The tools for conducting an energy audit are readily available, but energy audits performed by people without the necessary skills and experience may lead building owners to make choices that are not cost-effective or technically feasible, and may lead to changes that do not result in significant energy and cost savings. If you are in the market for commercial insulation services, the best first step is the energy audit, performed by skilled insulation specialists like those at A Best Insulation. Here are the basic stages of the energy audit.
1. Preliminary Energy Use Analysis
By gathering energy bills and information on the building’s layout and square footage, a preliminary audit can be done. This allows insulation professionals to calculate the amount of energy consumed per square foot and to compare this figure to the numbers for similar buildings. While this is valuable information, it isn’t enough for creating an insulation plan. For that, further assessment and additional calculations are necessary.
2. The Walk-Through
Your insulation specialist should do a walk-through inspection of the building you want to make more energy efficient.
Commercial insulation services will do a walk-through, make rough cost and savings estimates, and identify possible capital projects (like new heating and cooling systems) that could significantly improve the building’s energy efficiency and lower monthly utility costs.
3. Energy Survey and Analysis
Once a walk-through is completed, your insulation specialist will create a report of where the building has addressable issues related to energy usage, and how best to address those issues. The energy survey and analysis will offer estimates for costs of capital improvements and the savings that can be expected if those improvements are made. Your insulation
specialist may calculate return on investment based on up-front costs and energy savings over the long term.
4. Detailed Energy Analysis
Detailed energy audits may include many more measurements related to your commercial building’s energy use, energy waste, and projected effects of improvements in insulation and energy efficiency. Commercial insulation services may also calculate a simulation of your building’s hourly energy use once improvements are made. At this point, you can discuss the specifics of insulating the building and making other changes to address energy efficiency.
An energy audit is the first step toward making your commercial building “greener” and less costly to operate. Choose insulation professionals who know that commercial insulation is not “one size fits all,” and who know that your building deserves individual attention to determine the best course of action.
Get the information about commercial insulation considerations for buildings in warm climates!
