Greater Lansing
Home energy assessment
Most houses lose heat somewhere other than where it feels coldest, which is why so much money gets spent on windows and so little changes. An assessment measures it instead of guessing, and hands you the work in the order worth doing it.
What is actually wrong
An energy assessment is not a sales visit with a clipboard. It is a measurement. A fan is sealed into a doorway and the house is depressurized so the leakage can be put in numbers rather than opinions, infrared shows where cold is tracking in, and the combustion appliances are tested for safety. What you get at the end is a report: how leaky the house is, where, and what each fix would be worth.
The reason it matters is that the obvious culprit is usually wrong. People replace windows because windows feel cold, when the same money spent on the attic and the rim joist would have done several times more. The assessment exists to stop you spending in the wrong order.
Almost everybody in this market prices it in bands by square footage, and a blower door test on its own costs appreciably less than a full assessment. The test itself takes an hour and a half to two hours on site. Where work follows, the cost of the assessment is normally set against it, so the question worth asking a surveyor is not what the visit costs but what you are left holding afterward.
Where this stops
When it is not a handyman job
This is at the top of the page rather than the bottom because getting it wrong costs you a wasted visit. Insured, and no contractor license is claimed or implied — the Michigan residential builder license is not held.
- THIS IS A NEW SERVICE AND THE RECORDS DO NOT CARRY IT YET. BPI Building Analyst certification is in progress and is not claimed as held; the energy rebates page states where every program stands. Nobody should read this page as a track record.
- An assessment reports. It does not certify a house, it is not a home inspection for a purchase, and it is not an appraisal.
- Furnaces, heat pumps and air conditioning are licensed mechanical work and are not taken on. Combustion safety TESTING is part of the assessment; repairing what it finds is a licensed trade.
- Anything behind the gas meter, and any gas connection, is licensed work and goes elsewhere.
The work itself
What actually gets done
A blower door test to measure total air leakage, with a number you can compare before and after.
Infrared imaging to find where the leakage and the missing insulation actually are.
Combustion safety testing on the furnace and water heater — draft, spillage and carbon monoxide.
Insulation depth and coverage checked in the attic, walls where reachable, rim joist and crawl space.
A written report with the findings and the work ranked by what it returns, not by what it costs us to sell.
The paperwork the rebate programs need, where you are going down that route.
This work sits inside Air Sealing, which carries the invoiced price bands for the trade with the sample size printed beside every figure.
What it costs
There is no price list for this, and here is what actually decides the number.
The same three words describe a twenty-minute job and a two-day one. Rather than publish a figure that is wrong for one of them, here is what moves it — so you can work out roughly which end of it you are at before anybody comes out.
The size of the house, which is what every published price in this category is banded on.
Whether you want the assessment on its own or as the front of a job — where work follows, the cost of the assessment is normally set against it.
How accessible the attic, the crawl space and the mechanicals are. A house nobody can get into takes longer and tells you less.
Whether a rebate program is involved, because the program sets what the report has to contain and that is more work than a plain survey.
How to get a real number
Somebody comes out, looks at it properly, and you get a fixed price in writing with the work set out line by line and the exclusions written down as plainly as the inclusions. Coming out to do that is not charged for, and neither is working out what is wrong. If something is found once a wall or a floor is open, it is priced as a written change order and you decide before the work carries on rather than after it is billed. Materials are supplied at cost with the receipt attached, first-time customers get 10% off labor, and labor carries a one-year craftsmanship warranty.
If this is happening right now
What to do in the next five minutes, and what happens when you ring.
Before anybody arrives
- Walk the house on the coldest morning you get and write down which rooms are worst. That list is worth more to an assessment than anything measured, because it says what actually bothers you.
- Find your last twelve months of gas and electric bills. Most utilities show the history in the online account, and it is the baseline everything is measured against.
- Look in the attic hatch with a flashlight and see whether the insulation is level with the joists or above them. If you can see the tops of the joists, that is the answer to most of the question.
- Do not order windows yet.
Call the business line
(517) 505-7135Answered Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. There is no out-of-hours line and this page is not going to invent one — outside those hours, leave a message with the address and what is happening, and it is picked up in the morning.
On the call you get asked what is happening, what else in the building is affected, and whether it is still getting worse. That is how it gets decided whether this is our job at all — and if it is not, you get told that on the phone rather than after somebody has driven out.
- No trip charge
- No call-out fee or minimum
- No diagnostic fee
- No charge for a return visit
True across all 84 written quotes this company has issued. Most contractors in this market charge to turn up.
Or send the detailsWhen the right answer is not this company
- You can smell gas
- Leave the building and call the utility from outside. Not us, and not later.
- Water you cannot stop
- Your main shut-off first, then a licensed plumber. Every minute of this one costs money.
- Sewage backing up, or several fixtures at once
- A licensed plumber with a camera. That is the shared line, not a fixture, and a cable down one sink will not touch it.
- Sparking, scorching or a burning smell at an outlet or a panel
- Breaker off, and a licensed electrician. Electrical work here is repair and like-for-like replacement, and this is neither.
- No heat, or heating and cooling equipment that has failed
- A licensed mechanical contractor. That trade is not offered here at all, and knowing that in one phone call is worth more than a visit.
Questions people actually ask
What does a home energy assessment cost?
It is banded by the size of the house, like every other quote in this market, and a blower door test on its own costs appreciably less than a full assessment with infrared, combustion safety and a written report. Where the assessment is the front of a job the cost is normally set against the work. You get the figure in writing before anybody comes out, and there is no trip charge either way.
Is an energy audit actually worth it?
It is worth it when you are about to spend money and do not know in what order. The common outcome is that the assessment redirects several thousand dollars from windows to the attic and the rim joist, where the same money does several times more. If you already know exactly what you want done and it is one small job, it is probably not worth the step.
How long does it take?
The blower door part is an hour and a half to two hours. A full assessment with infrared, the attic, the crawl space and combustion safety testing is longer than that, and the report comes afterward rather than on the day.
Do I need one to get a rebate?
For the performance-based state rebates, yes — the whole thing is built on a measured assessment and an energy model, and the assessment has to be done by a certified Building Analyst. The utility rebates on insulation and air sealing generally do not require one. The energy rebates page sets out which is which, and the current status of each program.
Book a home energy assessment
Tell us roughly how big the house is and which rooms are worst on a cold morning, and have your last twelve months of gas and electric to hand — most utilities show it in the online account. You get a measured leakage number, infrared showing where it is going, combustion safety testing on the furnace and water heater, and a written report ranking the work by what it returns. Where work follows, the cost of the assessment is set against it.