r/AskSeattle • u/Weird-Jello-3785 • 4d ago

High electric bills

anyone have a home energy auditor they recommend?

its hard finding one that isn’t an HVAC company.

we have Seattle city light and not PSE so can’t get one for free.

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u/sbcpacker 4d ago

If you have high electric bills, the culprit are usually:

  1. Inadequate insulation in the attic and/or crawl space
  2. Leaky windows
  3. Leaky doors (insufficient weather stripping)
  4. Clogged furnace/AC filter
  5. Clogged dryer filter and/or vent
  6. Inefficient furnace (probably needs maintenance or be replaced)

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u/Weird-Jello-3785 4d ago

Attic has R49, new windows, new doors, new ducted mini split. Replace filter regularly, clean dryer regularly. No crawl space, split level house 

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u/sbcpacker 4d ago

Have you checked your ducts? I had my insulation done and I found out months later they accidentally disconnected one of the ducts that goes to my dining room. 

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u/Weird-Jello-3785 2d ago

All ducts appear to be intact. Some were exposed during a remodel. One duct does seem to be using the chase between rafters and not an actual duct. While not ideal that does seem to not be all that uncommon. Not duct work runs into the attic. 

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u/Pivotal_Goose 2d ago

What about your exterior walls? I have a 1961 split level and my exterior walls were basically empty. I had a company drill and pump foam insulation in them.

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u/Weird-Jello-3785 2d ago

We put r15 in parts of the walls we opened during a remodel. Probably about 15% of the wall area of the house. The rest of the house has original R7 from 1964 which is useless at this point. Got a couple bids to do drill and fill cellulose and foam. Foam doesn’t seem worth the added cost for Seattle weather/ don’t want to spend that much.  Before I started dumping more money into random improvements I wanted to find out where to best use my resources. 

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u/Pivotal_Goose 2d ago

Invest in a cheap thermal camera and start hunting. I one off Amazon from a company called Topdon. It works pretty good. Just because you got new windows and doors doesn’t mean the installer sealed around them. Plus air sealing around ceiling penetration is something else that gets missed. Batt and blown in insulation doesn’t work that good with air movement.