An infrared point-and-shoot thermometer can give you a thorough understanding of where your house is losing heat in winter, or gaining it in hot weather. The more you know about where heat is entering or leaving your house, the more effective you'll be at controlling energy waste.

With an infrared heat detector, you just move about the inside and outside of your home on a hot summer day or a cold winter evening, and take readings at windows, outside doors, walls, or wherever else heat may leak through. The heat gun helps you get a detailed picture of issues with insulation, sealing, or windows in need of an upgrade.

Professional energy efficiency inspectors often use infrared imaging to show you where you're losing or gaining heat, but infrared cameras cost a lot and the audit itself can run over $200. An infrared heat detector doesn't provide the same colorful printout, but they sell for about $50, so they put this detailed information within reach of the average homeowner.

Most infrared heat guns come with a beam ratio of 1:12, which means that if you point the gun at a wall 12 feet away, then take a reading, you'll get a temperature reading for a one square foot area of the wall. They also typically come with a laser beam to show exactly what spot the reading was done from.

I suggest starting your infrared thermal audit from the outside. Standing 12 feet back, take repeated measurements with your infrared heat gun to figure out what the reference temperature is. You are looking for the coolest reading in cold weather, or the hottest in summer when the AC is running.

Don't take readings on a sunlit surface, because it can mess up your results. Rather, wait for a cloudy period, for evening, or for the sun to move.

Note each reading on a drawing of the house face or in note form. Pay extra attention to window temperatures, because these are big sources of thermal leakage in both hot and cold weather. You might benefit from someone inside to close blinds and drapes after your first reading so you can then measure the impact of such window coverings on cutting thermal leakage.

Where readings are considerably worse than your baseline (warmer in cold weather, cooler in hot weather), take more readings close by, to pinpoint the boundaries of the thermal leak. You might have missing or settled insulation, cracks or even holes in the wall, or a broken seal in a window or door.

Next do an indoor thermal audit of the exterior walls, floor, and ceiling of each room. Choose an interior wall as your baseline; exterior wall readings should be cooler than the baseline in winter, or warmer in summer. Again, you are looking for thermal leaks on window panes, around windows and doors, through light fixtures, in cracks in drywall or plaster, or anywhere that is touching an exterior wall. Take close-up measurements of any wall outlets or light switches that are close to the exterior, even if they are on an interior wall.

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