Plug Your Home's Costly Leaks Before Winter

About one-third of the $2,000 that a typical U.S. household spends each year on energy goes toward heating and cooling the great outdoors. And as the price of fuel climbs, that wasted energy takes a bigger bite of your budget.

This winter, the Department of Energy forecasts, the cost of natural gas will increase by some 18% compared with last year, and residential heating oil (most commonly used in the Northeast) will rise by 23%. Electricity rates will rise 10%.

One easy way to keep utility bills in check is to do a home-energy audit. Although an audit's scope depends on the age, size and design of the house, a typical audit takes three to four hours and costs $250 to $600. The resulting report can serve as a road map to improve your home's energy efficiency and comfort.

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Getting personal. My husband and I ordered an energy audit for our northern Virginia house last summer. We hired Bill Gray, of Gaithersburg, Md., an energy auditor certified by Maryland's Home Performance With Energy Star program.

Gray arrived with his black bags of tools and diagnostic equipment in the company of Glenn Dickey, technical-services director of the Maryland program. The duo then inspected our house like Holmes and Watson. For the next three hours, they peered inside and out, basement to attic. They measured our home's volume, poked their flashlights into voids, and ran tests designed to measure the efficiency of our furnace and the leakiness of our home's exterior.

The "blower-door test" provided a big clue to the results of our audit. Gray covered our front-door opening with a ripstop nylon cover, into which he inserted a large fan that depressurized the house. As I stood in the basement stairwell, I felt a door-slamming breeze rush upstairs as air was sucked into the basement through gaps in our home's exterior.

SLIDE SHOW: What You Could Save on Energy CostsShortcuts to Save on UtilitiesProtect Your Home This Winter

You may be able to offset the cost with incentives from your state or your utility provider -- typically a rebate or exemption from state sales tax on the purchase of Energy Star appliances. Under New Jersey's Home Performance program, the more fixes you make, the bigger the incentive -- usually a low-interest loan and cash back combined, to a maximum of 50% of the job cost or $5,000, whichever is less.

Incentives are listed on the Web site of your utility company, your state's Home Performance With Energy Star program and your state energy office (at www.naseo.org, click on "member center"). Or check North Carolina State University's database (www.dsireusa.org). Note that federal incentives expired at the end of 2007.

Finding an auditor. Before you call an auditor, try Energy Star's Home Energy Yardstick (www.energystar.gov). Plug in your zip code and some of your utility history (check a recent bill for monthly usage over the past year), and you'll find out how your energy use compares with your neighbors'.

On the Energy Star Web site (and probably on your local utility's site), you can try a free online audit and find information and advice on saving energy.

For a rigorous evaluation, you'll need an on-site visit. Energy auditors typically come to the job with experience in home inspection, as Bill Gray did, or in heating and cooling and other building trades.

The Maryland Home Performance With Energy Star program that subsidized Gray's training and certified him is one of 26 such programs; most are co-sponsored by a utility or state energy office (to find one, visit www.energystar.gov and click on 'home improvement' and 'home energy audits').

Home Performance auditors have a vested interest in their clients making the fixes because their continued accreditation depends on it.

Or you can try the Residential Energy Services Network (Resnet), which primarily audits and rates new homes for Energy Star certification. At www.natresnet.org, click on "consumer information" and "find a certified rater").

With the slowdown in the housing market, Resnet auditors have begun auditing existing homes. Contractors who do audits and propose to do the fixes raise the question of conflict of interest. Home Performance and Resnet auditors must disclose that. Your best protection is to seek multiple bids for the work.

SLIDE SHOW: See How Much You Can Save on Home Energy Costs