This inspection will reveal the warmest and coldest areas in your house. Then you will know which specific areas of your home are costing you extra money for heating and cooling. Best way to improve your energy efficiency One way to reduce heating and cooling expenses is to add more insulation throughout your home. Additional air sealing and weather stripping will also help lower these expenses. However, these heat barriers (insulation, air sealing, and weather stripping) cost money. You can achieve almost as much energy efficiency, at a much lower cost, by treating only those areas of your home with the highest heat transfer. The energy inspection service (See Infrared Building Inspections)

Contractors that provide an energy inspection service come to your home and take pictures of various surfaces of your home. The pictures are taken using Thermal Imaging Cameras. These pictures show different temperatures in different colors. An interpretation of these pictures reveals the areas of your home with the highest heat transfer. Installing additional heat barriers Now that you know where to place additional heat barriers the final step is to install them. You can either hire the work done or do the work yourself.

Doing the work yourself - Batt and roll insulation

(See Start a Business Installing Insulation)  -- When installing batts or rolls of insulation in wall or floor cavities, measure the length needed and cut the batt or roll to fit snugly. If two or more short pieces of insulation are used to fill a space, you need to butt the ends snugly together. When installing batts or rolls of insulation between studs or joists, there may be some members spaced closer than normal. In this case, you will have to decrease the width of the insulation blanket to fit the smaller space. Leave the backing of the insulation blanket on the cut side wide enough to provide a flange for stapling. When insulating attic floor joists with batts or rolls, if the floor cavity is already filled with insulation, then lay any additional insulation batts or rolls at right angles to the floor joists.

Blown-in insulation

Installing blown-in insulation requires at least one person to dump bags of insulation into the blower tank and at least one other person to hold the end of the blower hose and direct the insulation where needed. (Both persons should be wearing an approved dust mask or respirator and approved goggles.) Loose-fill insulation -- When installing loose-fill insulation in exterior walls, you have to decide whether to cut the access hole on the exterior or interior of the wall. This is usually determined by which side of the wall will be the easiest to repair. If you were planning to paint one side of the wall anyway, that would decide the matter. Air sealing -- Air leakage, or infiltration, through cracks or openings between the outside and the home interior can be another source of unwanted heat transfer. You can remedy this problem by caulking cracks in and around exterior walls, and installing weather-stripping around doors and windows.

Overall benefits of energy inspections

There are several benefits to these energy inspections. They provide a market for the thermal imaging cameras. They help the homeowners increase the energy efficiency of their homes and thus reduce their heating and cooling expenses. They provide entrepreneurs with business opportunities and workers with employment opportunities. The increased energy efficiency for the various homeowners helps decrease carbon emissions from oil and coal-fired electricity generators.

by Charles Moorehead