How to Get a Hohm Energy Audit

by Don Ames

Microsoft-Hohm, a Great Home Energy Audit Calculator.

by Don Ames 

I find it somewhat spooky to log onto a new website and one of the first things you see is an aerial view of your own home. How did they know I was going to log into that website right at that moment? Takes me a bit to adjust to the technology before I can move the wireless mouse again. Going to a website is getting to be like going to the movies, you just can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. Speaking of movies, have you seen the recent movie starring Sherlock Holmes?  I saw the movie and I did not care for it, too dark and too evil for my taste. When it comes to spelling Holmes I would prefer to spell it, Hohm’s 

Not everyone has the opportunity for a real, blower door, home energy audit. So I recommend you log onto microsoft-hohm and be amazed by the aerial photo like I was. Hohm has a great program for giving your home a virtual home energy audit. The program is surprisingly complete and functional in analyzing the aspects of your home that contribute to energy savings or energy waste.

Oh, wait a minute, the reason the aerial photo greeted me was because this is not the first time I have logged onto the web site. Nice of it to remember me.

Before you sign up and start inputting some real data, gather up a little data of your own first:

  • Basic home information including square feet of heated living space. ( how big is your home )
  • Your natural gas and electric bills. The more the merrier, a years worth is ideal or 6 months will get you started.

From the home page, the first thing you do is sign up, the button is off on the right near the top of the page - you can sign in with your hotmail account.  The second thing you do is input your address. Just street address and zip code is fine. Somehow the program knows the City,State and Country. Then the program will show you an aerial photo of your house so the program can adjust it’s energy audit to the part of the country you live in. Isn’t this just amazing?

The Hohm program has the ability to contact your power company ( if available ) and have the power company supply your usage records to be used in the audit. If records are not available, you will be asked to input the info one month at a time. I did six months for my audit, which allowed the program to provide pretty good results. After the energy usage data, Hohm is ready to put you through a bunch of questions about your home and your lifestyle.

Microsoft-hohm will then provide an assessment of the energy usage of your home and make suggestions on where you can save energy. The assessment will include the following:

  • 1.  Your Energy Breakdown:  a graph showing where all the energy is going.
  • 2.  Top ways to save:  Hohm is going to make some energy saving recommendations.
  • 3.  Potential and Estimated Savings: How much money can you save if you make certain adjustments to your home or lifestyle.
  • 4.  Annual energy cost comparison graph:  How does your home compare with others in your area.
  • 5.  Annual energy usage comparison graph:  Again, how does your home stack up with others in your area.
  • 6.  Possible rebates and offers:  suggestions concerning incentives and tax credits that might be available to you.
  • 7.  Your Hohm Score:  Compare your Hohm score with others around the country.  Make home improvements and raise your Hohm score

To take the Hohm program into the real time energy reporting business, try installing a Blueline Powercost Monitor. The Monitor has WiFi that can be used by the Hohm program to display and graph your right now power usage data right on your home computer.

If your just not ready to have a Home Energy Auditor spend 4 hours crawling all around your home, I recommend you give Microsoft-Hohm a try. I found the program to be very user friendly and the results eye-opening. I guess you could try the Sherlock Holmes movie also, but I don’t recommend it. For me, the movie was a long way from my house or my lifestyle.

 

I just learned yesterday that microsoft is taking the hohm energy calculator off the internet. It’s such a good program, I recommend that you go ahead and use it to evaluate your home for energy efficient improvements. It may be leaving us, but it can still be an eye opener…

Thanks for stopping by, come back soon, and be sure to let me know how you liked Hohm and how you liked Holmes…Don Ames.