Having a professional home energy audit educated me about my home’s energy use. Energy wasters are easily invisible. Sometimes the invisible nature is due to an inability to see what’s in front of my face.

Other times, the invisibility is due to leaks being hidden from site. This was the case with our hot water heater. While installing a timer to heat water only when I need it seemed obvious, the holes in the floor to allow for plumbing the heater were not on my radar screen.

Our auditor pointed out the holes around the lines coming into the house. The fix for these leaks are easy. With DAP Tex Multi-Purpose foam sealant, the air leak was sealed in less than one minute.

My auditor provided the DAP Tex foam sealant. You can find yours on-line at ShopLocal.com or at your friendly neighborhood home improvement store.

Energy efficiency is our mission at this stage of our solar home energy journey. The less energy we use, the less we will pay for a home solar energy system. There are steps in this process. Although some of these steps are costly, some are very inexpensive.

Each week I’ve been posting what we have learned from our energy audit to be more energy efficient. While the big-ticket items, like air conditioning and hot water, matter most, smaller details add up.

My DIY home energy audit revealed air leaks around the electrical outlets and switches on the outside wall of my house. A candle flame held next to the outlet blew over in the air draft from the outlet. Here’s the picture.

Our auditor helped me understand why outside wall outlets are major air leaks. When homes are constructed, and the wall insulated, a fairly large area around the electrical outlets are left un-insulated. This tactic allows electricians working room to do their job installing electrical outlets. Thus, we have air leaks around electrical outlets positioned on the outside walls of our homes.

Well, our auditor gave us some handy little Switch & Outlet Sealers to install behind the outlets and switches. These simple polyethylene foam rectangles stop drafts and insulate. They were easy to install:

•    Remove switch or outlet plate
•    Remove precut inserts from sealers
•    Put sealer in place and put plate back on

If you have a professional audit, your auditor may supply you with these Switch & Outlet Sealers. However, you can buy these yourself at your local Home Depot or hardware store.

As you know, going solar remains our goal. Solar energy is good for the earth, that is, clean, abundant, and efficient.

But if I need any other incentive for going solar, it would be the energy audit on my heating and air conditioning system.

According to our auditor, the average monthly kilowatt usage in our area approximately equals the square footage of the conditioned area. That means if my 1700 square foot home uses 1700-kilowatt hours per month, they think I am doing well.

That’s 55 kilowatt hours per day. The more conservative among the energy conscious say more than 20 kilowatt hours per day is wasteful. Maybe they don’t live in Texas.

In my part of the planet, south Texas, heating and air conditioning account for 50% of our energy bill. Although I use air conditioning more months of the year than heating, heating with electricity costs twice as much as cooling! Those dandy little heat-strips pull a lot of electricity!

The good news from our auditor is that our system is the right size for our home. I want to add a sunroom on the south side of the house to capture the lovely solar-thermal energy. Done correctly, we could heat a large portion of our living area with passive solar heat gain in winter.

The down side is that if I want to cool that space in the summer, I will need a larger air conditioning system.

Hmmm…there’s more to going solar than we think.

Now here’s the best energy efficient tip for my hot water heater. Install a timer on the heater. Set that timer to come on only to heat water when you need it.

Our auditor sets his water heater timer to heat water only four hours each evening. This little trick provides his family of three with plenty of water for evening and morning use. They wash clothes in cold water using Cold Water Tide.

We set our timer to come on two hours each morning and two hours each evening. So far we have not run out of hot water. Although I occasionally wash clothes in warm water, we still have plenty of hot water for dishes and showers.

You can get this nifty little timer for your hot water heater at you local Home Depot.

The temperature setting for your hot water heater affects your utility bill. Manufacture setting may vary but a good temperature setting is around 120 degrees.

What about added insulation to your hot water heater? Home Depot has nifty little insulated wraps to cover your water heater. My auditor said not to get one; there’s plenty of insulation in the walls of the water heater itself.

However, that little copper coil coming from the side of the water heater does need insulation. Just a piece of foam insulation around it would do the trick.

Now, see these wires and pipes coming up from the floor in this picture? Those wires and pipes come up to the water heater via holes in the floor. These holes mean air leaks. To remedy this situation, we simply need to fill the holes with insulation. That’s an easy fix!

