IPRO Energy Audit

Picture of the Day] Blower Door Demonstration

Mood] Hungry

Weather] High of 90. Sunny. Bright. HOT.

Currently] In the basement

Quote of the day: "The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls."

So our IPRO team spent the whole day at a client's house doing an energy audit with EZING (an energy auditting company run by a man name John Porterfield). We used many different pieces of technology to figure out what the possible problems and leak areas were around the home! First of all, we set up the blower door. The guys pulled out what looked like a large red tent and began putting together the frame for the blower door that you see in the photograph. Then the professionals helped install the fan part into it. We hooked up another device that looks about the size of a huge Gameboy (maybe the original size!) that had two tubes connected to it. The tubes would help measure the pressure difference between the exterior of the home and the interior. That would give us a better idea of how the circulation in the home was and how much air was lost.

While the guys were doing that, Julie and I went outside to measure all around the house and look at all the windows. We went back inside and took these smoke-making tools (fondly dubbed "Wizard Sticks" on the tube part of the device) to use around the cracks of the windows and baseboards. You press a button on the small hand tools and they puff out smoke (Sherlock Holmes in the most recent movie done uses a similar tactic except his device looks like a small bellow). We marked all the areas of the home we saw were sucking the smoke away quickly or were blowing it away.

Another interesting bit of technology was a gun-like machine that gave infra-red readings. We were able to look at a shadowy image on the screen to discern where there were holes of insulation in the walls. Bright areas and dark areas on the screen distinguished where the insulation ended or where there was no insulation at all present. It was important to mark these areas, should the home owner choose to remedy those areas.

All in all the day was long, but kinda fun. I felt a bit awkward becoming intimate with someone else's home, but it was enriching to see the process. We'll be getting the report for the audit to do more research and use as a case study for our IPRO!

Tired,
~Jaye