Description
This house had extremely high baseline electricity consumption. Our main recommendation to the homeowners was that they reconsider whether they need to run two full-size freezers, three refrigerators, and a hot tub year-round.
We found no mold or moisture problems at the time of the audit, however the pressboard paneling in the laundry room had crumbled away from moisture at some time in the past (see photo). Further investigation turned up two disconnected downspouts on that side of the house (see photos). Two bathrooms had no ventilation at all and the third had a ventilator with no exhaust duct connected to it. We recommended ducting the ventilator to the nearby eave and adding ventilation to the other two bathrooms.
The garage occupied a sort of limbo between indoors and outdoors. It had no insulation between it and the outdoors, but there was also no insulation in the wall between the garage and the adjoining den. There was insulation in the garage ceiling, but part of it had fallen down and not been replaced (see photo). We recommended insulating the wall and ceiling to thermally isolate the garage from the house.