Have you ever had an energy audit?

[April showers]

I received a flyer in the mail from my electric company offering an energy audit of our house for $50. It also comes with an energy kit that is supposed to be worth more than $50 and they save the savings we can get from the audit will be many times that. I'm a bit skeptical. Has anyone eveer had an energy audit done to their house and was it worth the price?

[disneysteve]

I haven't but I've often thought about it. I'm sure there are lots of things we could do to make our home more efficient. My concern is what doing those things will cost. All I need is to have them come out and say our windows are bad. I'd never hear the end of it from my wife but we just can't afford to replace all of our windows (we have 24 of them). And I don't need them to come tell me stuff like putting in CFL or LED bulbs will save money. I already know that. So I guess I wonder if they'll be able to tell me much that I'll actually be able to act on.

[Bob B.]

We had an energy audit two years ago. It didn't cost us a thing, but we belong to a rural electrical cooperative, the type formed during the FDR New Deal/Rural Electrification days. We also didn't receive a package of goodies.

We also had a specific question in mind. We were thinking about insulating our basement, and I wanted an estimate of payback time. I don't remember the specific findings from the audit, but we did get the insulation, so we figured it would pay for itself in a few years.

What the co-op rep was really pushing was geothermal heating/cooling. Which makes sense because the heat pump runs off electricity. And, geothermal pays itself back - if you don't have to borrow money to have it installed, and you plan on staying at the same place for at least (I think) eight years. The price quotes we got for geothermal ranged from 15 to 17K. We aren't in the position to cash flow that, so we don't have geothermal, though I would like to.

So, beware, the person running the audit may have an ulterior motive.

[snafu]

Our municipal government had a big push on Energy Audits a number of years ago. We had it done in the previous house and found it useful since we live in a particularly harsh climate. We knew a lot of the information, the windows were bad but it was helpful to have them ranked. We replaced the two worse, added foam tape in winter to bad bedrm windows and plastic cover kit to the really bad, lower level slider door for a few dollars. We did all the DIY bits that were practical in our situation.

Since the government offered a tax credit for sums spent adding insulation we upped the insulation factor to R 34 which was then code. It made a huge difference on both our comfort level and heating bill. I believe it paid for itself in reduced heating costs in about 5 years. We were told to anticipate an an 8 year cost recovery.