loves2read having an energy audit on the home you are proposing to purchase is an investment. not only for the cost of the audit, but also for the work that will become apparent once the inspection & testing is done. granted the rating information will be your information to choose when & what items you want to address, but for you at this time, a simpler request would be to ask for copies of utility bills & question the homeowner about temps set on tstats for a starting point. if the homeowner is moderate with temp settings & costs are high..then would be time for you to consider an audit..or keep looking. I won't get into all that I don't agree with in some of the responses..hey life is short!..but I will say that most HI's that I know don't check head pressures & wouldn't know a what a delta t was if it bit them..sadly the same goes for many hvac companies in my area. HI's for the most part work for the reality companies and are a bit biased so they can get the next job..again just my experience with HI's, few are independent--as in work exclusively for home owners. I am a big fan of zoned systems and while you may think that you would save $$ by stopping air supply to the upstairs areas, it really is best to allow some air flow & movement in these areas. setting tstat for minimal air flow is a better concept for our hot humid climates. If I were inspecting, testing & making recommendations for an existing home, these are some of the things I look for & recommend. upstairs areas..walls shared between 2nd floor and attic. insulated? sealed? using a foil/foam sheating board serves several purposes. one it adds an additional insulation value to the wall, two it reflects heat back into the attic instead of transferring it into the upstairs areas,and most ..stops air movement. radiant barriers can always be added, several products on the market, but what I have in my home is a one sided foil paper installed to the bottom of the rafters with the foil facing into the attic space. these two items will make a huge difference in comfort, and utility costs. stopping the excessive air infiltration will lower utility costs, although it will take time & effort on your part. a good hvac company can balance the air flow with a balometer ..fyi, I often use one myself on both new & existing homes, but that is getting more into home diagnostics than the rating service. a good energy audit will take 2 to 3 hours depending on the size & complexity of the home, and the compexity of what you require. my minimum charge on existing homes is $500. for a basic test & inspection. best of luck & if I can help to anwser any questions drop me an email, as I don't get here as often as in the past.

Ok,..as I'm in my usual hurry, I haven't read ALL the posts so if this conflicts with any you will have to weigh that.Here's my 2 cents. I DO like cellulose,..it prevents many bugs and saved one of my buildings from burning down (also said by the state fire marshal) Superhot fire in the attic caused by an electrical mistake was so hot that copper wire melted.Huge beams too. (blast furnace effect because we hadn't done walls at that time and the races allowed this effect) However only 2 inches of the 15 inches of the cellulose burned off You can stop it from settling by adding 10% of blowing in fiberglass when doing it,.. You can generally stop moisture by a good moisture barrier paint on the inside of exterior walls. OK,.here is an old post of mine from a Landlord board so parts might not totally apply. ************************************************************ Here are a few more considerations. Yes if you can afford to do your units with a good color thermal camera and have someone come and do properties with a blower door, it would be better but you can come pretty close to finding out a lot about your property without them. We still have half the heating season to go,..and they seem to come around again pretty fast esp if you are paying for heat. I find that tenants appreciate units that are not energy inefficient and EZer to heat,and a selling point tp prospective tenants these days. Go to my picture page and see pics of the way we add another layer of "glass" (plexi) to windows.The upper sashes,if they can't easily be accessed from the outside, we fit them in by holding them in with spaces made from foam 1/2 inch weather striping and then further holding them in with Daps clear Alex Plus. (so that you can still raise the windows up) We also add "pulls to the bottom sashes so that you have someplace to lift up same,.. A thermometer left on the still measuring the cold air falling from these windows are very close to new Anderson,Harvey etc window temps. You will also see examples of what missing insulation looks like from the steam test. The colder areas of the walls have moisture condensed on them and show up darker. Here's the old post: Ways to reduce heat loss in homes/apartments. First find the air leaks in your house. Air infiltration is a major source of heat loss, often surpassing the effect of good insulation. First of all consider there is an inner and an outer seal of the envelope in your house. Both of these are important to seal. Note: despite what some people will tell you, it is extremely hard to get an older house too tight. Most that think they have done so have been shown to fail miserably upon testing. To find the inner leaks you can place a HIGH capacity fan (about 50-60 dollars at HD ) in a window blowing air OUT, best place is a hall window on a first floor but any window will do. Make sure its secure (bungees, whatever) and then put polyethylene over it, secure that with either tape or staples. Cut out an area very slightly smaller than the cage of the fan. At this time make sure the furnace is shut off and fireplaces are long out and flues tightly shut. Turn off any fueled hot water heaters. If you can, plug the exhausts of these with fiberglass insulation and make a big note to unplug them before you turn them on later! If you cant, you can still run the test pretty well. In furnaces you can usually do this by stuffing the fiberglass in the barometric damper toward the chimney. Now turn on the fan set on high. If its set up on the first story, go outside and feel the air leaving your house. SOMEWHERE its coming in just as fast! This amount of air comes pretty close to the amount of air that presses in your house and comes in on a cold day! Your job is to find out WHERE. Have a friend open a window in the house. Can you feel much of a difference if they open/close the window? Probably not very much. Now go back inside and close all interior doors that connect to the rooms that the fan is pulling from. That is, if its in a common hall, all the rooms that branch out from the hall. The whole house is connected in some way, think how the air flows to the fan. Now crack open one door at a time. Feel the air coming out of that room. Note which has most of the air coming out. Go back to that room and feel around, the windows, the base moldings, electrical outlets, etc. find out where its coming in and fix them with appropriate caulks, insulative ropes, Weather stripping. Check that room/door again. When you feel a lot less air coming out of that door go to the next room. After you get the rooms done be sure to check the basement. This is very important. Often people will say they dont have a leaky house because they do the check for cold drafts on a cold windy day thing. This isnt really a good test because of the cold air pressure on a house causes a "chimney effect" That is, air coming in from the lower floors, will push out the air of the upper ones. That pressure is substantial so the warm air will always go OUT. You wont feel cold coming IN from those areas but cold air IS coming in from micro and not so micro cracks in the lower levels and pushes a lot of hot air outside! Like pushing an inverted glass down in water, the fact that the glass doesnt let any air out, no water can go IN. You try to seal the top floors leaks that you NOW can find because of the fan to causing a vacuum. Now after this is all done, Go outside again and feel the amount of air coming out of your house again. Do the open and closed window thing again. There should now be a difference. You might still have a lot of air coming out, remember that it still is coming in somewhere. Can you see if you can find any more? Now it would be good if you can do the outer envelope test. To do this see if you can get a theatrical smoker , this gives off a LOT of non toxic "smoke" They are real cheap from Walmarts at Halloween. It also comes with a optional switch that will keep it going w/o having being in the room pushing the button each time its ready for the next cycle. Now you do the same fan thing but have it blowing IN. Start the smoke. You might call the fire dept to let them know you are doing a smoke test in case someone sees smoke leaving your building and calls them. Turn on the fan and go out, maybe with a video cam and note where the smoke is coming out. This is the outer envelope you should try to seal. Once you do this, with good caulk its should be a one time thing. It will pay you year after year. Another way is a "poor mans" infrared test. Its an easy way to point out weak/no areas of insulation. Let temp in unit go down to around 60 degrees. On a very cold day, all you need to do is to boil water on all the stove burners. Add hot tap water as needed. It make take an hour or two. Use a few fans on high to circulate the air in the unit. You will find that the coldest surfaces will have moisture condense on them. In a while you will see windows condense first. Note which condense first,. Use a non flash camera to take pictures as you may not remember exactly where later and it limits the time you have to boil the water. After the windows,. generally parts of the exterior walls will get wet. Once in a while you might see an exterior wall condense. If so you may have a race in the wall open or a connection to a poor top seal in the attic. The pattern is very similar to what you may see on an infrared scan costing (in this area) hundred s of dollars.

