3 tests to improve energy efficiency in your home

Great presentation as far as it went; missing is information on how to get a local contractor to conduct the test for my home in my home town.

why not text? my ducts are under a concrete slab anyway, how owuld you test them, not going to tear out my floor to save a few pennies.

All these people and companies give the pie in the sky talk. When ALL of your ducts are embedded in completed walls and ceilings its hard to do anything with them. Like the person above there's no way people can do anything about that or the expense of doing so you would probably not see an ROI in under 10-15 years.

These companies/experts need to go back and contemplate their navels for a while and then come back with things that people can do.

So...what does this guy charge to come out and do all this checking? I know that that FLIR camera he has is several thousand dollars...in all, i'ld say that he came into this woman's house with over $20,000 worth of gear...to recoup that cost, and the cost of his time and expertise, I would suspect that he charges at least $500 or more for this service...Now, amortize that charge and compare it to the average cost per kil-watt energy usage.For an average house that spends about $200/month for electricity, this cost this owner over 2 months of electricity...about a thousand kilowatts of usage. At an average of 18 cents per kilowatt, this visit costs 2,700 kilowatts.
If the average house leaks 1 kilowatt per month, (that's a lot of leakage) the job this guy did will not recoup the cost in the next 225 years!. So in order for this to be cost effective, you need to recoup the cost in 2 years. that means that you have to have an energy leakage in your house of over 13 thousand kilowatts! To put this in perspective. This would be equal to running 13 plasma TVs round the clock in your house...
Not worth it in my book...I'ld rather have the energy leak!

Let's not forget that this client was already seeking to undergo a home remodel and wanted to do it conscientiously with "green" in mind. The cost for the audit is for a professional Home Performance person to consult, and simply lay out a plan to remodel the home in an energy efficient and greener fashion. We're pretty quick to spend $300 or $400 for a home inspection when we purchase a home and what does that give us? Peace of mind? Does that have a pay-back? Also, notice that Kevin Beck touches on comfort as a result of bad ducting, poor insulation quality and air leakage. So what's really the difference? Does a $400 home inspection touch on comfort, sustainability, energy efficiency, health? And by heath, I mean have you ever wondered where those duct leaks pull air from? If your home has a crawl-space, that air comes from your musty crawl-space where rodents and fungus lives. Also, in regards to the ROI math above, can you put an ROI on comfort and health improvements by sealing duct-work that was done poorly? Do we expect ROI when we pay for a $10K heating system to be installed? Do we expect ROI when we enhance our home with a new granite counter-top? Do we expect ROI when we remodel our home inefficiently? As far as I know, we don't try to analyze pay-back when it comes to our families comfort, heath and the durability of our homes. But hey, we all need to try and justify things when they don't sit well with us, right?

By the way, there are ways to seal ducts under slabs. And, with that said, I think this segment does leave out the fact that duct leakage should really only be dealt with when it's accessible. Sealing accessible ducts has a short ROI and improves comfort and energy loss, and most of us have duct work located in our attics and crawl-spaces.

These three tests are the standard ones done, many local electric
utilities will do a duct test (FPL - approx. $100) without the blower
that is pretty accurate. I like this video because it SHOWS what
someone does when they inspect your home if you want to be
energy efficient and be more comfortable and increase the re-sale
value. I would have like to seen some idea of cost also. I am sure
many of you who are very cost aware have a contractor friend that
could do these tests for almost nothing.