GVEA: Home Energy Audit Basics

Living in interior Alaska comes with some unique energy challenges. You have extreme cold, you have older homes and expensive heating systems, and things like vehicle plugins. All of that shapes your electric bill, but you can perform your own home energy audit and know exactly where your electricity is going. My name is Dylan Gillespie. I'm an energy management specialist here at Golden Valley Electric.

Let's break it down.

In this video, We're gonna walk through our recommended steps for a basic home energy audit. First, we're gonna look at building envelope. This is the foundation for energy efficiency in your home. Then we're gonna look at home appliances, how much power they use and how long they run. Third, we look at heating-related electric loads.

And finally, we're gonna use myGVA to look at our real data and confirm what we're seeing. So what is the building envelope? And why is it important for your electrical bill? The building envelope is the system that separates the inside of your home from the outside environment. That includes things like the insulation in your attic, walls, and floors, your air sealing and vapor barriers, or the quality of your windows and doors.

When it's 40 below out, the difference in temperature between the inside and outside is extreme. So how does that affect your electric bill? That escaping heat needs to be replaced over and over again by your heating system. So whether it's the electricity needed to run your boiler or a space heater, a poor building envelope has a direct effect on your overall energy usage. A good envelope has two main components: air sealing and insulation.

Insulation slows heat loss, and it's measured by something called an R-value. A higher R-value means a better resistance to heat loss. Air sealing is something different. It stops warm air from leaking through any holes or gaps in your wall. And they both matter.

Even a well-insulated wall can lose a lot of heat if it isn't properly sealed. Let's talk about some common weak points in a building envelope of a home. For instance, windows, they're a really common weak point. You often feel drafts around the windowsill. If you see something like that, you want to take a look at what your weatherstripping looks like on your window, whether or not you've got any cracks or breaking in the seals of the window itself.

And it's a good idea to make sure that there's no fog or any type of condensation built up between the panes of the window, because that could indicate a faulty window. If you do have a problem with one of your windows, you can do something like using one of these window insulation shrink kits. They're easy to install, but I do recommend being careful if you see any type of moisture buildup, because that might be an indication that you've got a difference in humidity in your home, and we'd be concerned about, like, mold issues or risks. But these are good for adding an extra barrier between the inside and outside and helping seal up a window that may have a poor seal. Similar weak point in your home is going to be the doors, but with potentially more loss of heat because your door is often used more.

It's going to be open and closed more often, and those seals are going to wear down faster. Oftentimes, again, you'll see weatherstripping problems. It'll— could be dry or cracked, or in some cases even missing. One area of heat loss that you might not expect in your building envelope would be your light switches and outlets. These often penetrate the vapor barrier and they can be poorly sealed sometimes.

One solution would be to buy cold climate-specific receptacles or seal it with something like caulking on the edges. I might recommend to be very careful when you're working with electrical units, and if you're concerned, I'd recommend getting a specialist involved. A couple other things you can look for in your building envelope that indicate a problem are things like uneven snow melt, ripples in your roof in the snow, or icicles coming down from the edges of your roof. That's an indication that the insulation in the top of your roof is poor and should be looked at. Another thing to consider is going to be things like buildup of snow on the outside of your windows.

It'll kind of look like frosting or something to that effect, maybe even ice. That's an indication that you're losing heat from the top and condensation is occurring. Once you understand your building envelope, the next step we recommend is looking at your appliances. This is usually the bulk of your home electric usage. Here's a simple way to think about it.

When an appliance is on, ask yourself two questions: does it use a little bit of power? Does it use a lot of power? And does it run for a short time or a long time? That's it. Every appliance in your home fits into a combination of these patterns.

Let's start with the small stuff. These are appliances that use a little power for a short period of time. Things like your cell phone charger, your television, or an LED light bulb. These small devices use very little power and typically run for short periods. For the most part, they're not worth stressing over, and knowing that is really going to help us focus on what matters.

Let's look at some examples of appliances that use relatively little power but run for a long time. We've got things like a laptop when you're working from home, an HRV system, or heating. These items don't seem expensive, but because they run all day and night, they quietly add up. Let's jump into some bigger appliances that use a lot of power, but only run for a little while. Something like your washer and dryer, your electric stove, or your shop tools.

These appliances can cause a noticeable jump when they run, but how often you use them matters more than how big they are. For example, going from using your wash 4 times a week to 2 times a week will cut your laundry electric usage in half. This seems simple, but it's a really important concept to connect what you're doing to your electric usage. Now let's get to the appliances that use a lot of power and often run for a long time. The 2 big examples here are space heaters and vehicle plug-ins.

Here in Alaska, we plug in our vehicles, and some vehicles will be plugged in all night long, every night, all winter. That can really add up. It can be anywhere from $50 to $150 a month. One of the ways we can mitigate that is by putting a timer at the other end of this cord. You just plug in your extension cord into your timer and your timer into your outdoor outlet.

This is an example of a timer that we give away at GVEA. It works by connecting to your phone through a Wi-Fi app that allows you to make all your scheduling for your vehicles depending on your needs. It's really simple. You just set the time 3 hours before you need your vehicle and get it running. The only thing is you need a cell phone that'll run it and you need Wi-Fi.

If you don't have those things, that's okay. There's analog timers out there that work with the dial system and they work really well. This is where we need to talk about the space heater. They feel small and they feel convenient, but they use a lot of electricity and are often run for hours at a time. People usually use a space heater to compensate for things like drafty rooms, poor insulation, and cold floors or windows.

The space heater isn't the problem, it's the symptom. If a space heater is constantly being run, it's usually because of a building envelope issue. Now let's talk about heating-related electric loads. Because your heating system runs in the background and is mostly outta sight, outta mind, people often forget about it. But if you have a boiler, electricity still plays a critical role in its operation.

Electricity powers circulation pumps, fans and blowers, controllers and thermostats, and things like igniters and safety systems. If these components are running more, it does affect your electrical usage. It may not be by a huge amount, but it is there in the background running, and that adds up on your electric bill. So, how does cold weather drive our electric usage? It's not just about how long your boiler is running.

There's also a behavioral aspect of it too. The colder it is outside, the more time we spend inside, and that means consequently the more energy we're likely to use. Once you've walked through your home, The final step is confirming what you're seeing with real data. That's where myGVA comes in. MyGVA offers a lot of information.

Let's walk through how that data can translate to pinpointing areas of improvement and ways to save. To start, go to gva.com and log in to your myGVA page using your credentials. Then you'll go into your Usage Explorer. Under the usage tab.

From there you can see your monthly usage data, or you can click on the individual month in question.

If you have a particular day you're concerned with, you can click directly on that day. The next graph it'll bring up will show your usage in 15-minute intervals. Every appliance drawing electricity in my home is represented here in nearly real time. This is exactly how your meter measures it, and that's the data we receive on our end. On the left, you see an example of what my vehicle plug-in looks like.

Next to that, you get an idea of what it looks like when I have a space heater running. After we turn off the space heater, you can see what my base load usage is without anything else running but my lights and heating. The following spike shows a good example of what it's like when I'm doing laundry, and after that, what it looks like when I'm cooking dinner. MyGVA is especially helpful after you've made changes, whether you've installed a vehicle timer or decreased your laundry usage. So instead of guessing whether it helped, you can actually see the difference in the data.

MyGVA is a powerful tool, and when you pair that with a better understanding of your energy use, and a walkthrough of your home, you can make more informed decisions that could help save you money. If you have any questions or just need help with the process, reach out to us. That's why we're here.