Turning off the light when you leave a room is good practice — but that electrical outlet still might cost you. Loose outlets, like poorly insulated walls or poorly sealed windows, contribute to inefficient homes.
“You wouldn’t think about energy escaping through your light switches,” Sammamish homeowner Becky Henchman said.
Henchman, 50, lives with her husband and 10-year-old son in the “typical plateau house,” built in 1988 in the 22000 block of Northeast 23rd Street.
The couple hired Washington Energy Services to evaluate the two-story, 2,600-square-foot house in early March.
The three-hour home energy audit is a comprehensive inspection, evaluating health and comfort concerns like insufficient insulations, defective ducts, gas leaks and inefficient lighting and appliances.
“We find that air leakage is a huge problem in houses of this age,” Washington Energy Services home auditor Cory Tobin, 26, said.
Many of the Sammamish homes were built between the 1970s and ’90s, with room for environmental improvements.
One of the major reasons the Henchmans paid for the audit was to get a better understanding of why the upstairs master bedroom can’t hold heat in the winter and why it boils in the summer.
No matter what they did, Becky Henchman said, the room wouldn’t stay the right temperature.
The Henchmans pay about $239 per month in energy costs.
Washington Energy listed several recommendations and suggested prioritizing making the house airtight, by sealing penetrations in crawlspaces.
If the family makes all the recommendations, Washington Energy estimates the family will save more than $8,000 in energy and fuel costs over a 10-year period.
Washington Energy boasts it program helped 70 Puget Sound customers save 21 percent in energy usage in the last year.
Since they bought their home in 2000, the Henchmans have tried to steadily improve the house. They’ve replaced some of the downstairs windows, but Becky said she would have never thought about some of the improvements Tobin pointed out.
“It’ll help you create the priority list,” Henchman said.
It costs about $400 for a Washington Energy home audit.
Puget Sound Energy, which contracts with many companies like Washington Energy Services, will pay for a first-time basic evaluation, valued at $100.
“Even though we lose a few dollars a month (by recommending people improve their home’s efficiency), we save millions on the whole scale,” Puget Sound Energy Advisor Rob Dunn said. “We want people to be more efficient.”
When people use energy more efficiently, Puget Sound Energy produces or purchases less electricity, saving money on a larger scale.
For more information, contact a Puget Sound Energy advisor at 1-800-562-1482.
For more information on Washington Energy Services call 800-398-4663.
