What is a Home Energy Audit?
An energy audit is an inspection of an existing house to determine it's current energy efficiency. Our trained auditing professionals are certified HERS raters and are on the list of approved KCC, Westar, and Coop utility companies.
An energy audit is a visual inspection of the interior of the house. This includes checking in the attic for improper sealing of the duct work, insulation gaps, construction flaws, and penetrations open to the attic. We also check for window and door sealing.
We use computer software designed by RESNET to evaluate the energy problems of your house. Included in the report are the recommendations for the improvements we feel you would need to have a more energy efficient and comfortable home.
As you can see by the image below, there are several critical areas of heating and air conditioning loss and unwanted air infiltration in a typical house.
SES offers a unique and invaluable service in infrared scanning. Advanced infrared technology allows for detection and identification of problems invisible to the naked eye.
Infrared thermography can identify a variety of issues and deficiencies.
- Roof Failures
- Comfort Issues
- Moisture Detection
- Heat and Air Issues
- Insulation Verification
- Electrical Damage
- Mechanical Equipment Hotspots
Infrared thermography is an effective way to ensure stability and longevity of a home and to protext against the greater costs incurred by major building failures.
Additional Diagnostic testing and evaluation of the efficiency of your appliances is also included.
We use Blower Door technology to test for the houses' overall air tightness.
We check the efficiency of appliances like water heaters, heating and air conditioning units and any unusual electrical load your house is using. (A new ENERGY STAR certified refridgerator uses about 1/3 of the electricity of one that is 20 years old!)
We can install the improvements for you!
After we issue a report on the energy efficiency of your home and make reccomendations for improvements, you have two choices:
- Hire all the different contractors yourself and try to coordinate the work flow and deal with all the different pricing schedules and dealines... or...
- Let us manage this complex coordination for you by bringing your workload to a single company who can handle it all for you.
SES is the ONE and ONLY call you have to make. We coordinate and oversee all of the different aspects of insulation installation, appliance replacement, lighting upgrades, duct sealing, air infiltration barriers, and windows.
We work with a group of hand picked, highly qualified, and experienced contractors who know how to do energy efficient upgrades.
A home energy audit starts at $350.00 with an additional $150.00 fee for the final inspection of the improvements made to your home. Please contact SES to learn how the cost of the audit and improvements can be FREE.
HERS Rating Information
The HERS rating lets builders and home owners assess how efficiently their homes use energy, relative to similar homes nationwide. The rating system's 1-100 index allows everyone to quickly understand how a home is preforming. The lower the index score the better. HERS index of 100 represents the energy use of the "American Standard Building" and an index of 0 (zero) indicates that the proposed building uses no net purchased energy (a Zero Energy Building).
The process for this is first you plans are run through the rating program to see where on the index your home has reached. At this point you have the option to improve your index by making some upgrades that make the most sense for you and your budget. Once you have made the final decision on what you are going to do, the next thing is to have Sustainable Energy Systems come out and do a thermal Bypass check once the insulation is installed to verify that the installation is correct and complete. If corrections need to be made they must be done before the Energy Star certificate can be rewarded. Once the final changes are done to your home a final inspection will be preformed to include a blower door and duct blaster to insure that the building will preform as we intend. At this time the Energy Star Certificate will be issued.
