Jun 12, 2012

Understanding Your Home Power Usage

Measuring home power usage has become more important than ever as we enter an era of sky-rocketing power prices. Lower energy emissions are also key to a cleaner greener environment. All of your appliances will use some electricity and they range from being heavy power users (refrigerators), to medium powers users (washing machines), through to low power users like toasters.

The important thing is to understand how much power you use throughout your home. This could be a case of doing some complicated maths and understanding how much power your home is using. Another way to measure this is to check your meter yourself or just take a look at your power bills.

What Uses the Most Power?
You don’t have to be an electrician to understand what uses the most power in your home these days. You can, with most new products, simply look at the energy rating on the device or its packaging. While this is not available for all products, it is now standard on higher-end whitegoods such as new washing machines and refrigerators. Suprisingly, even though our overall power usage has gone up year upon year, traditional appliances actually use less power. So what has been eating up the extra juice? It is probably the computers and other devices that we have plugged in or at least charging for a certain part of the day.

Ways to Save Electricity
Once you understand where your power is going and what it costs, you can start to save some money. There are two ways to save money on electricity, both are very effective and they can even be used in combination:
While these concepts may seem similar or even the same, they differ slightly in their methods. If you conserve energy you are trying not to use it at all. This includes turning off the lights and unplugging devices that you are not using. Preserving electricity is entirely different. This involves making the most of the electricity you are using, so it is not wasted. This could include cooking multiple items on an electric stove at the same time, instead of cooking things separately.

Fight the Power
There are some simple ways to understand power usage and lower those electricity bills. One increasingly popular option is to produce your very own electricity, using solar power, or even wind power. If you are thinking of adding renewable energy to your home make sure you understand how your power will be used. An average home will use about 1.5kW, but in the peak usage time anywhere up to ten times this amount could be used. This is why many solar systems start at around the 3.5kW mark. If you go solar, you may want to upgrade any energy-wasting appliances at the same time.

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