After checking our air conditioning and heating system, our energy auditor checked out the hot water heater.

The serial number told him the water heater is 12 years old. Not bad for our area. Hard water deposits can reduce the life-span of a typical hot water heater to 10 years.

Next, the auditor checked the heating element with a gadget from his tool bag. I don’t know what the numbers measure, but the verdict is our element indeed heats the water. If hard water deposits—calcium in our case—builds up on the element, the calcium build-up insulates the heating element and the water will not get hot.

Hot water heater tip: To protect the heating element from calcium build-up, drain about a quart of water out of it every month. My husband, being the handyman he is, drains our water heater periodically. Not monthly, just when he thinks about it. But even his sporadic diligence has protected our water heater.

According to my energy provider, in our area, air conditioning and heating account for 50% of a home’s energy bill. So it made sense that our home energy auditor first looked at our air conditioning/heating system.

He made sure the air conditioning unit was the correct size for our 1700 square feet of conditioned space. Using special equipment and a calculator, he found it cost me $1.07 to run my air conditioner for one hour. And on hot Texas days that thing runs a lot!

He also gave me some shocking news about my electric heat. Due to those little “heat strips”, it cost twice as much to heat my home as it does to cool it. It the cost per kilowatt hour stays the same, I will pay $2.14 for each hour my heater is on this winter.

His helpful tip for air conditioner/heating use?

Install a programmable thermostat, set the temperature for 78 degrees in summer and 68 degrees in winter.

Hmmm…how many solar panels would I need to run my air conditioner?

Tip number one: Have a professional home energy audit.

PEC, my local energy cooperative, provides free home energy audits to their customers. After calling the help line, I had an appointment within a week. The auditor who came was friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful.

He spent almost two hours checking our home and talking to my husband and me. He started with the water heater and the air conditioner/heating system. He checked our windows and doors, inside and out. We talked about insulation, window choices, heating/cooling systems, household appliances, and electric versus gas heat.

He left us with some great ideas to implement and this handy “energy kit” to get us started.

Call your home energy provider and ask for a home energy audit today! If they do not offer this service, they should be able put you in contact with a local professional who can help you.

How energy efficient is your home? In earlier posts I have suggested having a home energy audit done to determine how energy efficient–or inefficient–your house is. Learning how to improve your house “envelope” is the first step to going solar.

My do-it-yourself energy audit results were posted on September 8. The major air leaks I found with my simple tests were leaky windows, a leaky door due to worn out weatherstripping, and leaky electrical outlets. Yes, leaky electrical wall outlets.

Today is my official, professional home energy audit provided by my electric energy provider.

Please stay tuned! Tomorrow I’ll let you know the results!

Reducing your home energy usage reduces the cost of any home solar energy system. The less energy you waste, the less your solar energy investment will be. Along with practicing good conservation habits, finding and eliminating the invisible energy wasters saves you money.

Find where your home loses energy by doing a home energy audit. You can do a simple energy audit yourself.

On a very hot or very cold day, walk around your home and notice the temperature differences near outside doors and windows. Checking around pipes and electrical outlets may surprise you too.

You can also do a draft test with a candle or incense stick.

First, close all exterior doors and windows. Turn off any fans that circulate air such as ceiling fans, floor fans, and a/c or heating units. Turn off all pilot lights on any gas appliances.

Second, go through your home and turn on all exhaust fans. These are usually in the kitchen and the bathrooms.

Next, with a lit candle or incense stick, check around window, doors, and outside wall electrical outlets. Pay attention to the flame or smoke. Without air circulation to move them, the flame or smoke will go straight up. However, the flame or smoke will point away from any drafts.

This simple test makes those invisible drafts visible! Here are a couple photos of my candle test.

This first photo shows the candle flame standing straight up, indicating no draft at the top of the electrical outlet.

This photo shows the flaming leaning due to the draft at the socket.

My simple candle test also showed me where my double-paned windows were leaky and where the drafty spot around my front door was.

Now I know the weatherstripping around my door needs replacing, the electrical outlets need insulation, and my windows need some inspection to determine if they need caulking or replacing.