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Reducing Your Energy Expenses

Take a Methodical Approach to Reducing Your Energy Expenses

Knowledge is power, and when it comes to making smart choices about your home energy usage it’s certainly true and do some basic calculations. Knowing how you use energy in your home will allow you to make the best choices about upgrading your home’s heating and air conditioning systems.

To get started, the first thing to do is finding out what your baseload energy consumption is. Baseload consumption is defined as the energy used by those things in your home that run all year. It includes the lights, ovens, refrigerator, water heater, gas grills, televisions, and any other regularly used appliances. If your home uses both natural gas and electricity, then you will have to determine your gas and electricity baseloads separately.

OK, let’s go. You will need about a year’s worth of energy statements. If you don’t already have them, you can contact your utility and ask them to send you the last year’s collection of bills. Next, you’ll need to take a look at how your energy usage varies through the year. The usage curve will be driven by your climate. If you are located in a cold region, your largest expenses will be for heat, and conversely, in a hot place your cooling costs will be the larger expense. First, find your low energy usage months. These months will be the months which define your baseload. This will identify the months in which there is little or no seasonal usage such as cooling or heating. If there happen to be a number of months that are low and close together, take the average monthly usage. Measure your actual energy usage, not the dollar amount you pay. Energy prices are subject to boom and bust changes of world and local markets in energy commodities such as coal, oil and natural gas. Your electricity is metered in kilowatt hours (kWh) and gas is in therms, which is a measure of heat energy, or sometimes in hundred cubic feet. Measure your usage in the actual units consumed rather than in dollars and you will have a good picture of your energy usage in real measures from one year to the next.

Once you know what your baseload is, it’s simple to find out what your seasonal consumption is. Simply subtract your baseload quantity from each month to determine how much of each month’s bill is due to heating or cooling usage. Add up the amount for each month and this will give you your annual heating and cooling usage. For annualized figures, multiply your baseload usage by 12 to get your annual baseload usage. As an extra step, to put your calculations in context, you can confirm the figures by checking them against the actual dollars paid, which is directly on the statements. Then, to determine your annual costs, find out what you pay for each kWh of electricity and each therm of natural gas (or whatever unit of volume your supplier utilizes to bill gas usage). Multiply the annual usage and the unit price and you can see your annual cost. Check your work against the amounts actually paid, and you can see the amounts in excess of the baseload for reference, and the benefit of knowing where your energy dollars are being used.

So now what? Use the information you have put together to prioritize your home improvement projects in an order of priority. Should you get a newer, more efficient heating unit or replace that old dishwasher? If you know your baseload energy usage versus your seasonal, the decision will certainly be easier. You will know which project will be worth investing in and give you the fastest return on your outlay. Knowledge is power and saves money too!

Article made available by Automated Homefinder, your Colorado Boulder real estate experts.

Misc., Recycling, Solar Energy

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