I had long suspected my walls had no insulation — not a wisp of the pink fluffy stuff, nor a drop of spray-foam.
Last summer, I moved into a 100-year-old home in Boston, splitting the first-floor apartment with a roommate I met on Facebook. In January, we were both shocked to receive a $500 gas bill for one month of heat — the highest our unit had ever seen.
Outraged, we called up a home energy contractor who was licensed to perform free home energy audits on behalf of MassSave, the state’s energy efficiency program.
What is a home energy audit?
A home energy audit is a way for professionals to inspect your home and identify spots where you could increase energy efficiency and, ultimately, lower energy costs. An audit like this is usually a first step to getting financial incentives from a state- or utility-run energy efficiency program.
Often, a home energy audit is performed by an HVAC contractor. They’ll come into your home, inspect your walls, windows and heating systems, as well as insulation in the walls, basement or attic. Their goal is to identify places where your home is losing heat or energy, and suggest improvements such as better insulation or new appliances. They might also recommend smaller fixes, like weather-stripping your doors and installing a low-flow showerhead.
At the end of an audit, the inspector will leave you with a report and tell you how you can move forward with any of the improvements you’re interested in.
What I learned during my home energy audit
The energy inspector showed up to my apartment two weeks later and gamely started with an inspection of the basement — where he found not a bit of insulation — before drilling a small hole in the exterior wall of our kitchen and inserting a camera.
I watched with smug satisfaction as the video feed on his phone showed a cavern between the plaster lath and clapboard siding. I was right: no insulation there, either! I saw particles of dust speed by on an airstream of suction, pulling hot air from our ancient steam radiators right through the walls and out of the apartment.
The energy expert in my kitchen talked excitedly about how much of a difference we could make by stuffing those empty walls full of cellulose insulation, a feat accomplished by drilling holes underneath the siding and blowing it in from outside.
But I was skeptical. That sounds expensive, I thought. There’s no way my landlord — who doesn’t live here or pay the utility bills — would go for that. I humored the contractor and invited him to sit at my kitchen table while he hammered out a proposal on his laptop.
When he was finished, he spun the screen toward me and delivered the verdict: We could have our walls blasted full with insulation, and our basement airsealed against the elements, for free. As in, 100% covered by state incentives, at no cost to us or our landlord.
My jaw nearly hit the floor.
I write about state and federal energy policy for CNET pretty extensively, and I like to think I have a good sense of how this works: Usually, incentives can shave off a chunk of the cost, but not all of it — and you probably need to have a lower income to qualify. Right?
Wrong. At least in Massachusetts. The state offers 75% to 100% off approved insulation and air sealing projects, and the contractor told me that because our household was entirely occupied by renters, the state would cover 100% of these improvements.
There was a small caveat: A third project he recommended — insulating the ceiling of the basement (underneath our apartment floors) to keep more heat in our unit — was not covered by the program and would cost my landlord $4,000.
But I could hardly be disappointed. Even if our landlord only authorized the other two projects (which, again, would be free!), we could see a dramatic reduction in our heating bill.
What happened after my energy audit
My contractor friend was not content to leave me with a PDF that I could forward to my landlord. He insisted on calling my landlord on the spot to pitch him on the projects. I stood in the doorframe of my kitchen and watched in awe as he walked my landlord through the proposal, answering questions and doing his best to close the deal.
By the time the energy audit was over, I was giddy. I never thought insulation would excite me so, yet I was doing a happy dance (literally!) at the prospect of it. I felt like I was living in a clean-energy utopia where state policies just work the way they’re supposed to.
When I was done dancing, I followed up with my landlord via email. He seemed interested in moving forward but said he wanted to ask the contractor a few more questions and would look into scheduling the work.
By early the next week, more good news arrived in my inbox. My landlord had signed the paperwork to proceed with the two free projects: Insulating our walls and air-sealing the perimeter of our basement. He passed on the $4,000 add-on to insulate underneath our floorboards, but I still felt like it was a huge win.
Only days later, the contractors pulled up with a box truck full of toasty insulation they were set to stuff into our home. They started in the basement, first using spray-foam to seal the cracks where wood floor joists met the basement’s perimeter walls. A second worker followed, slicing puffy chunks of pink insulation that he stuffed into the space between the stone foundation and the basement’s rim-joists.
When they finished, our basement had been air-sealed, protecting it from the elements. But they couldn’t go upstairs and start doing the same thing for our apartment walls because, ironically enough, it was too cold to install insulation. An ambient temperature of 15 degrees Fahrenheit, plus a hard layer of ice around the house, made for unsafe working conditions.
But the delay is only temporary. As soon as the ice melts and the mercury creeps back above freezing, the contractors will return to fill our walls with a warm blanket of cellulose.
How you can get a free home energy audit too
Not every state offers free home energy audits, but many do. Check with your state’s energy department to see what’s available.
Usually, in states that offer this, you’ll contact a qualified home energy contractor, who will come to your home and perform an inspection. The state reimburses them, so it won’t cost you a thing.
Then, based on what they find, the contractor might propose more insulation or a new heating system and can tell you what state incentives you qualify for. If you decide to proceed with a project, you can usually use the same contractor to do the work too.
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