Friday, April 9, 2010

Save money and energy at home today!

Let's face it. It's a fact that everybody tries to save money these days. Every little bit counts. Just a few dollars here and a few dollars there make a whole lot of difference. Let me ask you this? How often do just stand at your mailbox in disbelief when you open up that monthly energy bill that just came in the mail? Well, I know I do. It's just so expensive these days. Well, let me tell you something. There is a way to reduce your home energy usage, hence saving a whole lot of money. Not only will it save you money, but you will be helping in saving our environment too! How awesome is that?

I recently came to know about the Microsoft Hohm website. What's that? Well, Hohm is a free web service that helps you make smarter decisions about saving energy and money. It let's you learn how you can reduce your home energy usage and start saving today. Here's how it works. All you need to do is sign up with Hohm for a FREE account and they will provide you with a home energy report and energy-saving recommendations tailored to your home. Just key is some basic information like your zip code, the size of your home, what type of home it is (single family, apartment, condo...etc), when it was built, who your electric and natural gas provider is and soon you will be on your way to getting your own Hohm Energy Report. With that, you can see a breakdown of energy cost and usage, a summary of potential savings as well as some customized recommendations of how you can save energy.

From my customized report, I sure learnt a lot of things. Looks like a major chunk of energy usage is from my home appliances. Computer monitors and other electronics account for about 20 percent of an average home's electricity bills. Just by setting my computer monitor to use low-power or sleep mode when idle will save me $98 a year! Not only that, if I set my computer to hibernate or use sleep mode when idle, I get to save another $75! Another way to save money and energy is to replace incandescent light bulbs with higher efficiency bulbs. Just by doing that, it will save me about $185 a year. There are just so many ways to save energy from my customized report, I just cannot begin to list them all down.

So, what else is interesting in the Microsoft Hohm website? Well, apart from generating your own Energy Report, you can also pick up some Energy saving tips from the website. Not only that, you can also follow Microsoft Hohm on Facebook, Twitter and also their blog. So, what are you waiting for? Head over to Microsoft Hohm, sign up for your free acount and start saving today!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Microsoft Hohm is an excellent new online tool that can help you start saving on your energy bills. I signed up for the beta a while back, and its good to see improvements being made. The most interesting and useful thing is definitely the "hook" into the utility company. Nice job.

I have to say one thing I wish the Hohm website would do is encourage more about energy audits. The Hohm report generates general recommendations and other "basic" data based on the information you provide and its records. Contrast this to an energy audit which takes your home and puts it under the microscope and breaks down further your actual energy usage.

Hohm, for me, is actually pretty close. But it will certainly miss some finer details and areas for potential savings.

Nice insight and I enjoyed reading about your findings.

Cheers!
Dave Andersen

DIY Energy Audit Kits