Know Where Your Home Energy Usage Stands With a New Online Tool

Many Florida homeowners have become energy crusaders on a quest to improve their home’s efficiency. If you’re among them, maybe you taken steps such as sealing your ducts, investing in preventive maintenance and even working with your landscaping to enhance natural efficiency. You put in a lot of work, but what are you getting back? Is there any way to know how much energy savings your efforts add up to?

Thanks to Energy Star, there is. Energy Star is a collaborative effort of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency which provides simple tools, tips and equipment ratings that make it easy for American homeowners to enhance their home performance while sustaining the environment.

A simple way to measure your home’s efficiency and compare it to other residences in the country is to use the Home Energy Yardstick, created by Energy Star. The Home Energy Yardstick calculator takes data about your energy sources, your house, your utility bills and your local weather patterns to create an estimation of how efficient your home is. They also have suggestions for how to increase your energy savings even further.

Using the Home Energy Yardstick is easy. It takes roughly five minutes, and you only need simple information such as the square footage of your home, the energy sources used in your home, and your last 12 months of utility bills.

You have the option to use yearly or monthly utility information in the calculator, but we at Simpson Air recommend using monthly info, since this typically brings a better estimate. The weather data for your location is updated by Energy Star and used in their calculations. This takes around thirty days to update so if you decide to use monthly data, go with last month’s.

The calculator will rate your home compared to similar homes across the nation. If you think there’s room for improvement in your scores, call Simpson Air. We’ll be happy to help you get the most energy savings out of your home while also sustaining the environment!