What's the average gas and electric bill? Our calculator will show how your home stacks up.

You're not alone if you're asking what the average gas and electric bill is in the US.

The simple answer is about $2000/year or $165/month. The Department of Energy has the lovely chart above. 

What you really want to know is more complex.

The odds are, the $2000 average gas and electric bill is unsatisfying. What you really want to know is how do the utility bills at your home compare to your neighbors.

The Department of Energy is also helpful here, they collected energy use from 9,000 homes nationwide and put them in the Building Performance Database.

The trouble is, you can't search the database.

Good news! We developed a calculator based on the Building Performance Database where all you need to put in are your zip code, square footage, and annual utility usage to be able to see how your home stacks up against similar homes in your climate zone. 

Climate zones are other parts of the country that have similar winters and summers to you. Since the Building Performance Database is relatively small, using climate zones helps smooth out any states that don't have a lot of gas and electric utility bills reported. Here are the US and Canada climate zones.

Climate zones in the US and Canada. From Green Building Advisor and Greenzone.com.

  
How does your home stack up?

Our calculator tells you the EUI, or Energy Use Intensity of your home, and compares it to other similar sized homes in your climate zone.

Energy Use Intensity is a complicated sounding phrase for a simple thing: how much energy does your home use per year, per square foot? It's a metric we're big fans of, in fact I wrote an article for GreenTech Media about EUI in 2016. This calculator grew out of that article.

0 EUI means your home uses no energy, or you produce all the energy you use with solar panels or the like. Higher is worse. Where I live in Cleveland, 100 is a bad EUI. For milder climates like Florida, 50 might be bad.

When you enter your email at the bottom of the calculator, you'll get a report that shows how your home stacks up on three factors: overall usage, electric usage, and gas (heating) usage.

Sample Report from the EUI Calculator:

Curious? Try it out!

For now, you can just throw some numbers in and see what comes back. We give you suggestions.

If you want an accurate and complete report, grab a recent gas and electric bill, and look for the annual usage. You'll get a simple report when you click submit. To get the detailed results I showed above, you'll need to enter your email in the second step, after you click submit. 

Soon you'll know how your home compares to others! Comment below what EUI you got!

PS If you enter in your utility costs, you can find out how much more (or less) your energy bills are than your neighbors. Our calculator can also show what your home would be worth if efficiency was valued at time of sale. 

Energy Use Intensity Calculator
See how your energy bills compare to others in the Building Performance Database.