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DIY Home Energy Audit: Find Your Biggest Leaks for Under $50

Perform your own home energy audit. Learn how to find air leaks, insulation gaps, and inefficient appliances.

Tools You Need

You only need three things: a flashlight, an incense stick (or a thin piece of incense), and your smartphone with a thermal camera app like FLIR One or Seek Thermal.

Air Leak Test Procedure

  1. Turn off all fans and HVAC systems for 30 minutes to let the house settle
  2. Light the incense stick and slowly move it along window frames, door edges, electrical outlets, and baseboards
  3. If the smoke wavers or gets pulled inward, you have found a leak

Insulation Check

  • Remove an outlet cover plate and shine your flashlight into the wall cavity — you should see insulation between the studs
  • If it is bare drywall, that wall has zero R-value protection

Appliance Energy Audit

I use a Kill-A-Watt meter ($15 on Amazon) to measure the actual draw of each appliance. Old refrigerators, water heaters, and space heaters are usually the biggest energy hogs.