Free Software that can Save Energy and Money

I just discovered some valuable free software that can help you save lots of energy at home while also saving some big bucks! Bill Clark, of Bar X Software, is the genius behind the code. He is a Mechanical Engineer who has been working in this field for about 40 years, and the author of "Retrofitting for Energy Conservation," a 400 page book from McGraw-Hill (1998). At the above website are descriptions and download links for five separate free programs.

Note: The sites listed on this page are hosted at Go-Daddy and seem to come and go at their whim. If you try to click through and just get Go-Daddy advertising, please try again later...Bill is says that he is trying to correct this situation.

Thermo-Stat is a powerful program with a comprehensive weather database of 211 U.S. cities that shows just how much you can save by installing a programmable thermostat (or adjusting your regular thermostat) It does industry standard engineering calculations, behind the user friendly interface.

Energy Auditor calculates annual energy use. You spend a few minutes inputting data on a building, then you can change a window to double paned or put a light color roof on, or shade one wall with a tree, or paint the building a light color and find out how your bills will be affected. Here's a screenshot of the 2.0 novice version:

I downloaded this novice version and could immediately see the value and power of this finely tuned learning tool. In the area where it says "Total Updated Automatically," there is a light gray number (red in the new version) that is your annual energy cost, given the values that you fill in...and this total cost changes as you vary the data, so you can immediately see what the effect of the change is. There is also an "Expert" version of the program where the input parameters are more sophisticated.

Luzifier enables you to calculate average light levels in a room. You can see how changing the wall color, or the color of the carpet or ceiling tile, will affect the light level. You can try out many different types of fixtures and lamps too.

Another program, HVAC Loads, can be used to evaluate peak heating and air conditioning loads , based on various aspects of a building.

These tools can enable a homeowner to review many important aspects of home energy use that a professional energy audit would provide. bar-x-soft.com generously offers free downloads of these basic programs to make your home more energy efficient and economical.