One of the best ways to get started on making your home more energy efficient is to determine where your house uses the energy that you pay for every month.  A great tool to accomplish this is a Home Energy Audit, it will help you determine which energy saving products and strategies you should invest in first.  By determining how much energy is used by each system in your house you will create a baseline to compare future results to, estimate how much each product and strategy should save you and help measure the effectiveness of the ones that you employ.  This article is the first in a series of articles that will help walk you through a step by step process of gathering the information that you will need to develop an Energy Audit for your own home.

The first step is to list some personal information.  List the number of people that live in the house.  This information will help to determine the potential water savings with low flow shower heads, and dual flush toilets.  It will also give insight on some heating and cooling strategies that could be employed.  List the number of days that someone is at home during the day during a typical week.  This will help determine which type of programmable thermostat would be most beneficial and how it can be programmed to best meet your circumstances.

The next step is to set some goals.  First list what percentage of energy use reduction that you would like to achieve.  We suggest that 10% to 20% is a good first goal to set for yourself, but do not fear a more ambitious goal of 30% to 40%.  For this too can be achieved.  Linked to this savings goal is an investment budget.  List a budget amount that you would like to invest in energy saving products.  Remember, that even though your goal may be to reduce your overall energy bills by 20% or 30%, many of these strategies will produce a 50%, 75% or even a 100% return on your investment.  Another factor in determining your budget is your Do-It-Yourself ability.  If you are willing and able to install the recommended products, and make the alterations to your house yourself then your money will typically go about twice as far than if you need to pay someone to do it for you.  Consider setting your budget equal to or greater than one years utility costs: electric, gas (fuel), and water.

People living in the house:            _________

Days at Home / Week:         _________

Energy Savings Goal:         _____ __%

Investment Budget:             $________

Take the first step to turning your house into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly home, fill in the information above and look for our next article coming soon.

Dan Bossenbroek