Home Energy Audit

Req 4 — Home Energy Audit

Conduct an energy audit of your home. Keep a 14 day log that records what you and your family did to reduce energy use. Include the following in your report and, after the 14-day period, discuss what you have learned with your counselor.

This requirement turns the badge from theory into real life. You are not just talking about energy anymore. You are observing how your household uses it, where it costs money, and what changes actually make a difference.

You have two jobs here:

Requirement 4a helps you measure how energy reaches your home or vehicle and how it is billed.
Requirement 4b helps you track smarter choices over 14 days and reflect on what really changed.

Energy Audit Log Worksheet Print this worksheet to track energy sources, bill details, transportation fuel, and your 14-day energy-saving log. Resource: Energy Audit Log Worksheet — /merit-badges/energy/guide/energy-audit-log/

Requirement 4a: Identify the energy you use and how it is measured

4a.

List the types of energy used in your home such as electricity, wood, oil, liquid petroleum, and natural gas, and tell how each is delivered and measured, and the current cost; OR record the transportation fuel used, miles driven, miles per gallon, and trips using your family car or another vehicle.

A home energy audit starts with noticing inputs. Many homes use more than one kind of energy. Electricity may power lights, refrigerators, computers, and air conditioning. Natural gas might heat water or air. Some homes use propane, heating oil, wood, or other fuels. If your family prefers, you can track a vehicle instead and focus on fuel use, mileage, and trips.

For household energy, look at a recent bill with permission from your parent or guardian. Electricity is commonly measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). Natural gas may be measured in therms or cubic feet. Propane and heating oil are often measured by the gallon. The bill also shows cost, which matters because efficiency is not just about science. It also affects family budgets.

If you choose the transportation path, track practical data: what fuel the vehicle uses, how many miles it was driven, approximate miles per gallon, and what kinds of trips were taken. Short repeated trips, long highway drives, and idling all change the story.

What to record

Use one of these two paths

Home path: energy types, how they arrive, how they are measured, and current cost.
Vehicle path: fuel type, miles driven, miles per gallon, and the kinds of trips made.
Either path: note patterns, not just numbers. Where is the biggest use? What seems frequent? What seems wasteful?

Requirement 4b: Track wiser use for 14 days

4b.

Describe ways you and your family can use energy resources more wisely. In preparing your discussion, consider the energy required for the things you do and use on a daily basis (cooking, showering, using lights, driving, watching TV, using the computer). Explain what is meant by sustainable energy sources. Explain how you can change your energy use through reuse and recycling.

This part is about habits. You do not need a giant home renovation. Small repeatable actions matter because households do the same things over and over: lighting rooms, heating water, washing clothes, driving, and running electronics.

Good examples for a 14-day log include turning off lights in empty rooms, shortening showers, washing clothes in cold water, unplugging unused chargers, using a power strip, adjusting the thermostat a little, air-drying some laundry, combining errands into one trip, or shutting down a computer instead of leaving it awake all night.

A sustainable energy source is one that can keep being used over the long term without running out quickly or causing the kind of damage that makes the system impossible to continue. Sustainability is not only about “renewable” versus “nonrenewable.” It also includes land use, pollution, reliability, materials, and long-term impacts.

Reuse and recycling also connect to energy. Making new aluminum, steel, glass, paper, and plastic usually takes more energy than reusing an item or making a new product from recycled material. When you reuse a bottle or recycle a can, you are not creating energy, but you may be reducing how much energy has to be spent upstream.

Energy Saver Practical guidance from the Department of Energy on home energy use, bills, appliances, insulation, and everyday ways to save energy. Link: Energy Saver — https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/energy-saver

You have looked closely at your own household. Next, you will zoom out and look for waste in your school or community, where the biggest patterns can be even easier to spot.