12 Reasons to Get a Solar Audit for Your Home

A solar audit refers to an assessment to determine your household’s energy consumption and an analysis of ways to reduce energy consumption. Therefore, a solar audit can help you build a proper solar system for your home while ensuring your investment.

Through the home assessment, you can identify the problems in your home that lead to energy loss. You can achieve an energy-efficient home by fixing these problems, saving you significant amounts of energy and money, and also saving the environment by reducing the carbon footprint.

Moreover, a solar audit can also help you make better decisions regarding your home’s energy supply, consumption, and ideas on where to install your solar panels.

You can either perform a solar audit by yourself or call a professional to do it better and help you understand your home’s energy needs. There are two types of energy audits done by professionals, and they are:

• A preliminary audit- is a data-gathering process that gives a preliminary analysis. The auditor typically conducts this audit by making a walk-through investigation. They use limited diagnostic equipment and readily available information to facilitate the preliminary audit.
• A detailed audit- is where an auditor monitors, investigates and verifies your energy usage to establish potential issues and implement ways to improve energy efficiency. To do this, the auditor uses sophisticated equipment such as a scanner, flow meter, and a flue gas analyzer. Then they will give you a detailed report containing their findings and suggestions.

When conducting a do-it-yourself (DIY) energy analysis, you should look for air leaks, evaluate the ventilation, check insulation levels, assess lighting, and inspect your electronics and appliances.

If you’re contemplating getting a solar audit for your home anytime soon, here are some reasons to convince you that it’s the right thing to do:

A solar audit is essential in determining your household’s energy consumption. Through the audit, you’ll know the potential sources of energy wastage in your home and can help you identify the steps you need to take to cut down the energy losses to save on costs. The possible ways of cutting down your energy losses include changing your appliances to energy-efficient ones and insulating your ceilings and walls to lower your energy consumption.

A building envelope can also be referred to as a thermal envelope. It’s a barrier separating the inside and outside of the building. The building envelope comprises a set of systems that safeguard the building’s interior from exterior aspects such as temperature, wind, humidity, and precipitation. The building envelope’s main features are doors, windows, walls, roofing systems, and foundation.

By conducting a solar audit, you can reveal the inefficiencies of the building envelope that results in energy loss. You can conduct a blower test to identify sealing issues within your property. Its key role is monitoring the airtightness and ensuring proper air control in your home’s interior. Through the blower test results, you’ll know if your door has too much airflow, allowing you to rectify the issue as soon as possible to reduce energy loss and improve the air quality.

The energy audit can help your solar energy specialists create a perfect solar system for your home, considering your specific energy requirements. Some solar system installers can even provide you with a digital home energy dashboard that can show you the energy consumption changes upon installing a new system. You can contact reputable companies within your area to get the best solar package for your home.

The audit can help you in discovering the areas that need energy-efficient upgrades to boost the resale value of your home. Do note that energy-efficient homes tend to increase their resale value in comparison to other properties that aren’t energy efficient. Additionally, an energy-efficient home looks more attractive to many buyers.

A solar energy home audit can show you an analysis of your household’s energy consumption every month and it can also analyze your past six to 12 months usage. Through this process you’ll know how you’re faring in terms of costs by determining your monthly consumption. Auditors can use computer simulation to identify your present-day energy load and then give you a report on the energy consumption of each appliance in your home. Understanding your present-day energy consumption can help you make necessary usage adjustments and replacements of home appliances to cut down on energy costs.

The audit can help you get a comprehensive report on the energy-related issues in your home. Through the report, you can schedule fixing these issues cost-effectively. Notably, the audit helps by speeding up your decision-making process regarding the repairs to make. Accordingly, the audit offers you a simplified way of systematically scheduling repairs by helping you identify the faulty areas early on.

By making specific adjustments to your home’s solar energy system, you can save on energy consumption and enhance your home’s comfort. For instance, you can identify the gaps that cause air to escape, the air leaks might be why your heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) system seems inefficient during summer and winter, thus making your home uncomfortable.

The expert can then give you recommendations, like installing appropriate insulation to ensure that no energy is lost and you can maintain your home’s comfort. Proper insulation of walls, ceilings, and floors can help control the radiated heat. Additionally, installing fans and attic vents can also help by controlling the conventional heat within the room, thus reducing air conditioners’ use.

An energy audit can also help you understand the efficiency of your home appliances. Some old model appliances might be the cause of your energy wastage. So, performing an audit can help you plan for specific improvements.

You can also check your HVAC system’s efficiencies through the audit. This includes your air conditioning, thermostat, and hot water system. Performing an audit can help you know if these appliances are in their proper state or if you need to have them repaired, cleaned, changed filters, or replaced with newer ones. You can also switch to in-room heating, whereby you’ll only pay for heating the spaces you occupy, hence saving energy in the long run.

Home safety should be a top priority for you. A home audit can help inspect the safety of your solar system. The audit experts use advanced techniques and tools to check for electrical hazards, like if the home has proper wiring to prevent electrical fires, and also perform tests on your fuel-powered home appliances to check for leaks.

Moreover, the audit can help you identify insulation problems or unwanted moisture sources that can lead to mold buildup on your walls or basement. By identifying the moisture problems in your home, you can take appropriate measures to maintain proper humidity levels, yielding positive results for the health of your family members, especially for those living with asthma or allergies.

With the current data concerning climate change, most people are geared to do everything that can help care for the environment. Since homes are among the greatest producers of carbon emissions that exhaust the ozone layer, many homeowners are adopting ways of reducing their carbon footprint. The audit can help analyze your energy consumption and the emissions from your home, allowing the experts to suggest changes to make your home environmentally conscious.

When conducting an audit, you can detect the defects of your energy system, both in the interior and exterior of your home. By identifying these issues early, you can fix them before they worsen and damage your entire energy system. In addition, the audit can also help identify problems with the ventilation of your air conditioning that can cause damage to your home if you fail to rectify it in time. The other possible perils you might identify are carbon monoxide production and moisture that can damage your home and the environment.

Through an audit, your energy specialist can explain to you about the correlation of the various energy systems in your house. They can let you know how the heating system operates and help you understand the interconnection of the different household systems. You can take advantage of this information to formulate strategic measures for reducing energy consumption.

You can also use the knowledge you gain from these experts when conducting a home upgrade since the report from the audit can act as a roadmap for future upgrades. Upgrading the particular systems to reduce energy consumption can be relatively easy due to the presence of a planning tool. By planning your upgrades properly, you can make the process less complicated and save money.

Performing an energy audit is essential for helping you save on energy costs by reducing energy consumption. By understanding how you consume the energy in your home, you can take specific measures to make your home more energy-efficient. The outline mentioned above highlights the importance of having a solar audit for your home and ways to maximize it to improve the quality of your home’s energy system.

Published in: Home advice | Author: Lynn