Use Your Home's Thermal Image to Learn How to 'Zip it Up'

Is your home “zipped up?”

You can now get online, see a thermal image of your home and find out whether it is zipped up. And if your home is not all zipped up, you can spend a few hours on Saturday morning at finding out how you can make it more energy efficient and save money on the improvements.

Last March, .

Since it was late winter, the images showed which part of each home was holding in the hot air and where hot air was getting out – all a measure of energy efficiency.

Thermal images were captured of about 3,000 of the 4,400 homes combined in the two towns.

“If your home is too far back from the road or there are trees in the way, they were not able to get a good image,” said Sue Patrolia of Hamilton-Wenham Green, which has worked with Sagewell to conduct the project that was paid with a state Department of Energy Resources grant.

Hamilton and Wenham received a share of a grant that also paid for the same work in Arlington and Lexington plus several towns in the Berkshires. A total of 25,000 homes in the state were imaged.

In addition to the state grant – which was federal money that came through the state agency – the library has received a grant that has trained staff members to assist residents in locating the thermal image of their home online and then understanding how to interpret it.

Homes on private ways were not imaged.

From there, the 20 percent of homes that would have the “most opportunity for energy efficiency” were sent a postcard with a special code. That code - entered at the Hamilton-Wenham page at the Sagewell website – shows an image of the home with details about its energy efficiency.

For other homes, the resident can enter their address and then request that a analysis also be completed. Sagewell will do it within two days at no cost, Patrolia said.

The goal of a scheduled on Saturday at Hamilton-Wenham Library it to allow attendees to view the thermal images of their home, understand what it means and figure out what sort of improvements can be made to more efficiency heat and cool their home.

Sagewell’s president, Pasi Miettinen, will be at the seminar.

“He will be talking about energy efficiency statewide and in Hamilton-Wenham,” Patrolia said.

For homeowners who are interested in pursuing improvements, Hamilton resident Barbara Lawrence will be in attendance to explain the process. She made improvements to her home and took advantage of the rebates – up to $2,000 – available through the Mass Save program.

“There are tons of incentives that are hard to navigate for the average person,” Patrolia said.

Saturday’s event begins at 9:30 a.m. and the first two hours includes various presentations followed by lunch and then a question and answer period before wrapping up at 1:30 p.m.

For more information, check the two PDFs attached to this story.