Columbia’s summer heat can really run up your cooling bills, and staying warm in winter isn’t cheap either. A number of home efficiency improvements can bring these bills down. By starting with a home energy evaluation, you’ll know exactly what improvements will benefit you most.
Tips on improving home energy efficiency abound, but the ideas you find online aren’t specific to your home. For example, while sealing air leaks is often recommended, you may not need to invest time searching for leaks if your home is already airtight.
A home energy evaluation, often called a home energy audit, will pinpoint exactly where your home is wasting energy. Armed with this information, you can invest your money and time in the efficiency upgrades that will do the most good for your home’s individual needs. You stand to lower your energy bills by five to 30 percent.
The home energy evaluation process begins with an interview. Your technician will ask you questions about your heating and cooling habits and about any problems you’re having, such as uneven temperatures, drafts or stuffy air. The technician will also want to see your utility bills for the past 12 months. Spikes and other unusual patterns in your electricity and fuel use can point to energy waste problems.
Then comes a visual inspection of your home. Through this alone, an experienced technician can spot certain problems such as larger air leaks, inefficient windows, and signs of excessively high or low humidity.
Next, a number of tests will be performed using equipment designed to collect hard data about your home’s efficiency.
To check the level of the insulation in your walls and floors, your technician will use an infrared camera to take heat-sensitive images of the building. The colors in these images show where an excess amount of heat is being gained or lost, suggesting a lack of insulation. Adding loose-fill (blown-in) insulation to these areas makes it easy to solve this problem without tearing up your home’s surfaces.
Learn more about Cool Care’s home energy evaluation services, or contact us at (803) 772-7715 to schedule an appointment for your South Carolina home.
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