What is a home energy assessment?

A home energy assessment is an inspection, survey and analysis of energy usage in your home with the objective of
identifying opportunities to reduce your homes energy use, enhance the comfort of your home, and maintain or
improve the health and safety of the occupants. Our home energy assessment covers all fundamental building
elements and identify cost-effective energy efficiency upgrades such as sealing air leaks, adding insulation,
improving heating and cooling systems, and upgrading inefficient lighting and appliances.

What happens during a home energy assessment?

Some of the activities and procedures you will experience during our energy assessment include:
" An initial interview with you to determine if there are any existing comfort and energy
problems, identify goals or priorities, and gather information on the your energy usage behaviors.
" A walk through inspection of the home.
" The use of diagnostic tools to evaluate energy use within the home and conduct safety testing.
" A prioritized list of recommended cost-effective upgrades and improvements for health, safety and
energy conservation.

Exterior and Interior Inspections

A general inspection of your home may be conducted to
evaluate the condition of the construction and check for any
safety issues that may exist.

Combustion Safety Testing

Our home energy assessment will include combustion safety
test, to protect the health and safety of occupants from
poor air quality, natural gas leakage from appliances and
potential carbon monoxide poisonings.

Upgrading Heating and Cooling Equipment

Furnaces, air conditioners and hot water heaters are large
energy consuming systems that deserve special attention.
Regular furnace maintenance, such as replacing the air filter
every month or two, can greatly improve its efficiency.
Replacing old equipment with energy efficient equipment
can also result in significant savings. Our assessmentor will
inspect these pieces of equipment thoroughly and evaluate
older equipment using a combustion analyzer tool which
will help determine the efficiency of any existing gas
powered equipment.

Locating Air Leaks

Energy can be lost as air flows through gaps along
baseboards, walls and ceilings junctures, and around pipes,
wires, windows, doors, and outlets. To determine how
much air is leaking, our assessmentor will perform blower door
tests. This test uses a powerful door-mounted fan to draw
air out of a building, while all other doors and windows are
closed, in order to measure the buildings air infiltration rate.
A smoke producing device will also be used to locate the leaking areas
which can be sealed to improve building efficiency.

Improving Insulation

Insufficient insulation allows heat to pass through ceilings
and walls, requiring more energy to cool or heat a home. Our
home energy assessment will include an insulation review to
determine the condition of the buildings insulation. This
may include a check for moisture, continuity of insulation,
and R-Value of the insulating materials (R-Value is a
measure of thermal resistance; the higher the better).
Our assessments also include the advanced testing with
thermal imaging cameras to detect insufficient insulation.

Duct Sealing

Leaks in the ducts running through your home may cause
some rooms to be warmer or colder than others, leading to
inefficient heating or cooling. Our assessmentor may use duct
blasters to check ducts for leaks. Similar to the blower door
test, this piece of equipment uses a fan to force air in or out
of the ductwork while taking pressure measurements to
gauge air tightness.

Evaluating Lighting

Inefficient light bulbs can often be replaced with more
efficient equipment without affecting their usefulness. A
simple inspection of wattages on light bulbs will normally
be enough to identify energy saving opportunities.

MO. HOME ENERGY AUDITS LLC