What this site is for
When your energy bill jumps, we help you find what's driving it and choose the right tools and weatherization products for your older home.
It is written for US households in older homes, whether you own or rent. The starting question is almost always the same: the bill went up, and you want to know why and what to do about it. We answer in that order. First, separate a price change from a usage change. Second, measure the appliance you suspect instead of guessing. Third, choose the smallest fix that actually fits your home, which is sometimes nothing at all.
What we cover and what we leave alone
- Covered: bill changes, appliance running costs, safe plug-in measurement, window and door heat loss, and products for those jobs with documented fit.
- Not covered: solar and battery systems, generators and backup power, general home repair, structural retrofits, electrical-panel work, tariff switching, and anything that needs an electrician to be done safely.
Where advice depends on how your home is heated, we say so. Draft and hot-water fixes change the bill for the fuel you heat with, which is not always electricity.
The publication and its research
What Does It Cost to Run? publishes guides, calculations and product comparisons for household energy decisions. The evidence label and source list on each guide explain what supports it. The current comparisons are desk research, not reports of hands-on product testing.
Sources-checked dates refer to the documents behind the advice. They are not promises that a product is in stock or that a particular home will achieve a saving. Read the research method and its limits.
How the site is paid for
Product links go to Amazon and can earn a commission. That is the business model, stated plainly. Commission does not decide which products appear, and several guides end by telling you not to buy anything. Read the full disclosure and how we research.
Photography
Guide photographs from Pexels show homes like the ones this site is written for, not products we have tested. Credits under the Pexels License: Ahmet Yüksek, Thanh Luu, Mikhail Nilov, Curtis Adams, Ksenia Chernaya, Gabriela Pons, Binyamin Mellish, K, cottonbro studio, Sasha Romadin.
Product photographs come from the Amazon Creators API.
Keeping a recommendation useful
Products get discontinued, listings change pack sizes, and manuals get revised. Use the linked manufacturer document and current listing to check the exact item before buying. When a source correction is made, it is applied to every page that relies on that fact. The research policy explains how source dates and unresolved details are handled.
This site has no public inbox. For a question about a product, a charge on your bill or a calculation, finding an answer points to the source that can settle it.