Plug Your Home's Costly Leaks Before Winter

[Chad Fabry]

Energy Audits are quickly gaining a foothold across the nation. Will inspectors with a proven energy reduction track record have an advantage when the market is saturated?

This article says that most Americans spend about $2,000 on energy and about 1/3 of that is for heating/ cooling. Does anyone know if these numbers are correct? I know where I live it costs waaaaay more than $666.000 bucks a year to heat, even for a very modest home.

[Tom Raymond]

I don't have a clue where they get their figures, I spend at least $1200 for natural gas just in the heating season and I've already made most of the energy improvements they would recommend. The cost estimates they use for improvements are just as realistic.

I do think that energy audits are a good idea, in fact I'm developing a program at my day job, but the current situation is not very beneficial to homeowners. Auditors are either completely unregulated or so invested into BPI and Energy Star that they have to hose their clients to pay for their certification. Seems to me that some regulation along the lines of the licensing requirements we live with should be implimented for energy auditors, far more practical than Home Performance with Energy Star, and more professional than Larry, Daryl & Daryl.

Tom