Power and water costs are around 22 percent of building operation costs for commercial and multifamily structures, the second biggest line item after fixed costs.
Whether the facility is a school, a multifamily dwelling, or a hospital, an OSI Energy Audit can save you money on energy and water costs while working within a limited capital budget.
You get a clear view of where energy and water gets used in your building, and an easy-to-use set of life-cycle cost metrics showing the most effective energy and water-saving investments.
We’ll analyze your utility bills, and then go down from those overall numbers to specifics of what systems in the building use the most energy (sometimes called disaggregated end uses).
We’ll give you an accurate estimate of possible energy savings, as well as an estimate of carbon footprint.
We will walk through your facility, examining the building as a whole, and each system in particular.
Each OSI inspector is certified by the Building Performance Institute (BPI) as a Building Analyst or a Multifamily Analyst.
Thermal imaging can reveal otherwise undetectable problems, including missing insulation, water intrusion, and electrical malfunctions.
We provide you with both standard and infrared photos of your property.
We run software models that simulate energy use over time, testing out various options and seeing how they play out in terms of future energy use.
Our inspectors are trained in industry-standard TREAT Energy Audit Software.
The comfort and safety of tenants and employees are an important focus for an energy audit.
In this optional service, we test the air in inhabited spaces and provide diagnostic testing results.
Popular metrics like Simple Payback Period (SPP) reflect only some of the possible financial consequences of each decision, and can lead to missing the biggest long-term savings.
For make the most effective investments, you need metrics like Net Present Value (NPV) and Savings to Investment Ratio (SIR), which require greater knowledge of building systems and more specialized calculation.
We use those and other metrics to provide you with a true life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) of possible energy improvements.
Water conservation is an increasingly important component of an audit. We provide LCCA for water conservation measures as well.
We’ve worked with buildings for decades and have experience with all building systems. That experience, combined with our financial modeling, lets us propose the most effective energy saving alternative.
We won’t overestimate the possible savings, a frequent error that leads to wasting money on new installations that don’t pay off.
To determine the most cost-effective option, the analysis must include all costs, including purchase, operating, maintenance, and disposal costs over the life of the equipment, discounted appropriately for future years.
NPV is a single number that is the total of all future savings, and is the absolute value of this particular investment.
SIR is the ratio of savings to costs, and allows for comparing the relative value one investment to another.
Together with other metrics, such as Internal Rate of Return (IRR), these provide a complete Life Cycle Cost for any proposed improvement.