Energy Audits
Energy efficiency is crucial to every business and home. We have expert technicians who will perform free energy audits and give you up-to-date energy advice tailored for your individual needs. For a fee you can have our experts perform a blower door test to determine your home's air tightness and help you stop wasting money. Call Jason Gibbs at (641) 342-2173 or (800) 362-2154 to learn about conserving energy or to set up an appointment for an energy audit.
What is a Blower Door Test?
Professional energy auditors use a blower door test to help determine a home's air tightness. These are some reason for establishing the proper building tightness: reducing energy consumption due to air leakage, avoiding moisture condensation problems, avoiding uncomfortable drafts caused by cold or hot air leaking in from the outdoors, and making sure that the home's air quality is not too contaminated by indoor air pollution.
How Does a Blower Door Work?
A blower door is a powerful fan that mounts into the frame of an exterior door. The fan pulls air out of the house, lowering the air pressure inside. The higher outside air pressure then flows in through all unsealed cracks and openings. The auditors may use a smoke pencil to detect air leaks. These tests determine the air infiltration rate of a building.
Blower doors consist of a frame and flexible panel that fit in a doorway, a variable-speed fan, a pressure gauge to measure the pressure differences inside and outside the home, and an airflow manometer and hoses for measuring airflow.
There are two types of blower doors: calibrated and uncalibrated. It is important that auditors use a calibrated door. This type of blower door has several gauges that measure the amount of air pulled out of the house by the fan. Uncalibrated blower doors can only locate leaks in homes. They provide no method for determining the overall tightness of a building. The calibrated blower door's data allow the auditor to quantify the amount of air leakage and the effectiveness of any air-sealing job.
Additional Resources:
CIPCO Energy Library - Professional information for agricultural, small business and commercial customers.
Managing Energy Costs - Learn how to save on your energy bill.
Questline - Next-generation business development and communication service.
UseElectricWisely.com - This website sponsored by Iowa’s electric cooperatives provides information about electrical products and energy use.
TSE Home Energy Saver - Online home audit tool for improving energy efficiency in homes.
TogetherWeSave.com - Interactive website full of resources and helpful information on how to save energy and money at home.
Pull The Plug Program - Appliance recycling program.
