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Get The Most Bang For Your Utility Buck

Energy Audit (Added: May 21, 2009)

Get the most bang for your utility buck. (more)

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By Donna Willis
Published: May 21, 2009

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CENTRAL OHIO -- With summer just around the corner, utility bills are going to start creeping up.

There’s one simple way you can make sure you're getting the most bang for your utility buck.

Storm Team 4’s Ben Gelber reported with the FAST FACTS.

The federal stimulus bill signed by President Obama in February requires that Ohio adopt the most recent energy efficient building codes over an eight-year period.

The new codes could increase construction costs, but environmental groups believe those costs would be offset by energy savings.

“This is a great tool. What this will do is to produce thermal imaging of the home,” Matt Ravenswinder said.

A home audit can detect costly energy leaks anywhere from the basement to the attic by finding missing insulation and moisture pockets.

“Typical energy leaks in the home are going to be around the band board in the basement, where the house meets the foundation, attic hatches, caulking around the windows,” he said.

The goal of an energy audit is to discover leaks that, when fixed, will decrease your annual utility bill and increase comfort while reducing carbon emissions.

“What we have set up here is the blower door test. With this running, I'm basically depressurizing the home, and doing that it's telling me what the air leakage of the house is,” Ravenswinder said

New chemical technology, including polyurethane materials, will improve insulation.

“Making a building more energy efficient is a challenge to the chemical industry in terms of how we can develop new products that provide better insulation,” the Ohio Chemistry Technology Council’s Jack Pounds said.

Environment Ohio maintains that savings derived from the new building codes would potentially save enough energy to power 19 million homes, helping to offset a projected 1 percent increase in total construction costs.

“By adopting stronger building-code standards we can save the average residential customer approximately $358 a year on their energy bills,” Ohio Consumer Council’s Janine Migden-Ostrander said.

Go to http://www.servicemagic.com/rated.OhioHomeEnergyAdvisors.18284527.html for more information.

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