In “My Carbon Footprint” blog, I made several pledges. The most obvious pledge to select first was
the energy audit with the goal of finding out where am I wasting energy. So last week, I called CenterPoint Energy to
set up an energy audit and was happy to hear that it could be down within a
week. That day is today. CenterPoint Energy sent Kevin to conduct the
energy audit on my house. Kevin arrived
in a small SUV with the cargo space completely filled with equipment and
tools. He unloaded the equipment and
tools in my mudroom for use over the next two and one-half hours. We chatted and I found out that this was his
second job, with his primary job being a fireman. He recounted some of his fire experience and
how the some of the equipment was used in search and rescue. That was incredibly interesting and helpful
in understanding how the pieces of equipment measured air flow and heat. He understood the movement of air, hot or
cold, through the house, probably better than anyone. That was reassuring.
He began his analysis with a series of questions about the
size of the house, number of occupants, type of lighting, type of heating,
etc. He went into each room with a digital
distance meter to measure the area and volume of the rooms. This data will be plugged into a program to
calculate the volume of air turnover to heat or cool a house. This data will be coming in the form of a
report.
He went outside and toured the perimeter of the house,
looking for any cracks in the foundation or other potential egresses (heat
escape routes)/ingresses (cold entrance routes) for movement of air. He checked the siding, door jams, flashing
around the windows and doors, and looked for moisture problems. I, meanwhile, began typing this blog.
When he returned, he went into each bathroom with a box and
measuring meter and measured the draw of the fans. This allowed him to tell whether or not the
fans were clogged or efficiency reduced by too much moisture from the steam
generated by hot shower water. The fans
checked out as being consistent relative to each other and relative to a new
fan, based on their specifications.
After measuring the fans, Kevin installed the blower
test. Here, the door into the garage
(opened) is affixed with an expandable frame, which seals the doorway opening
with the blower installed. All of the
doors and windows were checked to make sure that they were closed. The blower was turned on> The idea is to create a
vacuum or negative pressure within the house.
Kevin then took the thermal imager on a trip around the house with me in tow. We checked all of the windows,
doors, vents, air returns, and lighting plates and outlets for leaks. We also checked the walls and head joists for
insulation quality. I had two rooms that
I was concerned about, but there was nothing.
Lastly, he checked the hot water heater for CO emissions
when the three bathroom fans, cooking fan and dryer were all operating. As Kevin described it, when the hot water
heater is on, the CO moves up into a conical flue above the hot water heater
and then is vented out of the house.
When the above fans and dryer are operating, it causes a back draft on the hot water
heater venting, thereby allowing the CO to flow back into the house. Obviously, this is unsafe. This in unlikely to happen in our household during the weekday, as, at most, do we have two people taking showers and the dryer is on at the same time. However, on a weekend, we could be showering, frying bacon and doing the laundry, thereby creating trouble.
Conclusion:
This is one of those service calls/visits that you will want
to be around for and ask as many questions as you can. The amount of information
that you will pick up is well worth it. Take
it seriously and use it as your starting point to reduce your energy
consumption and begin to lower your carbon footprint.
CenterPoint Energy will be sending a comprehensive energy
audit, which will outline what to do to start reducing energy consumption and carbon
dioxide emissions. One of the
recommendations will be replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED light
bulbs, of which I will cover in the next
blog.
Hours the energy audit was conducted:
2.5 hours
Cost:
$100
