A drafty home, rooms that are too hot or too cold, and high energy bills are all common issues for homeowners. Installing a new heating or air conditioning system, buying replacement windows, or adding more insulation may fix part of the problem. But the way to better results is through an integrated "whole-house" approach that looks at your house as a system.

Home Performance with ENERGY STAR, a national program from the U.S. EPA and U.S. DOE, offers a comprehensive, whole-house approach to improving energy efficiency and comfort at home, while helping to protect the environment.

Home Performance with ENERGY STAR is a comprehensive home improvement program using the latest technologies to increase your home's energy performance. Using a "whole house approach," specially trained and certified contractors look at all the components of a home—heating/cooling equipment, insulation levels, air infiltration, windows, water heating and more.

Rather than focusing on a single component, such as single-paned windows, an old air conditioning system, or leaky ductwork, a qualifying contractor will assess how improvements to all of these components can work together to provide:

• Fewer Drafts
• Consistent Temperatures Across Rooms,

• Better Ventilation And Humidity Control, And
• Lower Utility Bills

Home Performance with ENERGY STAR begins with a qualified contractor providing a comprehensive evaluation of your home’s energy efficiency to determine which improvements will give you the most benefit for your dollar. This contractor will examine your whole house—from the outer walls and ceiling, to the heating and cooling systems, and even the lighting. After helping you choose which combination of improvements makes the most sense for your home and your budget, the home performance contractor then makes sure the work is done correctly. The home evaluation includes:

• Blower Door Home Leakage Test
  A blower door home leakage test identifies air leaks in your home. It can also help determine whether your insulation is working. For example, if your ceiling is leaky, the insulation above it is probably not doing its job. If your home or parts of your home are leaky, this test will help determine how to fix the problem. Without this test, it may be difficult to pinpoint the source of air leaks.
• Duct Leakage Test
  If you have forced air heating and/or cooling, the duct leakage test will determine whether your ducts are tight enough. If your ducts are leaking, you’re losing heated or cooled air, which means you’re wasting energy and money. This test will help locate leaks so they can be fixed and determine whether sealing your ducts will save you money and make your home more comfortable. Because duct leaks can bring dust or other pollutants into your home, finding and fixing them may reduce dust and odor problems.
• Combustion Safety Tests
  Many homes have one or more devices that burn fuel to make heat, including furnaces, fireplaces, water heaters, stoves and clothes dryers. A Home Performance contractor will test to see whether these appliances are working well together in your home before and after any work is done. These tests help reduce the risk of gas leaks, carbon monoxide poisoning and high energy costs.

To get the best efficiency, comfort, indoor air quality and safe operation from a home, we need to know about air leaks. Here are some important reasons:

• Air Leaks Cost Money.
  If your ducts are leaking, you’re losing heated or cooled air, which means you’re wasting energy and money. When air leaks into or out of your home, you use more energy to get it back to the temperature you want. If the blower door test shows that your home is leaky, you can save on your energy costs by sealing those leaks.
• Air Leaks Make Insulation Less Effective.
  If air is leaking around or through your insulation, the insulation can’t perform as intended. The blower door test can locate the leakiest parts of your home to show where insulation is being bypassed, and guide your Home Performance contractor to seal leaks to make your insulation more effective.
• Air Leaks Can Cause Moisture And Indoor Air Problems.
  Air leaks can carry moisture into cold places where condensation can form to feed mold growth. Air leakage from garages, crawlspaces and other locations can carry odors and pollutants into your home. The blower door test will help guide your Home Performance contractor to seal leaks in order to reduce these problems.

Your Home Performance contractor will set up a lightweight cloth-covered frame temporarily in one of your outside doors. A fan goes into this door and is used to blow air out of your home. When your home is at a standard test pressure, the contractor will measure the air flow out of the fan. The more air flow, the leakier the home.

The Home Performance contractor will also test the pressures in garages, crawl spaces, attics and other zones to see if they are leaky. This will help identify where insulation may not be working or where pollutants are entering your home. Some homes are already too tight, which means they have inadequate levels of fresh air flow. A blower door test is the only practical way to determine how tight your home is. If your home has inadequate levels of natural fresh air flow, your Home Performance contractor will recommend a ventilation system to make sure you have enough fresh air.

If a blower door test indicates your home is very leaky, it is very likely that your home can be made much tighter without becoming too tight or requiring ventilation. However, many homes need air sealing to keep pollutants from entering the house from the garage, crawl space, attic, etc. Some of these homes will become tight enough that they need ventilation after the air sealing is complete. A home with a tight shell and a well designed mechanical ventilation system will use less energy and have fresher air flow to improve the indoor air quality of your home.

Your Home Performance contractor will sit down with you in advance to work out a plan to tighten your home and provide proper ventilation. There are just a few things to be aware of before a blower door test. Your Home Performance contractor will need to use one of your outside doors to install the blower door, so it will not be available to use during the test. All of your outside doors and windows will also need to be closed during the test, and your contractor will let you know when you can use them again. The entire Home Performance test can take up to 3 hours to complete.

The pressure from the blower door will cause your home to leak air faster than usual, and this will change the temperature of your home. However, the home temperature will return to normal after the test. You should not have any fires in fireplaces or wood stoves for the first 24 hours before the test. If you forget and burn wood before the test, be sure to inform your Home Performance contractor.

