Ever wanted a complete breakdown of your household electricity usage?

[switchitoff.net]

Until last September I lived in Sydney, Australia - where I was seriously considering going solar. Unfortunately the state government backed out of their domestic solar subsidies, and I ended up moving to London (it's a long story) - so no solar for me. However it struck me that solar users (or those considering going solar) need a very clear picture of their existing electricity usage. Had I gone solar, I would have wanted to fit a smallish system and reduce my consumption accordingly. But there was no easy way of working out the complete breakdown of my power consumption so that I could see where to make savings. All I could find online were simple electricity calculators. So as I happen to be a website developer I thought I could do much better.

My site is now working beautifully. It starts you off with a realistic household profile containing power consumption and costs for everything from air conditioning to your bedside clock radio. So straight away you've got ballpark figures for all appliances. You can then update this profile with your own appliances and tariffs.

So the reason I'm posting this on a US site is that I've just added some Californian tariffs, and would love you guys to make use of the site. It's completely free after all. So I really hope you give it a go and find it useful. Any feedback would be very welcome.

Many thanks,

John Williams

Mod note - To advertise on the site please contact user name Jason.

[russ]

It looks nice but if all you have to work with is the name plate consumption or typical data off the net I don't really see the use.

If one wants to go in this direction they need to check the consumption of each individual device over a couple of days at different times of the year - or have a fancy metering unit that monitors many circuits.

Peoples estimations of power on times are generally well off the mark.

[switchitoff.net]

I agree that working out exact appliance usage can be difficult. But if you're the sort of person who bought a plugin power meter then I'm sure you can fill-in your own figures fairly accurately. And that's the great thing about the site. The level of accuracy is up to you and how much effort you put in.

Personally I still find great value in playing with the default figures, and being able to broadly answer questions like "How much will I save by using ceiling fans instead of air conditioning?"

[russ]

I believe I have monitored the indıvidual power consumption of most devices in the house several times for days and months.

Still have to do the stove, oven and microwave - will do them for one month each to have a good average number.