Learning to read your electric meter is a great way to understand your home’s energy consumption, but it falls short when trying to calculate how efficiently your home is using this energy. That’s because meter readings don’t take weather data into consideration. The weather affects how much energy your home needs for heating and cooling. You can fill the information gap by learning about heating and cooling "degree days."
Since we’re still in the cooling season, let’s calculate "cooling degree days." The process is much the same for the heating season.
Basically, we’ll be gauging a particular day’s temperature ups and downs against a base temperature. The base temperature is determined based on numerous factors. (Check out www.degreedays.net; the website provides degree day data based on temperature information from Weather Underground.) Let’s use 65 degrees for our hypothetical day.
Adding the highest temperature that occurred in the day to the lowest, then cutting the sum in half, we arrive at the day’s average temperature. Let’s say the average temperature on our hypothetical day is 70 degrees.
Between the base and average temperatures there is a difference of 5 degrees. The particular day has 5 cooling degree days.
If you can make these calculations, you can use them to estimate your home’s heating and cooling efficiency. Look at the dates when your meter was read on your utility bill, and determine how many degree days took place during that time frame.
Now you have a “degree day to energy use” ratio. As the weather changes, track this ratio. To lower the “energy use” half of it, try improving your home’s performance with weekend projects and upgrades:
- Seal and insulate your accessible air ducts.
- Raise your thermostat one or two degrees.
- Invest in high-efficiency HVAC equipment to save money in the short and long terms.
- Plug energy leaks around windows, doorframes and other places in your walls.
As you make changes, you should be able to see the meter readings compared to the degree days drop. As always, feel free to contact Rodenhiser for advice on improving your Metrowest Boston home's energy efficiency.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about degree days and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Solutions Guide.
Rodenhiser Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning serves the Route 495/128 area of Norfolk MA. Visit our website to see our special offers to get started today!
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