infrared pictures of your home are cool!

How long does it take?

The typical home energy audit takes between 2-3 hours however depending on the types of issues we find and the questions you have we could take up to four hours.

Is an Energy Audit the same thing as Weatherization?

No, but we're glad you asked. Weatherization is typically a prescriptive set of tasks that can be done to a house (adding weather stripping and sweeps to doors, for example). While these are helpful, they are only a small part of what an Energy Audit entails.

Do you always end up recommending new windows, insulation, and furnaces?

We concentrate on the issues we find to be lacking in performance in your home based off of the testing we perform.  Not opinions.  Typically, the bulk of the work we do is in the crawl spaces, basements and attics, sealing air leaks in the walls and ducts. Whether your windows, insulation or furnaces need to be repaired or replaced - you will be able to see this for yourself during testing.

What makes you different from the typical home energy audit?

Most energy audits include a list of recommendations for improvements. High Performance Homes NW is different because we also provide a detailed estimate for doing the actual work. In addition to offering you much greater convenience, this means we can provide you specific guidance about the cost effectiveness of each possible improvement, so that you can select only those which best meet you needs.

How much does it cost?

The cost of our full home energy analysis ranges from $200 to $850 depending on the size of your home. The cost of the work varies dramatically, based on the house and the homeowner's needs, ranging from $2,000 to $20,000 or more. Various incentives may apply.

If you have more specific pricing questions, please call (206) 242-3974 for details.

What if I have questions after the inspection?

We always allow time after the inspection to go over any questions you might have. We also encourage our clients to call us anytime for technical advice--even years after the inspection!

OK, I think I'm ready for an energy audit, what should I do next?

The first step is deciding a reputable company that will perform a detailed energy audit. The audit should touch on all major systems in your home including, doors, windows, floors, ceilings, walls, appliances, heating and cooling equipment, water heating, and lighting.

At High Performance Homes NW, we detail energy usage for all the systems listed. Not only do we report on all energy usage of these systems but we give you simple and easy to understand reports with real numbers that you can understand. Along with these benefits, you will be given detailed reports on energy improvements that can improve you homes efficiency. You will be given cost vs. benefit reports and they will be listed in order. This enables us to show you the energy savings that you can expect if you decide to implement these items before you do anything!

How do I sign up?

Call our scheduling team at (206) 242-3974 or complete our Service Request Form and we will contact you within 24 hours.  Our office hours are Monday - Friday 9am to 4:30pm.