The cost of electricity continues to sky-rocket. No matter what you try to do, you cannot control the cost of electricity and fight huge energy companies for unfair electricity prices. This does not mean though that your hopes at cutting down electricity cost and improving your home cannot become a reality. If you only do energy audit twice or four times a year, you can substantially improve your home's energy consumption.
Energy audit what?
Energy audit is not a complex thing. If you hate crunching numbers like most people are and don't know exactly how debit and credit work in a balance sheet, don't run just yet at the sight of the word "audit." Although doing energy audit requires you to take a couple of notes and do some basic mathematical equations, it won't require you to maintain a ledger.
Energy Audit is an inspection and analysis of how energy flows so that a homeowner can search for ways on how a household could reduce energy consumption. So basically, what is required of homeowners is to list all electrical appliances, rank each according to usage in a day and their wattage per hour, and multiply the usage in hours with the approximate wattage per hour. If you know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply, you can do energy audit.
Doing an energy audit is one way to ensure that your home is energy efficient. Home energy audit enables the assessment of how much energy is used in the home and evaluates different means and ways on how energy efficiency could be improved, if not maintained.
Energy audit is not just about numbers
Computing wattages and tracking usage hours are not the only things that you should do when you do energy audit. The characteristics of the home's structure -- walls, ceilings, floors, doors, windows etc., as well as these parts' resistance to heat flow -- should be measured and estimated as well. Check the quality of window and door seals to know the leakage rate or infiltration of air that might affect energy consumption. This is especially important if you're running a centralized heating system that works efficiently if less air from outside enters the home. Also, assess the physical condition of similar systems in your home such as the ventilation, air conditioning, and thermostat.
These are necessary checkup that would not only help you save on energy but keep tabs of your house's condition as well, from electrical wirings to door knobs.
Do it yourself
Comparing the last 12 months of your utility bills with similar homes in your neighborhood could give you an estimate on the quality, efficiency or inefficiency of your energy consumption. By closely monitoring your patterns of use for at least 10 to 15 minutes every month and by doing home energy audit quarterly, you could definitely help improve your energy usage, lower costs and increase comfort for you and your whole family.
Joe Cline writes articles for Austin Texas real estate. Other articles written by the author related to Austin real estate and Lakeway real estate can be found on the net.
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