2

House built in the 1940's, Pacific Northwest, generally snowless climate, now with several generations of additions, such as a dormer, all in all at least twice as much living space compared to 1940s.

How do I carry out a survey of heat loss to identify and prioritized weak spots for limited dollars for improvements?

Is it as simple a matter as getting an thermometer gun from a box store like Home Depot or Lowes or Harbor Freight, then mapping out the doors and skylight glass and window glass and various walls and ceilings?

How do those examples of conductive/convective heat loss compare to mass losses such as faulty sealing around doors and sashes?

Lastly, are there any online estimator calculators or tables for major projects? for example adding thickness to a 250 sqft 2x6 cathedraled shed dormer to make it more like 2x8 or 2x10? or more simple projects like replacing an old single-pane exterior door with a thermalpane door?

Community
  • 1
seeker
  • 21
  • 1
  • An edit has been proposed that I assume was by you. You can freely edit your own posts but for your protection, it must be done under your user account as used to write the original post. The proposed edit was "anonymous", which means the submitter did it without logging in to an account. As such, it goes into a review queue to ensure that someone else doesn't make undesirable changes to your post. Just wanted to make you aware of that. If, by chance, the edit was not yours, you should review it. – fixer1234 Dec 01 '17 at 21:28
  • Many power supply companies whether it be gas, ,electric or heating oil provide this service for free or a nominal charge. In Massachustts it is called MassSave and is paid for by a consortium of utility providers. – mikes Dec 01 '17 at 21:32

2 Answers2

1

Your utility company likely has a free survey you can complete yourself (sometimes they will even send someone to do it), and there are probably similar surveys to be found online. These are based on compiling data about your house that can be calculated. This includes things like wall dimensions, thickness and insulation, size and type of windows, attic insulation, geographic location and house orientation, etc.

That will tell you which existing features it might make sense to upgrade, the upgrade options and typical costs, and how long the payback time would be for each.

But that is only as good as the condition of those features; it can't identify thermal leaks from deterioration of the features, like the seals around windows and doors.

Those problems can be identified with thermal imaging, but they can also largely be identified through inspection. You may see the gaps, or feel drafts from gaps around doors with bad weatherstripping or windows with bad sealing.

But even if some existing thermal leaks are hard to discern, you won't necessarily need thermal imaging to discover every last one; they may get fixed in the process of upgrading features even if you aren't aware of them. For example, if you replace old single-pane windows or upgrade the windows, installation of the new ones should take care of any leaks associated with the old ones.

fixer1234
  • 6,118
  • 4
  • 30
  • 51
0

I live in the Pacific northwest and I purchased an infa red camera that fits on my phone, these are awesome I use it to check panels for bad electrical connections , find a hard to find leak in the roof, heat duct leaks they are way more useful than a temp gun (I have several of these guns but they are fancy thermometers that average the area the further away the larger the area that is averaged). Several local utilities used to do home servey for energy savings but most of those programs were gone a few years ago along with rebates for energy efficient upgrades being gone next month.(for Oregon). There are several models out there but I got the pro model and I am in love with it. More uses for a home owner than these but this and checking a horses hock that showed where he was hurt and why he was lame. Better stop but I would not think a gun would be very helpful because they average the area and cannot see air leaks like an ir camera.

Ed Beal
  • 102,735
  • 4
  • 75
  • 155