Introduction - Home Energy Information - page 8

sunlight into the living areas. If you are the technical type of person you may wish
to experiment with solar panels or solar heating arrays to supplement your electric-
ity and hot water supply. Use monitoring devices to track the effectiveness of your
experiments.
Monitoring devices are a great way to track the progress of all the energy conser-
vation improvements you make to your home. Small handheld devices can monitor
the electricity used by plug-in appliances. You can use the same thermal detector
mentioned earlier to measure the temperature difference created by your heating or
cooling system. Whole house monitors are available to track energy consumption in
real-time. Some of the more sophisticated devices provide reports and even online
access to the data. These devices, some of them quite inexpensive, are an important
aspect of conserving energy because they provide instant feedback on how well our
conservation efforts are doing. This instant feedback will provide an early clue as to
whether or not we are lowering our HEI.
If our energy conservation efforts successfully lower our HEI month to month
then we are on our way to protecting the environment and saving money. We should
think of this as a continuous process rather than a quick fix. Reducing the amount of
electricity used to heat or cool our homes dramatically reduces the amount of coal
used and thus the amount of CO 2 emissions produced. Obviously, the methods we
use during this process are available to everyone and if everyone takes advantage
of them our planet will benefit greatly. So, passing on what you learn about energy
information, conservation and monitoring devices to your friends and family is ex-
tremely valuable.

1.6 Monitoring Devices

Any homeowner can use devices to monitor energy consumption in real time
throughout the home. Access to this information is a great way to check the results
of conservation measures homeowners have taken. Of course, the most obvious
monitoring devices are the meters and gauges themselves. These devices installed
by the utility service companies can provide valuable information to us. It's easy to
step aside and read the values on your electric meter, record them, and then come
back at a later time record the values again and subtract the two to find out how
much electricity the home used during that time. The same thing is true for natural
gas meters. However, propane and fuel oil might be a little more difficult to mea-
sure. Some utility companies provide web pages that let the homeowners monitor
their utility consumption day by day or even hour by hour. Also there are a number
of whole house monitoring devices that will monitor the electric consumption for
the whole home. On a smaller scale, there are devices we can use to measure the
consumption of individual appliances or circuits in the home. The important thing
to remember is that a homeowner can be proactive about monitoring energy con-
sumption by taking as little effort as watching the electric meter.