Evaluation of Your Home Energy Consumption

Get a Start on Your Energy Conservation by Doing an Evaluation of Your Home Energy Consumption

Before you can possibly begin to make good decisions about your domestic energy usage, you need to give it some dedicated time and start from a solid foundation of pertinent knowledge with some measurements and calculations. Understanding how and when you use energy will let you make the best decisions about updating appliances or changing your home's systems.

Southwest Gas Logo The first step is finding out what your base-load energy consumption is. Your base-load consumption is defined as the energy used by those systems and appliances that operate all year. It includes the ovens, computers, refrigerator, water heater, and any other appliances. If your home uses both natural gas and electricity, then you will have to calculate your gas and electricity base-loads in separate calculations. It's not very hard. Here in Southern Nevada electricity is provided by NVEnergy and natural gas is provided by Southwest Gas Corporation.

Let's get on with it. You will need a year's worth of utility statements. If you don't already have them, you can contact the company and ask that they send you the last year's collection of bills. Next, you'll want to take a look at how the amount of usage varies through the year. The shape of the curve will be characterized by the climate in which you are located. If you are located in a cold region, (like Mt. Charleston) your highest expenses will be for heating, and conversely, in a warmer climate your air conditioning costs will be more significant (like the rest of Southern Nevada). Find your months of lowest energy spending. These months will be most likely the months which are composed of mostly base-load consumption. The idea is to identify the months in which there are little or no seasonal uses such as cooling or heating. If there are a number of months that are low and close together, take the average usage. Be sure to measure the actual usage, not just the amount you have to pay. Energy prices fluctuate and are subject to cyclical economies of world and local markets in energy commodities like coal, oil and natural gas. Electricity usage is metered in kilowatt hours and gas is in therms, which is a measure of heat energy, or sometimes in hundred cubic feet. Measure the amount of your usage in these units rather than in dollars and you will have a good profile of your energy consumption at the commodity level.

Now that you know what your base-load usage is, it's easy to find what your seasonal usage is. Subtract the base-load quantity from each month to find out 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 cooling and heating usage. Multiply the base-load usage by 12 to get the yearly base-load usage. As an optional step, to validate the figures, you can check the figures used so far by comparing them with the actual dollars paid, which of course can be found right on the statements. Then, to get the amount of what your costs are for a year, find out the price you pay for each kilowatt hour of electric power and each therm (or whichever volume unit your utility uses to bill natural gas usage) of natural gas. Multiply the unit price by the annual usage and you can verify what your annual cost is.

Now, for the point of the exercise. You can now use this information to put your home improvement projects in an order of priority. Should you buy a new furnace or replace the inefficient dishwasher? If you know your base-load energy levels versus your seasonal figures, the decision will be easier to make. You will know which project will be worthwhile. NVEnergy has more Money Saving Tips and Southwest Gas has Energy Efficiency Programs to help you make these decisions. Knowledge is power and a powerful way to save money too!

Article furnished courtesy of Automated Homefinder, your Colorado Boulder real estate specialists.