If you’re looking at your budget and thinking it could use a little tightening, your first thought for saving money is probably looking at your house and the utilities.
If your utility bills are stifling, it’s important to make sure you’re at least avoiding some of the easy, basic stuff in order to avoid costs that will add up, such as:
But if you’re still not happy with your utility bill, you can measure your energy use.
The first step is to look at your utility bill, and look to see how many kWh (kilowatts) you’re using and your total cost.
Take the “Total Electric Cost” divided by “Total Electrical Consumption” to get your Cost Per Unit:
$175.83 / 1314 kWh = $0.13381 per kWh (or round to the nearest penny, so $0.13 per kWh)
Now, to calculate your costs, you can estimate your expense using the manufacturer’s label, which offers you a rough estimate, according to HowToGeek.com. To do this you’ll have to look on the label that indicates the product’s power consumption—it’ll say “Max Power ###W.”
Watts X Time Used / 1000 = kWh
So say your computer uses 500 watts, and it’s on 10 hours a day:
500 X 10 / 1000 = 5 kWh
However, HowToGeek points out that your computer will not be running at maximum wattage for all those hours (when it sleeps), so you can cut that estimate down.
For a more accurate result, you can purchase energy use monitors like the Conserve Insight from Belkin, which you will plug your electricity-using items to see how much energy is used by the item, which includes: cost of operation, amount of carbon dioxide generated and the watts.
Talk with the experts at Fountain Hills to discuss the energy usage of your home comfort system and how you can be saving money and be more energy.