How long does a home energy assessment take in a New Brunswick home? | Insulation IQ?

A complete home energy assessment in New Brunswick typically takes between two and four hours, though the exact time depends on the size of your home, its age, and the complexity of the building systems involved. For a typical 1,500 to 2,000 square foot detached home — a common footprint in neighbourhoods across Moncton, Fredericton, and Miramichi — most homeowners should plan for approximately three hours.

The assessment is conducted by a Registered Energy Advisor (REA), a professional certified through Natural Resources Canada's EnerGuide program. REAs are trained to evaluate every component of a home's building envelope and mechanical systems, and the assessment follows a standardized protocol that ensures the resulting EnerGuide rating is comparable across homes and provinces.

The first phase involves a visual inspection of the entire home, inside and out. The REA will check attic insulation depth and type, basement wall and floor insulation, crawlspace conditions if applicable, window and door sealing, and any exposed rim joists or penetrations through the building envelope. In older New Brunswick homes — particularly those built before the 1980s energy crisis — this inspection often reveals insulation levels far below current code minimums. An attic at R-20, for example, falls well short of the R-50 that Climate Zone 6 best practices recommend.

The second and most technical phase is the blower door test. The REA installs a calibrated fan in one of your exterior doorframes, seals it, and depressurizes the home to a standard pressure of 50 pascals. The fan measures the volume of air flowing through it to maintain that pressure differential — and that number directly quantifies your home's air leakage rate. The test itself takes about 20–30 minutes, including setup. Many REAs use this pressurized state to walk through the home with a smoke pencil or thermal camera, physically locating where air is infiltrating so you know exactly where to focus sealing and insulation work.

Following the blower door test, the REA collects data on your mechanical systems: heating equipment type and age, domestic hot water heater, ventilation (HRV or ERV if present), and any auxiliary heating sources. They also gather information on your household (number of occupants, typical thermostat settings) and review two years of utility bills if you can provide them. All of this data feeds into the HOT2000 energy modelling software that NRCan uses to generate your EnerGuide rating.

After the appointment, the REA inputs all collected data and runs the simulation. The resulting EnerGuide report is usually delivered within one to two weeks. It includes your home's current energy rating (typically 40–60 for older NB homes), a breakdown of where energy is being lost, and a list of recommended upgrades with modelled savings projections. If you're pursuing the Canada Greener Homes Grant, this report forms the official pre-retrofit baseline and must be on file before you proceed with any qualifying upgrades.

For larger homes — those over 2,500 square feet, or those with complex layouts like finished basement suites, multiple additions, or cathedral ceilings — the assessment can run closer to four hours. Homes with crawlspaces add time because the REA must physically inspect the crawlspace for moisture, insulation, and vapour barrier conditions, which in New Brunswick's humid maritime climate can be particularly significant in coastal communities near Saint John and the Fundy Shore.

You should be present for the full assessment, or at minimum have someone available who knows the home well. The REA will ask questions throughout and will often explain what they're observing in real time — making the appointment itself an educational experience beyond just a form-filling exercise. Many homeowners find the walkthrough alone worth the $350–$550 assessment fee before any grant recovery is factored in.

The team at New Brunswick Insulation works regularly with energy advisors across the province and can help you understand your EnerGuide report and determine which insulation upgrades will have the greatest impact on your home's performance.

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Looking for experienced contractors? The New Brunswick Construction Network connects homeowners with qualified professionals:

• Brunswick insulation & roofing
• moose luxury painting
• Arctic Fox Construction Inc.
• 3Tone Construction Ltd
• Thirty Four Renovations