Welcome to my second post in the series, Recycle This House - 52 Weeks to a Greener Home. In my first post, I talked about my reasons for starting this project, including the ideals of living lighter on the earth and keeping more greenbacks in my pocket. I know the why, but I am learning the how as I go.

To get an idea of where I wanted to go with this project, I felt that I first needed to know where I was starting. So last week, I called up Ryan Leavitt at AmeriSpec Home Inspection Services to schedule a residential energy evaluation. The purpose of the energy "audit" as I like to call it, was to identify how my home uses energy and where it is being wasted. It is also a necessary first step in being able to qualify for the $5000 in Canadian Federal Grants available to homeowners under the ecoENERGY Retrofit Program. I will repeat this as it is very important: You MUST have the initial audit done in order to qualify for the grants.

Ryan showed up bright and early Tuesday morning with equipment in hand. I might add that I had also invited several of the other REALTORS® from my office to join us for the audit. I wanted to share the opportunity to see the evaluation in action so they as well could have first hand knowledge of the process to pass on to future home buyers and sellers.

So after a very informative briefing from Ryan about what he would be looking for, six of us proceeded to follow closely as he scoped out every inch of my house. He first set up for the blower door test (which involved putting a giant fan at my front door with plastic surrounding it to seal the entrance) and as it was sucking out air the contents of my home, he walked around and gave us an education on "ghost loads".

A ghost load (vampire power, leaking energy) simply put is the power an appliance uses even when it is OFF. Did you know that 5 - 10% of the electricity used in the average Canadian home goes to appliances and electronics on STANDBY? I started to feel guilty after he pointed out about my 10th appliance that was sucking power for no reason. Note to self: Make a better effort to unplug things that aren't in use. I am going to start small and did manage to actually TURN OFF my computer when I went to bed last night (which isn't a regular occurrence). It may seem insignificant, but I'm trying! And Rome wasn't built in a day!

Our next step was to walk through the entire house to check for leaks. Older homes such as mine weren't built quite as air proof as newer homes now are (roughly put, a newer home exchanges it's entire air contents 2 - 3 times per hour, while my home of 27 years was doing this around 6 times per hour). This became very apparent when looking though Ryan's thermal imaging tool which showed exactly where all the leaks were. Although he said it wasn't that bad, I was shocked to see cold air pummeling in through many spots around my fireplace, around my basement entrance doorway, and around several of my (newer) windows. Good news is, this is nothing that a good tube of caulking and a Saturday afternoon can't fix. Whew!

Lastly, Ryan crawled up into the attic to check the insulation. It seems there is room for improvement there as well. As he packed up to leave, he assured me he would have my report done ASAP and that it would prioritize what improvements I should do and in what order (i.e. best bang for my bucks). So as I sit and wait for my report and think about all the weekends for which I have just enslaved myself to home improvement, I am excited to see it and know that it will help me pinpoint where my $$ are best spent.

So this week, I will leave you with a few tips that I think are worthy of noting:

-$250 is a small price to pay to have the energy audit done and to receive a targeted list of what improvements will get me the most return on my investment (and it is necessary if you want to recover some of your expenses through grant programs)

- If your attic access is through your bedroom closet, cover your clothing with sheets ahead of time (unless you really like doing laundry).

- Saving the planet may not happen in giant leaps, but perhaps in small steps, including one REALTOR® who vows to turn off her computer at night and to cut down her "ghost load" in other small manageable ways.

- And last but not least, prepare yourself for some interesting comments if you invite a roomful of your colleaugues into your bedroom : )

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