At its most basic, your home is the shield that protects you from all the bad, such as bad weather, pollution, and noise. And to protect you, it requires a few resources like the building enclosure and the heating system.
Computerized energy management systems have been in place for a long time to manage and monitor such household energy-consuming resources. But higher energy consumption is still a problem. According to the US Energy Information Administration, on average each US home consumes 10,399 kWh a year. And based on the location and the way energy is received, these statistics may go high.
Most homeowners aren’t aware of how their homes could work against them by wasting an excessive amount of energy. Be it your doors, windows, malfunction of heating systems, or even cracks in the walls, all such loopholes can greatly inflate the energy usage of the homeowners.
So, How to get over from such loopholes in energy usage?
Well, there is hope – “Perform a home energy audit”. The energy audits are crucial for homeowners since it helps homeowners make a valuable saving on their energy bills and helps in identifying the areas where energy is wasted. Today, there is a lot of home performance modeling software available that can help you with an inexpensive energy audit.
Why should you get energy audits done for your home?
- Save Money!
Yes, the very first benefit of performing a home energy audit using home performance software is that it greatly reduces the money you spend paying utility bills. Conducting an energy audit with the help of professional home performance contractors can help you identify the utilities to be upgraded. This at the end helps you save approximately 5% to 30% on your electricity bill!
- Gives insight on energy usage patterns!
With the help of professional auditors, you can easily come to know where and how energy is used. This greatly helps you take necessary improvement actions in your home or lifestyle to make the optimal use of energy utilities at home.
- Helps you reduce the environmental impact.
It is observed that homes contribute heavily when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, some of the home utilities often rely on natural resources like natural gas or coal. With the help of inexpensive energy audits, it becomes very important for the homeowners to identify the areas of improvement, reduce carbon emissions by making necessary corrections, and contribute to reducing the amount of pollution released in the air.
- Enhance energy efficiency!
Whether you are using home performance software or hire professional home performance contractors, the aim of home energy auditing is to help you improve energy efficiency in your home. Energy auditing helps you know air leaks and insulations and helps you validate the function of heating or cooling equipment. In case of malfunction of any of these electronic items, it is possible that you may face excessive energy consumption. Energy audits help you discover such malfunction and guide you to take necessary actions to enhance energy efficiency.
- Boost comfort level.
Improving the energy efficiency at the end empowers you with a more controlled home environment. Moreover, it will enable HVAC systems to perform well when it comes to cool or heat your home. Such systems’ service life is extended along with improved comfort and lowered energy bills.
- Improve health and safety.
Most of the hazards happen due to a lack of attention paid to electric wiring or gas leakages. Home energy auditing using home performance modeling software can greatly improve health and safety within the home. Such tools help you detect and diagnose the electrical leakages during the audit and help you ensure your wellbeing by making required changes.
- Value addition to your home-selling efforts!
Homeowners who are willing to sell their homes are often facing issues of environment-friendliness. Most of the homes often lack energy efficiency measures that can add value to their home. Improving your home’s energy efficiency would greatly benefit your resale efforts. According to the report from the Sustainable Building Research Center, homes with improved energy efficiency rating could help homeowners get 10% more price than homes having lower energy efficiency rating.
Okay, but how to know if any home needs an energy audit?
Any home with age more than 10 years is required an energy audit since energy codes are consistently improving day-by-day in the U.S. Therefore, any home which is built earlier and having older codes, it is a must that homeowners should start seeking for energy audit since the standards have been upgraded.
There are different ways you can carry out the home energy audit. You can hire professional home performance contractors, or you can opt for doing the home audit on your own or you can look for the home performance software to do it without any manual intervention.
Concluding Notes…
A professional home energy audit can help you overcome the hidden issues and improve energy consumption by your home. However, such an energy audit costs a lot to the homeowner. Instead, using a home performance software could bring a plethora of benefits mentioned above without paying hefty auditing fees. Want to know how home performance modeling software can help you with energy efficiency in the come? Contact us today!
