With todays out of control energy prices most homeowners are looking for every possible way to save money and improve the overall energy efficiency of their homes. The good news is that there are many different ways that you can cut down of your utility bills, but before you start trying to make any drastic changes to your house and your appliances you need to complete a home energy audit. The audit will help you to understand what areas of the house are the most inefficient and will benefit your energy costs the most by being improved. While having a professional come in and complete a home energy audit can seem like it is an expensive proposition, especially since it can cost anywhere from 300 to 700 dollars, once you have the results and make the changes you will consider it a wise investment. You can easily expect to see up to a 40% or more savings in your annual energy bills which means the audit will most likely pay for itself in the first year. On top of this you will not need another audit for at least another 15 to 20 years. When the audit performs your home energy audit he will use an instrument called a thermographic scanner to check for air leaks and areas that are hiding excessive moisture.

He will also do a combustion safety test on your furnace and use a heavy duty blower to see how airtight the doors and windows of your house are. Then he will take a close look at every appliance in your house to check their age and see how many of them meet the latest Energy Star standards. During the home energy audit he is going to look at how you light your house, the insulation in the attic and walls and inspect every room in the house including the basement and garage. When he is done there will not be one inch of the house that has not been thoroughly inspected. After all of this he will ask to see your previous utility bills, most likely for the last 12 months to get a good idea of how much you have spent and which months were the worst. Once he has completed your home energy audit, he will sit down with you and go over his findings one item at a time.

The problem areas will be obvious and in most cases so will the solutions. If your doors and windows leak air you can add weather stripping to the door frames and plan to replace old leaky windows. You can add more insulation to your attic yourself or have a professional company come in and do the work. Over time you can replace any appliances that are out of date with newer more energy efficient models. The whole purpose of a home energy audit is to find out what you can do to reduce your overall energy bills. If you would like more information on using the results of an audit to save you money and what you can do to your home to follow the recommendations of the audit contact Save Money on Energy. Here you will find people who have helped over 20,000 homes to become more energy efficient ready to help add your home to the list of successes.