Home energy audits help you make valuable savings on your bills and identify areas where you are losing energy unnecessarily. If your recent bills have been a little on the high side, it may be wise to organise a home energy audit as soon as you can to boost energy efficiency in your home.
There are some checks you can carry out yourself, but to save as much money as possible and get a holistic picture it’s advisable to have the audit conducted out by a professional.
Home energy audits are often called home energy assessments and help you identify steps that will improve your energy-efficiency, cutting your bills and your carbon footprint at the same time. You may be able to reduce your bills by hundreds of pounds a year following a home energy audit.
What is the purpose of an energy audit?
Home energy audits are like the audits conducted by employers and within companies. The overall goal is to improve how your home operates in terms of energy, and it’s a good idea to carry out an audit every two or three years to ensure you are making the most of all the energy and money-saving opportunities available to you.
Another great reason for opting for regular audits is that they can help you address any health and safety risks to remove dangers from your home. Audits can help your whole family become more energy-efficient and introduce energy-saving tips to you that you can benefit from for life.
Can I carry out my own energy audit?
Professional home energy auditors can assist you in a variety of ways. It can take a substantial amount of time and effort to gather together all the data and information you need if you carry out the audit yourself, but a professional auditor knows exactly what to look for and will leave no stone unturned when it comes to collecting all the figures that they need. They will assess various aspects of your energy usage and use their vast experience and expertise to make valuable recommendations. When an auditor carries out the work for you, you can focus on other duties safe in the knowledge that the whole process is being carried out by a trusted professional.
How is your energy usage assessed during an audit?
Your auditor can provide you with an in-depth report on your energy usage, complete with detailed advice on how to save money and energy. They will consider a range of factors when carrying out the survey and compiling the report, including the size of your family and your energy needs.
Research into your monthly energy costs, how much energy you have used throughout the calendar including during the summer and winter months and what you are using your energy for will be carried out. If there are any substantial spikes and dips in your energy usage, they will identify the reasons for these.
Your auditor will also tell you how many kW/hs you have been using per year and will do all they can to help you reduce your average annual spend.
How can an energy audit reduce my bills?
The amount you can save can depend on a range of factors, but households are generally able to reduce their annual bills by anything between 5-30% depending on their energy usage.
Audits aren’t just about saving money – many people enlist the support of expert professionals when they wish to make a better contribution to the planet and cut down their carbon footprint. This can be achieved in several ways, including replacing old appliances with new more energy-efficient products, changing the way you heat your home, improving the insulation in your home, making the most of the daylight and fixing air leakage.
Poor insulation and leaky, draughty windows are two of the main reasons why so many consume more energy than they need to. There are normally many other energy saving methods you can opt to get the outcome you desire.
Health and safety
Home energy audits have a valuable role to play when it comes to improving health and safety standards within the home. During an audit, special techniques and tools can be used to identify hazards within your home, assess the quality of your wiring, look for fuel leaks and more.
It’s possible to learn a great deal about fuel consumption and how to reduce it when audits are carried out on your home. You can use your experience to encourage others to follow suit and arrange audits on their properties, enabling friends and family members to reduce their fuel usage and identify ways to cut down their bills for good. When millions of people take small steps to save energy, the outcome can be incredibly beneficial for the planet.
Drafts, leaks and insulation
Drafts and leaks can cause us to spend far more on heating our home than we need to. Indoor air leaks can be found in all sorts of places, including around the edge of your flooring and areas on the outside of your property, such as places where different materials are next to each other.
You may be able to take steps to enhance the ventilation inside your home to prevent back drafting and can improve insulation to reduce the amount of heat lost through walls and ceilings. Older homes often feature inadequate insulation because the standard was deemed high at the time. However, improvements in insulation mean there may be substantial opportunities to save energy at home today.
You can also make changes to your lighting to improve energy-efficiency, such as using CFLs and LEDs. Dimmers, timers and sensors can also help you avoid wasting energy, as can investing in modern energy-efficient electronics. Many modern appliances come complete with energy ratings, which can help you make the right purchases for your energy-saving needs. If you’ve been wondering how to save energy, why not consider booking an audit at the earliest opportunity?
