California Home Energy Audit FAQs for Earth Conscious Homeowners

I think one of the biggest differences between me now and me when I was just starting out in the world is that, these days, I don’t get overwhelmed by the small stuff. When I was younger, things like paying for my health insurance and looking into car maintenance felt overwhelming to me. It all seemed like complex stuff when I was unfamiliar with it. As I’ve gotten older, though, these tasks have become second nature—and I’ve learned how to approach situations I’m not familiar with a little more proactively.

The most important piece of advice I can give you if you’ve been wondering about the California home energy audit is to take things one step at a time. In Northern California, there are a pretty wide variety of different incentives, tax breaks, and no-interest financing available to homeowners who want to make their houses more energy efficient. Looking into these offers can be fairly complex, but that’s why I always make sure to tell folks that the first step is a simple one: get a California energy audit for your home.

A home energy audit may not answer all of your questions about energy efficiency, but that’s why I’m happy to use my expertise as a heating and cooling expert local to Sacramento, CA to help cover a bit more ground on the FAQs that earth-conscious homeowners tend to have around the California home energy audit. I know firsthand there are tons of you folks out there who want to help the environment—and save money on your utility bill.

What Is a California Energy Audit?

A California energy audit is a thorough and systematic review of your home by an expert in the field who can evaluate your current energy usage and offer you solutions and advice to help make your home more energy efficient. These audits generally involve evaluating both the interior and the exterior of your home.

The types of duties performed by an auditor have a fairly large range. They can include everything from:

• Diagnostic check-ups on equipment in your home, including your furnace, air conditioner, and thermostat, and
• Simple eye checks of your windows and the exterior of your home where energy may be escaping.

Any energy audit worth its salt, though, will include a trained professional checking out every aspect of your HVAC system, including but not limited to your air conditioner, furnace, thermostat, vents, ducts, old windows, and insulation. They should even check your plumbing for efficiency. To truly have the most energy efficient home, all these things must be working together to ensure maximum efficiency for a whole home approach to savings.

Why Is a California Energy Audit Important?

In my experience, the vast majority of folks now know that a California energy audit is an important thing to undergo in order to do your part for the environment. Heating and cooling, while convenient, can use a great deal of non-renewable fuel and energy. Reducing how much your family uses can do wonders for reducing the carbon footprint of your home.

See, when your home isn’t energy efficient, it’s guaranteed to be using more power, water, and gas than it should have to—which you pay for, as well as the earth.

Not only are you making your home more earth-friendly, but you will also be making your home more energy efficient as well, which can ultimately save you quite a bit of money. See, when your home isn’t energy efficient, it’s guaranteed to be using more power, water, and gas than it should have to—which you pay for, as well as the earth. By investing in energy efficient HVAC equipment, insulation, and windows, you can reduce your utility bills a great deal, especially with the energy efficiency incentives that are available to us here in Northern California.

Where Can I Get Help Completing My California Energy Audit?

This last question here today is maybe the single most important on our list. Where can you get help for a California energy audit? See, knowing all there is to know about why you need an audit isn’t all that helpful if you don’t know how to get one done for you and your home.

My advice is to get in touch with an experience local HVAC company. There’s just so much overlap between the HVAC world and energy efficiency. Any company worth its salt that handles heating, cooling, insulation, and windows will have the overlapping knowledge that you may need to complete your California energy audit.

So, there you have it. You now have some of the basic information you need to get started on your own California energy audit. Of everything we discussed here today, I think the single most important question is the last one. Where can you get help with your California energy audit? Well, from the local HVAC company, of course.

At Bell Brothers, we have years of experience in Sacramento and the surrounding areas helping folks heat, cool, and insulate their homes. We also know the local incentive plans inside and out, and we can be a great resource for getting you started on those too. You can work with pros like us and rest assured your house will be as energy efficient—and earth-conscious—as you are in no time! Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.

Wondering how to finance new windows—or even a furnace or plumbing upgrade? SMUD is a unique financing option that helps California homeowners afford energy-efficient upgrades to their home. Contact Bell Brothers, a SMUD-approved contractor, to learn more. Our local window, HVAC, and plumbing specialists will walk you through the entire process, from applications to installation.

Image courtesy AndreyPopov