Energy audit sheds light on costly appliances, electronics

PG&E brought my family an unwelcome gift in mid-November: a SmartMeter.

Since the big Bay Area rollout last fall, these remotely read meters have come under fire. Consumers have complained that they do not accurately measure electricity usage, resulting in significantly higher utility bills.

Although I didn’t receive a higher-than-expected bill that first month, the SmartMeter — and more specifically, the threat of losing money — got my attention in a way that reducing my carbon footprint and protecting the world from global warming hadn’t. For me, the priority was avoiding a future spike in my PG&E bill that would require replacing major appliances, the furnace or water heater.

So, with some online resources and a nifty gadget called the Watt-Minder, I set out to self-audit my family’s energy use during December and January.

What I discovered surprised me enough that I was soon stocking up on compact fluorescent light bulbs and power strips.

The money game

My family of three lives in a 30-year-old, 2,100-square-foot, two-story house with four bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. The $2,027 we spent last year on utilities was almost in line with the annual U.S. average of $1,900, but well above the $1,206 average for homes in our city of Concord.

Clearly, we were using a lot of energy over the baseline. Utility rates are set using this baseline, defined as the minimum amount of electricity and gas that consumers need to live in a specific region.

The more consumers use above this baseline, the more they pay. For example, a baseline rate may be $0.1153 per kilowatt hour, but exceeding that baseline by 131 percent to 200 percent could cost $0.2607 per hour.

Hoping to bring down our energy use, I answered dozens of detailed questions in an online audit by government-sponsored Home Energy Saver (www.hes.lbl.gov). The resulting recommendations were what I expected: Switch to a natural gas dryer, replace our dishwasher and water heater with energy-efficient models, and have our ducts professionally sealed — all budget breakers.

But I found something I could do within our budget. The U.S. Department of Energy says energy used to power major and small appliances accounts for 17 percent of a household’s energy consumption. For us, that came to $750 a year.

Here was a number I could tackle.

The watts game

Never before had I considered auditing my energy consumption. I didn’t even realize that companies offered this service.

“That’s the challenge with this industry,” says Shana Fong, marketing manager for one such Bay Area company, Recurve. “Not many are aware that it exists. They’re looking for a silver bullet product that will help with energy consumption. In reality, “… each homeowner has different priorities.”

SmartMeters eventually will be able to measure how much energy a household appliance uses, but I didn’t want to wait for that technology. So I turned to the Watt-Minder, created by Martinez-based Mashita Electronics. The battery-operated device measures the kilowatts used by any appliance that has a plug. Based on the rate you program into the device, it estimates the cost to operate that appliance.

“Most people just accept their energy bill. They don’t think of utilities as a discretionary purchase,” says Greg Endom, co-founder and owner of Mashita Electronics. “But really, you do have choices, starting with how you operate in your home. Doing simple things can save you a lot of money.”

Here are a few surprising discoveries I made while using the Watt-Minder in my self-audit. All costs are calculated using the baseline quantity rate.