Perform a Home Energy Audit

The purpose of a home energy audit is to find sources of energy waste in the home, however small, and reduce or eliminate them. The process begins with taking an accurate home energy survey of each circuit in your main breaker panel. The more accurate the survey, the greater the opportunity to find savings.

Here are the main steps:

1. Make a list of all the circuits in the main breaker panel where power enters your home.

2. Sign up for our E-zine called the Meter Messenger to receive our FREE Power Panel Profiler download:

3. Enter the list of circuit breakers from your main panel into the Power Panel Profiler.

4. Identify the electrical load on each breaker and enter it into the Profiler using one or more of the following techniques:

a. Single point metering

b. Net metering 

c. Submetering

d. Load profiling

e. Placard power ratings

5. Measure or estimate the daily run time for the load on each circuit and enter it accordingly.

6. Enter the cost per kilowatt-hour from your electric bill.

7. As you make improvements to your home energy use, enter changes into a second copy of the Profiler.   Compare new usage level and cost with your original baseline and watch the savings mount up.

You will need to have Microsoft Excel installed on your computer to run this program.  Click here for detailed instructions which are are also included with the software.