An energy audit helps you to calculate how much energy you use, where it is used, and where you can reduce energy usage and save money. You can carry out an energy audit at home or in the work place and very quickly you will see why you are spending so much on electricity.

The energy audit will consider all aspects of your house from the boiler to the lighting through to the insulation in your walls and attic.

Lighting accounts for around 10-30% of most household electricity usage. A simple way to calculate the energy used by lighting is for each light bulb multiply the number of watts printed on it by the number of hours that bulb is on each day - this tells you how many kWh of electricity each bulb uses daily. Add up the values for all of your light bulbs and then multiply by 365 to see how many kWh of electricity you use lighting your house.

For example, a 100 Watt bulb on for 3 hours per day uses kWh of electricity per day. At an average of around 16cent/kWh that will cost you €17.52 per year! Replace your 100W bulb with an 18W CFL equivalent and you could save yourself around €12 per year.

Then you can find out how much lighting your house is costing you. Immediately you will see how much you can save by replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient light bulbs such as CFLs or LEDs.

Money spent on attic insulation for example is a great investment. It will usually pay for itself in just two or three years, plus you are helping the environment too.