An Audit You Want

They say that there's global warming. Lately, I haven't been feeling it. It doesn't snow where I live, but it's been getting pretty cold. That means that my heating bill has been getting heftier and I'm not liking it.

To save a little we've installed double-paned windows, wrapped our water heater in a fiberglass sleeve, keep the thermostat at a reasonable setting, sleep under heavy blankets, and close vents to rooms that we're not in often.

Yesterday, we decided to get an energy audit done of our house to see if there was anything that needed to be done with the actual building to help save money on heating now, and cooling in the summer later this year. We'd been putting it off for a while, because of busy schedules, but last week we finally decided to schedule it and yesterday the guy came out.

Where I live the local utility company is managed by the city and offers energy audits for free. The guy spent about an hour at the house and found that most things were in order, except that we didn't have nearly enough insulation in the attic crawl space and our cooling/heater units badly needed to be cleaned. Because the city manages the energy company, they offer incentives for homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient. We were able to get a $250 credit toward getting our cooling/heater units cleaned professionally. We were also able to get a credit toward the cost of having insulation installed.

The cooling/heating company guys came out this morning and spent about two hours cleaning and tuning up the units. The bill came up to $242, so there was no cost to us. Just at they were leaving, the insulation guys came and spent about another two hours putting in insulation. It ended up costing $900 for the insulation and labor. But, becasue the city gave us a credit for 100% of the first $500 spent and 80% of the rest of the cost, we ended up paying only $70 out-of-pocket for almost $1200 in goods and services!

Because of this experience, I definitely recommend calling up your utility company today and find out about getting an energy audit. They will probably also be able to tell you about credit programs that your local state, county, or city government offers for homeowners. It's worth it, for a few hours of your time, to save hundreds (and eventually, thousands) of dollars.