Audit your own house first.
An hour with this checklist tells you where your house is losing heat and what to ask a professional about. No tools needed beyond a ruler, a flashlight, and one cold or windy day.
What a DIY audit can and can't find
Your eyes and hands can find a lot: thin attic insulation, drafty frames, leaky rim joists, ancient equipment. What they can't do is measure. A professional energy assessment adds a blower door test (how leaky is the house, in numbers), infrared imaging (what's inside the walls), and combustion safety checks — and in many states it's subsidized or free, because the programs want the data too.
So treat this walkthrough as step zero: it makes you the informed customer, and it tells you whether to hurry. The professional assessment remains step one of the real retrofit sequence.
Five stops, one hour
Work top to bottom, write down what you find, and don't fix anything yet — the order of fixes matters more than speed.
Attic
Open the hatch and look: can you see the ceiling joists? If yes, you need more insulation. Check depth with a ruler and note bare spots, compressed areas, and gaps around the hatch itself. Look for dirty insulation — dark streaks mean air is moving through it, which means leaks below.
Basement and rim joists
Walk the perimeter where the house frame sits on the foundation. Feel for drafts at the rim joist, note bare foundation walls, and check for daylight at penetrations — pipes, wires, dryer vents. Note the age and fuel of the water heater and heating system while you're down there.
Windows, doors, and walls
On a cold or windy day, run the back of your hand around window and door frames, then along baseboards on exterior walls. An incense stick makes drafts visible. Check outlets and switches on exterior walls — leaky ones flutter the smoke. Rattling windows and visible daylight at doors go on the list.
Heating system and ducts
Note the system's age (the data plate has a manufacture date), fuel, and last service. If you have ducts, look for disconnected runs, crushed sections, and unsealed joints in accessible spaces — supply ducts in an attic or crawlspace leak heat you paid for straight outside.
Your energy bills
Pull 12 months of bills. Compare your summer baseline (fridge, water heater, lights) to the winter peak — the difference is what heating costs you. If you heat with oil or propane, tally season deliveries. High baseline suggests the water heater; brutal winter spikes point at the envelope and heating system.
Sort what you found into three buckets
Air sealing candidates
Drafts, daylight, flickering incense, dirty insulation streaks. Cheapest fixes, highest return, and first in the sequence. See what to DIY vs hire.
Insulation candidates
Visible joists, thin or patchy coverage, bare rim joists and foundation walls. Priced in the insulation cost calculator; the attic guide covers targets.
Equipment candidates
Systems past 15 years, oil or propane or electric-resistance heat, a water heater near end of life. Plan the replacement before it fails — start with the sizing calculator.
When to call in the blower door
Call for a professional assessment when you're ready to spend real money on fixes, when your walkthrough found problems in more than one bucket, or when your state program requires it for rebates — many do, and many also subsidize the assessment itself or make it free. The blower door number and infrared scan turn your list of suspicions into a prioritized plan with measured savings attached.
Energy audit questions
Can I do my own energy audit?
You can do a useful walkthrough — that's what this checklist is. What you can't do without equipment is measure: a blower door quantifies your air leakage and an infrared camera sees missing insulation inside closed walls. The DIY pass tells you where to focus; the professional assessment tells you the numbers and unlocks most rebate programs.
What does a professional energy audit include?
A blower door test, infrared scanning, safety checks on combustion appliances, and a written report that prioritizes the fixes — typically with the rebate programs each one qualifies for. Many states subsidize the assessment heavily or make it free.
How long does a home energy audit take?
A DIY walkthrough with this checklist takes about an hour. A professional assessment typically runs two to four hours depending on the house, plus the report.
Is a home energy audit worth it?
It's the cheapest step in the whole retrofit and it de-risks every dollar after it. Without a blower door number and a heat load, you're sequencing thousands of dollars of work by guesswork — and many programs require the assessment before they'll pay rebates on the fixes.
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Many states cover the professional assessment.
Before you pay market rate for an energy assessment, see what your state's programs cover — for the assessment and for every fix it recommends.
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