Your Home Performance contractor may need to set furnaces, water heaters and other appliances so that they will not turn on during the test. Please inform your contractor how you want those appliances set when the testing is complete. All interior doors (bedroom, bathroom, etc.) in your home need to be open during the test. The contractor may also need to open and close doors between the home and basement and the home and the garage. If you have a forced air heating or cooling system, your contractor may need to reach all of your heating registers. When possible, uncover them before the test. After thoroughly testing and evaluating your home, the Home Performance contractor will put the test information into a computer program that will print a report to help you decide what to do next. The report will identify which improvements will save the most on your energy costs and make recommendations to improve comfort, indoor air quality, and safe operation of combustion devices like furnaces, fireplaces, and water heaters.

If your home is heated or cooled with a forced air system, your heating and cooling costs are affected by how airtight your ducts are. Independent studies throughout the United States have shown that duct air leaks can increase heating costs by 15% to 30%. In many cases, sealing these air leaks will save more energy than any other home improvement. Most people notice the registers where warm air comes into their homes, but most of the ducts that deliver this air are hidden from view in attics, crawl spaces, between floors and in walls. If you have a basement or a furnace in the garage you may be able to see part of this system. There are two main parts of the duct system:

• The “supply” ducts deliver warm air from your furnace and cool air from the air conditioner. The air in these ducts is the most valuable in your home because you are spending money to heat or cool it. If you feel air blowing out of a vent, it’s connected to a supply duct.
• The “return” ducts carry air from inside your home and return it to the furnace, heat pump or air conditioner. Return ducts are usually larger than supply ducts, and you should not feel air blowing out of them, but you might be able to feel the air being pulled in.

• Sealing Leaky Ducts Does More Than Save Energy.
  Sealing ducts can make your home more comfortable, improve air quality and reduce the risk of back drafting furnaces, water heaters and wood burning devices.
• Newer Homes Have Leaky Ducts, Too.
  In fact, they’re just as likely to have very leaky ducts as older homes.
• It’s Not Unusual To Find Supply Ducts That Are Completely Disconnected.
  Disconnected supply ducts dump heat into crawl spaces, attics or other places where heat is wasted, so it’s important to reconnect them.
• Leaks In Return Ducts Pull Air Into The System From Wherever The Leak Is.
  When the leak is in a garage, basement, crawl space or attic, the return air can be polluted by pollutants like car exhaust, pesticides, dust, mold and moisture.

Pressure testing your ducts using a duct blaster test will tell you how leaky your ducts are. A duct blaster is a fan that pressurizes your ducts to a standard test pressure and measures how much air flow it takes to reach that pressure. The more flow through the fan, the leakier the ducts. To run this test, your Home Performance contractor will temporarily seal the vents that are usually open to your home. This test is usually done at the same time the blower door test is operating. Your contractor will normally test your home for air leaks and duct leaks during the same visit.

In order to prepare for this test, your Home Performance contractor will need access to all of your heating or cooling vents, whether they are in floors, walls or ceilings. The Home Performance contractor will also need to access your furnace, heat pump and central air conditioner. The blower door will also be operating during this test, so you will need to follow the preparation guidelines for the blower test as well.

All Home Performance contractors who seal ducts need to know if combustion devices such as furnaces, fireplaces, water heaters, and wood stoves are still operating properly. The combustion safety tests use a “micromanometer,” which measures whether combustion devices will still vent gases out of your home after your ducts are sealed.

A very important part of Home Performance is testing to make sure that combustion appliances are operating properly. The Home Performance contractor will perform a “test-out” of all systems and measures completed to make sure the home is working as a system and that all combustion appliances are operating safely. Combustion appliances burn fuel for heating your home, heating water or cooking. When these appliances are inside your home, the fuel may take air from inside your home (including the garage, attic and basement) to provide oxygen for the combustion process. These fuels should be vented to the outside for safety. If these devices do not vent outside your home, dangerous pollutants such as carbon monoxide can circulate inside and may cause poisoning. Combustion devices in homes include:

1. Gas And Oil Furnaces
2. Gas And Oil Water Heaters
3. Fireplaces
4. Wood Stoves

Combustion safety tests are a necessary part of Home Performance with ENERGY STAR. Improvements to your home that appear unrelated to combustion devices can still affect them. Here are two examples:

• New windows reduce heat loss through the glass, but they also reduce air leakage. This is good because it saves energy and makes the home more comfortable. However, your furnace or water heater may be using air that leaks through your old windows. There is no way to know whether the new windows will affect your furnace, fireplaces or water heater without testing before and after installing the new windows.
• Sealing leaky return ducts in your attic will save energy and may keep dust from coming into your home from the attic. When you seal those leaks, more air will be pulled through your return grill. In some cases, this increase in airflow through your return grill may compete with a fireplace or similar device. Test for this after the ducts have been sealed.

After thoroughly testing and evaluating your home, the Home Performance contractor will put the test information into a computer program that will print a report to help you decide what to do next. The report will identify which improvements will save the most on your energy costs and make recommendations to improve comfort, indoor air quality, and safe operation of combustion devices like furnaces, fireplaces, and water heaters. Click here for a sample comprehensive home Energy Analysis Report.