DruidClark, While the advertised R-values for FG and cellulose may be fairly close, in application they are not. As people reading this thread are discovering, air infiltration is an absolute killer when it comes to the thermal efficiencies of the envelope of a house. The big "pro" for cells is that when blown in to a stud/joist/rafter bay and dense-packed, they knit together and do a fabulous job at eliminating air infiltration. The net effect is far superior to that achieved when using FG batts, even with a vabor barrier. The reason is that FG batts are never installed quite right. "Quite right" means NO GAPS between the batt face and the framing. Gaps in the corners of the framing bays allow convective loops to occur. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's a big negative. Any type of air washing over the surface of FG batts also decreases the efective R-value of the insulation. That's why Tyvek was first brought to market...trivia tidbit moment...Tyvek was designed to be laid over FG batts installed on attic floors to prevent winter air washes in the attic from penetrating into the batts and lowering the effective insulative value of the insulation. With vapor barriers on the interior side of the FG (heating climates) and housewraps on the exterior, we're seeing better building practices when it comes to thermal envelopes...but the true value lays in the fine detailing f the barriers. And that detailing still has a way to go. Things are better than they were, but they can get better yet again. Overall? Dense-packed cellulose far outperforms FG batts. Even blown in FG. It outperforms it in terms if air infiltration, sound deadening, absorbing radiant energy, and handling water vapor that may happen to get past whatever barrier there is and get into the framing bay. It's better at resisting/slowing the spread of fire. My only negative with cellulose is when remodeling. I'd much prefer to crack open a wall of FG during a remodel than open up a wall filled with cellulose. I guess I can't have it all.(g) Minimizing air infiltration is the most effective way for a homeowner to lower their energy use year-round. Rigid foam board is the homeowner's friend. However, tightening up a house must be done using the whole-house approach. Moisture sources (basement/cooking/bathing/HVAC) need to be addressed in conjunction with the air sealing.

I am not sure how "no-fault" the 10 day period is--the contract mentions a home inspection for house/pool/termite/sprinkler systems and says that if there is problem w/house not appraising for the selling price, then price would be adjusted She said that she was not familiar with that type of inspection (and most people aren't who have older homes) but it is basically what is done to new house to get energy star rating...which some builders really live up to and some just kind of lip-service...I know this house won't be energy-star rated just want to know if the HVAC system really works the way it should for house design... She responded to my email and said that air leaks and "weak insulation points" would not be something the seller could be held responsible for repairing... so unless the items found were really bad like cracked foundation or problem w/electrical system, both parties would adjust the price...maybe the pool pump is not working or one of the windows is foggy (but they looked fine)... his roof was totaled in hail storm and has been appraised by his insurance co and he has gotten his money--so contract states that he will replace roof prior to closing... But we did this so quickly and to be honest my realtor is not really into things like energy efficiency factors or why I think it is important to have a piered beam foundation...she just knows all the secrets about neighborhoods and builders--like who to avoid-- her experience tells her that if a home is more than 10 years old and the slab is still good there probably won't be any problems w/it...and that no house is perfect so any house might have problems no matter who the builder was... I am sure my husband is not worried about this now...but I know this is something we will have to deal w/because it is an older home and energy costs will rise..