With the many options available for monitoring your home's electricity use, how do you narrow it down to what solution is right for you?

As we head into winter, most people have their eye on how to monitor and maintain an energy efficient home. A home energy audit may reveal a whole lot of places electricity can be conserved, but how can you track improvements? One of the easiest ways to do this is with a home energy monitor. But with the wide selection out there, it can be touch figuring out which option is right for you. We're here to help you understand what kind of monitoring you'd like to do, and what gear is available to you to get the savings you want to achieve.

Effective But Not Over-the-Top: Whole-House Power Monitors

This approach takes a wider look at your home's energy use.

Devices that monitor whole home energy use are called power monitors. You can enter information about the devices you want to monitor as well as information about your energy bills, and the monitor will let you know how much electricity your home is using and what that is costing you. The Home Joule plugs into an outlet and combines your home energy consumption rate with info about your local utility costs, time of day, and weather to tell you if you're using too much energy. Switch off a light, see the cost go down. And a newer device on the market is the? Power Monitor, which uses a wireless sensor next to the meter to feed information to a portable monitor inside your home. You can use it to find out the best times to switch devices, appliances, and lights off for the most savings.