Before you can make good choices about your domestic use of energy, you have to give it some thought and start from a good foundation. Knowing how and when you use energy in your home will let you make the best choices about changing your heating and air conditioning systems.

The first thing to do in understanding your energy usage is determining your baseload energy consumption. Your baseload consumption encompasses the things in your home that operate the whole year round. It includes things like the ovens, refrigerator, water heater, and other small appliances. If your home uses both natural gas and electricity, then you will have to determine your electricity and gas baseloads separately. It's not very difficult.

OK, let's go. You need a year's worth of utility bills. If you don't have them on hand, you can contact your utility and request them to send you the last year's collection of bills. Next, you'll need to take a look at how your energy usage changes during the year. The usage curve will be determined by your climate. If you live in a cold climate, your expenses will be mainly for heating; conversely, in a hot climate the air conditioning costs will be the larger cost. First, identify your months of lowest energy usage. These months will be likely the months that are composed of mostly your baseload usage. This will identify the months in which seasonal usage is not a factor (cooling or heating). If there are a number of months that fit, take the average usage as your baseload level. Measure the actual energy usage, not the dollar amount of your bill. Gas, heating oil and electricity prices fluctuate and are subject to cyclical economics of world energy commodities like coal, oil and natural gas. Electricity usage is metered in kilowatt hours and gas is measured in therms, which is a unit of heat energy, or less commonly, in hundred cubic feet segments. Record the amount of your usage in these units instead of the dollar amount of the bill and you have a good picture of your energy consumption in real units from year to year.

Once you know what your baseload is, it is simple to find out what your seasonal demands are. Just subtract the baseload usage 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 yearly figures, simply multiply the baseload usage by 12 to get the annual baseload usage. As an optional crosscheck, to understand your figures in context, you can confirm the figures used so far by checking them against the actual dollars paid, which can be found directly on the bills. Then, to determine your annual costs, find out what you pay for each kilowatt hour of electric power and each therm (or whatever unit of volume your utility uses to charge for gas usage) of gas. Multiply the annual usage and the unit price and you can see what your annual cost is.

So now what? You can now use the information you have gathered to put your energy efficiency projects in a priority order. Should you install a new furnace or replace your electricity-hungry refrigerator? If you know your baseload energy levels in comparison with your seasonal figures, the decision will be much easier. You will know which project will pay back the most and give you the best return on your outlay. Knowledge is power and a great way to save money too!


This article was provided by the Boulder Colorado experts, Automated Homefinder.