So on a breezy Friday morning in mid-June, Yeager opened his home to a pair of heating and ventilation contractors. These affiliates of the California Home Performance Program would test his home for proper air circulation. Managed by the nonprofit California Building Performance Contractors Association, the program informs the public about how to maintain an energy-efficient house while also training contractors how to find and fix problems.

And find them they did: Yeager's house has some serious leaks in the ventilation.

The house, built in 1947, had only had a couple of owners before Yeager bought it in 1992. He treasures his home but admits, "Sometimes I turn the heater on at night but it's too noisy. So I'll turn it off, only to wake up in the morning to a house that's freezing." It's a typical problem with most houses built before the 1990s.

The California Building Performance Contractors Association worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to create the state's first agency-approved energy-efficiency diagnostics program. The program complies with the agency's Energy Star program, which helps businesses and individuals "protect the environment through superior energy efficiency."

In Yeager's home, duct leaks are responsible for the heater losing up to 27 percent of its energy, the testers found.

His home is heated by an old standing pilot furnace, and they're just not worth keeping after 20 years, said contractor Greg Torre of ACE Heating & Air Conditioning Inc. of San Mateo.

To find the problem, Torre and fellow independent contractor Rick Chitwood spent most of the morning taping over ducts and decompressing the house. The testers also used a flow hood, which looks like a rectangular funnel equipped with a fan and sensor to measure air speed, and a handheld laser pointer that measures the temperature of whatever it's pointed at. The resulting information is displayed on a small monitor, which enabled the testers to discover why Yeager's home isn't circulating air properly. This leakage could help in explaining why the heater works harder and is noisier. His home doesn't have air conditioning.

"His duct work was top of the line 50 years ago," Torre said, "but we also didn't have the equipment to accurately test duct work like we do now."

Yeager's home was the second to be tested in the program. The first test was on the home of 1430 AM radio personality Dale Julian, who lives in Fresno.

Program officials hope that more Californians in general, and Santa Clara County residents in particular, take advantage of the program's services. An appointment for a diagnostic involves having a specially trained contractor visit the house. The procedure takes about two hours, and after that the contractor explains any safety, energy or health problems found and how much the repairs or improvements might cost and what they might entail.

A qualified contractor returns later to make the improvements and to retest the house.

The diagnosis alone can cost between $100 and $300—but the program is offering a flat introductory rate of $100 until Aug. 14. So far the program is offered only to Central California and Santa Clara County residents.

"We do every job like it's our own home," Torre said. "Our priorities are safety first, then comfort, and then efficiency."

Yeager's priorities now are to replace his furnace but also to install air conditioning in his home.

"I've known I've needed to replace my furnace for a while, but it's nice to know that there are benefits to a more energy-efficient home than less expensive utility bills," Yeager said. "Especially when it comes to comfort."

For more information about the California Home Performance Program, visit http://www.calhomeperformance.org or call 888.352.2722.