How Do I Get a Home Energy Audit?

A home energy audit is a professional inspection of how your house uses energy, with testing that finds leaks and waste you cannot see. Unlike a quick walkthrough, an audit measures your home: a blower door temporarily depressurizes the house to reveal drafts, and an infrared camera shows cold spots in walls, ceilings, and around windows. The auditor also reviews insulation levels, heating and cooling equipment, water heating, lighting, and major appliances.

The result is a written report that ranks every problem by cost and expected savings. That list is your road map, so you spend money on the fixes that matter instead of guessing.

For buyers, the audit has a second life as a due-diligence tool. Before you make an offer on an older home, or during the inspection period, a paid audit can reveal the true condition of the envelope and equipment, information that belongs in the negotiation like any other inspection finding. Some buyers have negotiated credits based on an audit's list, and every buyer has used it to budget the first year of ownership. If the house is drafty, the audit tells you exactly how drafty, and that number is worth far more than the dinner-table guesswork it replaces.

Expect the audit to cover the building envelope first, because that is where most homes lose energy. In a typical Philadelphia-area home, the biggest losses come through the attic, basement edges, windows, and small cracks around doors, pipes, and electrical outlets.

The Main Tests

A blower door test measures how airtight the home is and helps pinpoint leaks. A thermographic scan with an infrared camera shows where insulation is thin or missing. Combustion safety checks make sure furnaces, water heaters, and fireplaces are venting properly, which matters for both efficiency and health.

Your report should include a checklist of recommended fixes, from cheap DIY items like weatherstripping to larger projects like attic insulation, plus an estimate of each one's payback. Many auditors also connect you to rebates, which lowers the cost of the work.

In Pennsylvania, the cheapest path starts with your utility, not a private company. PECO, PPL Electric Utilities, and the FirstEnergy brands like Met-Ed and Penn Power run energy efficiency programs under the state's Act 129, and several offer home energy assessments at a reduced price or even free to qualifying customers. A quick call to your utility or a search of its website for "home energy assessment" tells you what is available in your service area.

If you pay out of pocket, look for an auditor certified by BPI (Building Performance Institute) or a RESNET HERS rater. Ask three questions before hiring: Do they use a blower door and infrared camera, will you get a written report with payback estimates, and do they help with rebate paperwork? A verbal walkthrough without testing is not an audit.

Audit pricing varies, but for a typical single-family home it is usually in the low hundreds of dollars when paid privately, and often far less through a utility program. Treat the audit as an investment in information: the fixes it recommends typically pay for themselves through reduced heating and cooling bills long before the next major equipment purchase.

Doing a do-it-yourself walkthrough in the meantime is still worthwhile. Look for drafts around doors and windows with a lit candle or incense stick, check attic insulation depth, and feel outlets on exterior walls on a cold day. Your own list plus a professional report together give you the complete picture.

The difference between a walkthrough and an audit is measurement, and measurement changes what you fix. A casual look tells you the attic looks shallow and the kitchen is drafty. An audit tells you the attic insulation delivers about half its rated value because it is compressed and damp, that the true leakage is concentrated at the basement rim joist, not the windows you assumed were the problem, and that the ductwork in the unconditioned space is losing a measurable share of the heat before it reaches the rooms.

In an older Pennsylvania home, built before modern energy codes, those findings are the norm rather than the exception. Homes in our region often combine a build era with uninsulated walls, single-pane storm windows, and a furnace sized for a leakier envelope than the one that exists after the owner tightened it up. An audit puts numbers on all of it, and it reassigns your budget: homeowners who act on an audit report typically spend less total money and get a more comfortable house than homeowners who react to the draftiest-feeling spot.

One more return is the baseline itself. The audit's before picture is what you compare against after you insulate or upgrade, so you can prove the project worked, which matters when you later sell and want to hand a buyer real evidence rather than claims.