LibGuides: Green Living: Home Energy Use

Home Energy Audits

Before making changes, you need to determine your baseline energy use and identify projects that will reduce your consumption. The links below provide step-by-step instructions for conducting your own energy audit and tips for finding a professional, if you prefer to hire someone.

Do-It-Yourself Home Energy Audits While a professional home energy audit is the best way to determine where your home is losing energy and where you can save, you can conduct your own simple but diligent walk-through and spot many problems in any type of house.
Energy Savings at Home ENERGY STAR is your resource for information on projects and products to help make your home energy efficient. Learn how you can upgrade to energy efficient products and make other home improvements that can deliver significant energy and cost savings, and help you transition from fossil fuels for a cleaner, healthier and more comfortable home. Also, learn how to take advantage of tax credits.
ENERGY STAR Home Energy Yardstick If you have five minutes and your last 12 months of utility bills, use the Home EPA's Home Energy Yardstick (HEY) provides a simple assessment of your home's annual energy use compared to similar homes. By answering a few basic questions about your home, you can get: -- Your home's ENERGY STAR score (on a scale of 1 to 100, with an average home scoring 50); -- Insights into how much of your home's energy use is related to heating and cooling versus other everyday uses like appliances, lighting, and hot water; -- Links to guidance from ENERGY STAR on how to increase your home's score, improve comfort, and lower utility bills -- An estimate of your home's annual carbon emissions Yardstick to compare your home's energy use to similar homes across the country and see how your home measures up.
Locate Builders, Raters, and Incentives in Your Area Home buyers, are you looking for an energy–efficient home builder in your area? Builders and raters, are you looking for local incentives to build ENERGY STAR certified new homes? Use this interactive tool to select your state and search for local builders, raters, and incentives near you.
Professional Home Energy Audits Professional energy assessments generally go into great detail. The energy auditor should do a room-by-room examination of the residence, as well as a thorough examination of past utility bills. Many professional energy assessments will include a blower door test. Most will also include a thermographic scan.
Recommended Home Insulation R– Values Provides minimum insulation recommendations based on zip codeInsulation level are specified by R-Value. R-Value is a measure of insulation’s ability to resist heat traveling through it. The higher the R-Value the better the thermal performance of the insulation. The table on this page shows what levels of insulation are cost-effective for different climates and locations in the home.

Home Energy Monitors

An important part of saving energy is determining how much energy you're currently using (your baseline), then tracking your improvements over time to determine how effective the changes are that you're making. One way to gather this information is with a home energy monitor.

The links below explain how such monitors work and provide tips for selecting the one that's right for you.

How to Choose a Home Energy Monitor Guide to help you understand what kind of monitoring you'd like to do, and what gear is available to you to get the savings you want to achieve.
OpenEnergyMonitor OpenEnergyMonitor is a project to develop open-source energy monitoring tools. These tools can be used to help us relate to our use of energy, our energy systems and the challenge of sustainable energy.
Real-Time Data to Reduce Electric Use New York Times Green blog post about how people are using monitors to gather data about their home energy use.

Books

Resources included here deal specifically with home energy use. For information on green building more generally, see the Green Building LibGuide.

Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings
ISBN: 0865716021
Publication Date: 2007
How efficient are front-load washing machines? When is it time to replace your old refrigerator? This book answers these questions for consumers who want to improve their home's energy performance and reduce costs. It provides an overview of the inter-relationships between energy use, economics and the environment.
Cut Your Energy Bills Now: 150 Smart Ways to Save Money & Make Your Home More Comfortable & Green
ISBN: 1600850707
Publication Date: 2008
Complemented by dozens of full-color photographs and drawings, a homeowner's guide to saving energy and money furnishes 150 practical, cutting-edge tips and techniques to reduce one's heating, cooling, and other energy costs by making a home more energy efficient and reducing one's carbon footprint.
Green My Home!: 10 Steps to Lowering Energy Costs and Reducing Your Carbon Footprint
ISBN: 1427798419
Publication Date: 2009
Save energy, save money, save the planet. Learn what you can do now to reduce your contribution of greenhouse gases to the environment.
Greening Your Home: Sustainable Options for Every System in Your House
ISBN: 0071499091
Publication Date: 2008
Greening Your Home covers the latest green building options and shows how to select the ones that best match varied budgets and lifestyles.
Save Energy and Cut Your Bills
ISBN: 0071664998
Publication Date: 2010
Presents practical advice on ways to cut energy consumption and costs in one's home by reducing fuel and electricity use and generating energy.
The Complete Guide to Energy Conservation for Smarties
ISBN: 0615223389
Publication Date: 2008
The Home Energy Diet: How To Save Money by Making Your House Energy-smart
ISBN: 0865715300
Publication Date: 2005
Energy specialist Paul Scheckel first explores energy literacy, and then describes how your home uses - and loses - energy you pay for. He encourages readers to learn about their own homes through easy-to-follow ways of measuring, metering, investigating, and considering habits related to household energy use so that they can make informed decisions about cost-effective improvements and upgrades. The Home Energy Diet also explores the possibility of using renewable energy for meeting home energy needs.
The Renewable Energy Handbook: A Guide to Rural Independence, Off-grid and Sustainable Living
ISBN: 0973323329
Publication Date: 2005
Focuses on the unique requirements of off-grid living and contains chapters on energy conservation; heating and cooling; backup power; domestic water heating; wireless communications; photovoltaic, wind, and microhydro energy generation; battery selection; and inverters.

Web Sites

Ameren Illinois Residential Energy Efficiency Includes links to residential incentives for Ameren customers.
ComEd Ways to Save for Your Home Includes links to tips, guides, programs, and incentives for reducing energy use. Programs and incentives are for ComEd customers only.
Energy Efficiency Resources for Consumers Energy efficiency means using less energy to complete the same task. Almost every aspect of how we live is influenced by reliance on energy use, so efficiency plays an increasingly important role. This site, developed by the California Energy Commission, includes resources for commercial buildings, multifamily homes, single family homes, and local government.
CUB Energy Saver Citizens Utility Board is working together with Efficiency 2.0 to offer CUB Energy Saver to Illinois residents. CUB Energy Saver provides tools that: create ways for you to save money while benefiting the planet; empower you to engage with your local community to help solve critical energy and environmental issues; and reward smart decisions with discounts at national and local retailers.
Energy Saver DOE portal for home energy use.
ENERGY STAR Search for products with the ENERGY STAR seal and get tips for saving energy.
Power Smart Pricing (Ameren) PowerSmart Pricing lets you pay the hourly, wholesale market price for electricity, which varies throughout the day. It allows you to reduce your costs by shifting some of your electricity use to lower, off-peak hours. For Ameren customers only.