I don't want an insulation, just evaluation....

September 14, 2005 9:27 AM

I'm trying to find a service that will come to our house and help us evaluate where we are leaking heat, so we can wrap the house up as tightly as possible against our pending $500+ per month winter heating bills. However, I can't figure out who to call to do this -- even the yellow pages are no help. Everywhere I turn directs me to people who will insulate our house, but we just want help in evaluating how to insulate it ourselves. Is there a service that does this? What might it be called?

Places I've already tried: Home insulation companies via the Yellow Pages, Central Maine Power, various Google searches. Any other ideas?

posted by anastasiav to home & garden (12 comments total)

I assume Central Maine Power is your electric provider? Before the More Inside I was going to suggest your power company - here in the other Portland, PGE provides this service (Portland General Electric). Do you have gas service as well? Would the gas company do it?
posted by peep at 9:30 AM on September 14, 2005

My wife and I joined Angie's List (a pay service...but hey)...and actually had a home inspector come out and do a "non-full-home inspection."

It seems like most home inspectors focus on fairly pricey full-home inspections (like you would get done if you were just buying a home), but most, if asked, will be willing to come out and consult smaller items, like, I assume, your insulation questions.

We had an inspector come out and just look around our basement for a weird (what turned out to be non-) leak. It cost us $75, and he had a lot of helpful advice about other basement-y issues.
posted by tpl1212 at 9:33 AM on September 14, 2005

Try getting in touch with Maine's Office of Energy Independence and Security. Also, there is a phone number here which might lead to useful info. Efficiency Maine may also be able to point you in the right direction. Don't know your personal circumstances but if your income is defined as low (below 150% of federal poverty standards) you can get info on help with your energy consumption here.
posted by biffa at 9:45 AM on September 14, 2005

Searching google for energy audit returned this Department of Energy page on how to conduct your own audit vs hiring a professional.
posted by grateful at 10:38 AM on September 14, 2005

Grab a stick of incense (or cigarrette) and walk along the walls of your home. The smoke will start blowing where you have a leak. Usually windows are pretty bad for drafts. Pick up some window insulation, it's a type of clear plastic that you use a hair dryer to shrink to make a tight fit. You can also fill pantyhose with kittylitter and put them along the window sills.

Insulation is my mom's hobby. Seriously. She even turned thick blankets into curtains for the really bitter winters.
There is a lot that you can do yourself, it just looks a little funny sometimes.
posted by idiotfactory at 10:54 AM on September 14, 2005

The above referenced DOE page includes a section titled "Finding and Selecting an Energy Auditor"
posted by grateful at 11:02 AM on September 14, 2005

These guys (whom I turned up through some random googling) seem to do what you need. They have a blower door, which basically forces your house to be at positive pressure, so then leaks are easily found. This is what Green$aver, a local (to me) non-profit auditor, uses to great effect. Apparently power outlets are often major draught sites.

If your utility is allowed to book savings as profits (as they are in Ontario), they'll fall over themselves to help you save power.
posted by scruss at 11:21 AM on September 14, 2005

Live near an army base? Know someone close in the army? Some of my buds have brough home thermal scope designed for TOW missles for that exact purpose. Yeah, totally illegal.
posted by furtive at 12:25 PM on September 14, 2005

Theres got to be legal ways to get or rent the aforementioned thermal imagers.

You could always check your attic for insulation.

idiotfactory is right on with the curtains.
posted by Max Power at 3:57 PM on September 14, 2005

I used to work for a company that made infrared thermal imaging devices, which allowed the operator to "see" heat escaping from buildings. They were about the size of a camcorder, but very expensive. The people who did this as their business were referred to as "thermographers" back then. (The science was "thermography"). A bit of googling with this term might find someone in your area who would scan your house for a fee.
posted by websavvy at 4:15 PM on September 14, 2005

If you have a 35mm camera (or can borrow one), you can buy 35mm infrared film. On a cool, dark (e.g. moonless) night, take pictures of your house from outside, and have the film processed promptly. Bright areas in the resultant black and white prints will be infrared radiation sources, emitting heat, relative to the darker areas. This should give you a general sense of how much heat you are losing through windows, roof, and other areas, to radiational losses.

Insulating to reduce radiational losses is one thing. Stopping losses due to infilitration of outside air is another, and reducing losses to leakage of already heated air, such as chimneys is another. Sealing older buildings against air infiltration can lead to new problems with trapped water vapor, if the structure doesn't have good vapor barriers. Depending on your heating source and home construction in some areas, vastly reducing infiltration can also raise radon gas levels and carbon monoxide levels in older homes, which weren't designed to be "air tight." So, consider these factors, too, to avoid creating new problems, as you try to save heating $$.
posted by paulsc at 7:55 PM on September 14, 2005

NO. Infrared film for 35mm cameras (eg. Kodak Highspeed IR) is definitely not useful for detecting heat. It is only sensitive to near infrared, like the emissions from your TV remote. This page shows the spectral sensitivity of some common IR films.

For heat detection you need a longwave IR camera. They've been getting steadily cheaper and decent ones seem to be available for about $10,000. Edmund Scientific sells a couple different models. See Wikipedia's article on Forward looking infrared cameras.
posted by ryanrs at 11:14 PM on September 15, 2005