What Is a Home Energy Audit?
A home energy audit is a systematic evaluation of your home's energy use, identifying inefficiencies and recommending improvements ranked by cost-effectiveness. A professional auditor inspects your insulation, air sealing, HVAC system, windows, appliances, and lighting, then produces a report showing where you are wasting energy and what to fix first.
Most utilities offer free or subsidized basic energy audits. A basic audit involves a visual inspection and a review of your utility bills. A comprehensive audit costs $200 to $400 and includes diagnostic testing with specialized equipment that identifies problems invisible to the naked eye.
What Happens During a Comprehensive Audit
The auditor performs a blower door test, which depressurizes your home to measure total air leakage and identify where air is escaping. Using an infrared camera, they scan walls, ceilings, and floors to reveal insulation gaps, thermal bridges, and moisture issues that are invisible otherwise. They inspect your HVAC ductwork for leaks, measure your insulation levels in the attic and walls, and evaluate your water heater, appliances, and lighting.
The entire process takes two to four hours for a typical home. The auditor then produces a prioritized list of recommendations, often with estimated costs, savings, and payback periods for each improvement.
Common Findings
The most frequent issues discovered during audits include inadequate attic insulation (found in roughly 50 percent of homes), air leaks around windows, doors, and penetrations (nearly universal to some degree), leaky ductwork (found in approximately 60 percent of homes with forced-air systems), and inefficient water heaters or HVAC systems operating below their rated efficiency.
Many of these issues are inexpensive to fix. Air sealing with caulk and weatherstripping costs $50 to $200 in materials and can reduce heating and cooling costs by 10 to 20 percent. Adding attic insulation costs $500 to $2,000 but can save $200 to $600 per year. Duct sealing costs $300 to $1,000 and recovers 20 to 30 percent of lost conditioned air.
Is It Worth the Cost?
For most homeowners, a professional energy audit pays for itself many times over through the targeted improvements it identifies. Rather than guessing which upgrades will save the most, an audit gives you a data-driven priority list. Many utility audit programs also provide rebates or discounts on the recommended improvements, further improving the return. Use our electricity calculator to see your current energy costs and identify areas where an audit might reveal savings.