- Your monthly bill – While you can’t necessarily do much about the costs of your energy per unit (kilowatt-hours, therms, gallons), you can see how many units you’re using. You can see how your usage compares to what you were using in previous winters, to get a sense if anything has changed (like, there’s a window open in the basement, or the dungeon…).
- Online calculators – While you’re looking at your data, you can also see how that compares with how you maybe should be using, based on rules of thumb.
- Your comps – Even better, since it takes into account whether it’s been colder or warmer than usual, is if your utility shows you how you’re doing compared to others in your neighborhood with similar conditions (house size, heating fuel). It’s not perfect—maybe you’ve got four kids and a needy puppy dog, and they’ve got none. But it can help you orient yourself, particularly if you can look for changes in your relative standing over time; if you used to perform consistently better than neighbors, and now don’t, that might be a clue that something’s amiss.
Give us a call to schedule fall maintenance to get ready for winter before the fall rush.