Finding your home's energy footprint
Use and loss of energy in your home
Your home's energy footprint can be considered part of your home energy audit. Basically, you need to spend time looking at your home's energy usage. You need to understand how your energy bill fluctuates and get a handle on the energy (natural gas, electricity and fuel oil) you use to do everything from taking showers to watching TV.
"Appliances account for about 20% of your household's energy consumption with refrigerators, clothes washers, and clothes dryers at the top of the consumption list." - U.S. Dept. of Energy
Organize and chart your utility bills
The first place to start is to go through all of your utility household bills which can reveal patterns of energy usage so you can identify issues, plan for needed upgrade and track the savings from those upgrades.
Search for air and heat leaks
You can perform a home energy audit yourself or employ a professional energy audits. If you do your own audit you can also use this evaluation tool available online from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (hes.lbl.gov). "It combines details about a home with local weather records to create a full-year, hour-by-hour simulation of energy use."
Identify large energy users in your appliances and electronics
The third step in understanding your energy use is to identify which appliances or electronic equipment consumes most energy. You do this by noting all energy users (appliances, etc.) in your home and then estimate their usage. U.S. Dept. of Energy and here
Review age of your appliances
Household appliances use a varied amount of electricity. If you have purchased an appliance in the US within the last five years you might have a far more energy efficient appliance than one manufactured before that time. The difference between newer and older appliances and electronic can represent a significant savings on your electricity bill. See EnergyStar
