Is your home leaking money?

By Nora Firestone

Correspondent

If walls could talk, some would be counting dollars. Ask your walls, floors and ceilings how much money slips through the spaces near their trim, outlet covers, inadequate insulation and major appliance vents each day.

If they won't confess, interrogate them with an energy audit.

Pamela Kumar of Virginia Beach got tough when she suspected that $200 electric bills this summer and $125 gas bills last winter meant those "little nooks and crannies where air comes in older homes" had been sucking up her hard-earned cash.

"The flooring was kind of cold," Kumar, 61, said of her 1,400-square-foot Shadowlawn ranch built in 1960. "I needed to know (more) so I'm not paying tremendous heating bills this winter."

Kumar, who owns a property-investment company, sought help from Southeastern Environmental & Construction Inc.

The Virginia Beach-based Class-A general contracting and energy-consulting firm, also known as SENCON, specializes in environmentally sustainable or "green" development in Hampton Roads.

According to Raymond Walsh, an energy auditor for the company, its Building Performance Institute-certified engineers, environmental scientists and construction professionals take a comprehensive approach to how systems within a building interrelate.

Walsh teaches folks how to shake down a home for information about its air and moisture migration - a potentially costly, ruinous and sometimes toxic phenomenon.

Solving the problem can save on heating and cooling bills by 20 to 30 percent annually and significantly affect structure and air quality, he said.

At Kumar's home, Walsh and co-auditor Daniel Cwik investigated indoors and out. They found adequate ventilation between gardens and structure. Debris, however, had clogged the otherwise-sufficient gutters, meaning that excess moisture remained a potential problem.

Easy fix, Walsh said, as would be sealing the hole in the brick outside the kitchen. Previous owners had left it after they'd reconfigured the room.

The team probed indoors using infrared imaging, blower door tests and other equipment. They discovered a substantial, constant flow of air through unsealed gaps and poor insulation.

"The house was two times leakier than it was designed to be," Walsh said. "All the cracks and crevices in the house were equivalent to leaving a small window open year-round.

"For every 1,000 cubic feet of air traveling through those spaces, you've lost $100 to either heat or cool that house."

In the garage, tests of the heating unit measured back-drafting and also confirmed acceptable levels of carbon dioxide in flue gases. Toxins from the car's engine and household and gardening chemicals, however, entered the house via unsealed floors above the crawl space, into which garage air flowed freely.

The three-hour audit cost Kumar $300. Walsh estimates she'll spend about $1,200 on fixes - about $500 to do-it-yourselfers - to achieve the 25-to-30-percent savings that Cwik expects she'll see in annual energy costs.

Kumar recommends an energy audit to anyone buying or residing in an older home.

"They did a really good job," she said. "I think it'll save money in the long run."

Nora Firestone, nfirestone@verizon.net