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It’s all about the air seal.

That’s what energy consultant Robert Runchey told homeowner Page Baldwin after doing an energy audit of her 1932 Cape Cod home on Elmside Circle Park on Madison’s Near East Side.

“Air seal, air seal, air seal, and then comes everything else,” Runchey said during a house party Baldwin held last week in association with Green Madison, a city initiative to get residents to reduce their energy consumption.

Runchey, of American Home Consultants, used a blower door with a powerful fan to help measure the amount of air leakage in Baldwin’s home. Then he went around with an infrared camera to detect where air was leaking most.

“That’s building science in a nutshell. It’s not that complicated,” he told Baldwin’s friends and family gathered in her living room for a short presentation.

Through Green Madison, the host of the house party gets a free energy assessment and guests are then eligible for a $99 audit.

Baldwin said she thought she knew a lot about her 2,100-square-foot home thanks to detailed records the former owners had left her, but she realized after the assessment that she knew little.