About Home Energy Lab

Home Energy Lab is an independent website designed to make household utility costs easier to understand.

Electricity, heating, air conditioning, water, and everyday appliances all contribute to the cost of running a home. But understanding where that money goes isn't always straightforward. Utility bills can be difficult to interpret, appliance specifications don't always tell the whole story, and the actual cost of using something depends on more than its wattage.

Home Energy Lab brings those details together in one place, combining interactive calculators, practical explanations, and an educational 3D home experience.

Our goal is simple: help you understand what your home costs to run, how those costs are calculated, and what you can do about them.

Why Home Energy Lab Exists

Most people know how much they pay for utilities each month. Fewer know how much individual appliances, heating systems, or everyday habits contribute to those bills.

How much does it cost to run a space heater for eight hours? Does leaving a gaming PC on overnight make a meaningful difference? How much electricity does a refrigerator actually use? And how do local energy prices change the answer?

These questions deserve more than generic estimates.

Home Energy Lab was created to make the calculations accessible. Instead of relying on a single nationwide figure, you can explore how power consumption, usage time, utility rates, equipment efficiency, and other variables affect your costs.

The idea is to turn confusing household expenses into numbers you can understand and use.

What You'll Find Here

Practical Utility Calculators

Home Energy Lab brings together 12 calculator tools covering electricity, air conditioning, heating, natural gas, water, laundry, lighting, household appliances, and total home utility expenses.

Each calculator focuses on a practical question and helps you explore how different inputs affect the result.

You can estimate the cost of running an appliance, compare usage scenarios, or better understand the expenses associated with everyday activities at home.

Ten Interactive 3D Homes

Energy use depends on the kind of home you live in, so Home Energy Lab lets you explore ten of them: a modern townhouse, a detached family house, a compact city apartment, a grand estate mansion, a cold-climate home heated with natural gas, an all-electric solar smart home, an American manufactured home, a mid-century walk-up, a New York brick mid-rise and an urban rooftop penthouse.

Inside each home you can:

• Walk through the rooms one at a time, from the basement or laundry room to the rooftop terrace.
• Click any appliance to see its typical power draw, daily use, and estimated cost per day, month, and year.
• Watch the monthly bill update live as you switch appliances on and off, and enter your own electricity and gas rates.
• Jump to the matching calculator when you want to run the numbers for your own equipment.

The houses turn abstract figures like watts and therms into something you can see, and make it easy to compare how an apartment, a family house, and a mansion spend their energy.

Guides That Explain the Numbers

The Home Energy Lab blog explores real questions about electricity bills, heating and cooling expenses, appliance consumption, and household efficiency.

Our articles focus on understandable explanations, transparent calculations, practical examples, and useful context.

The goal isn't simply to provide a number. It's to help you understand where that number comes from, what can change it, and how to apply that information to your own home.

How Our Estimates Work

Household energy costs vary widely. A calculation that makes sense for one home may not accurately represent another.

That's why our calculators and 3D homes use transparent mathematical models based on inputs such as energy consumption, operating time, utility prices, and relevant equipment characteristics.

Data Sources

• Energy prices: default electricity and natural gas rates are illustrative values close to recent U.S. residential averages published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). You can replace them with the rate on your own bill.
• Appliance power: wattages and daily hours are typical figures based on manufacturer specifications, ENERGY STAR data, and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) guidance.
• Formulas: kWh = watts × hours ÷ 1,000, and therms = BTU per hour × hours ÷ 100,000, then multiplied by your rate.

The full method, with worked examples, is on our How We Calculate page.

We aim to make assumptions clear, explain the units behind each calculation, and distinguish illustrative examples from actual utility rates.

An important limitation: Home Energy Lab provides estimates for educational and planning purposes. Actual bills may differ because of local tariffs, taxes, fixed charges, seasonal conditions, equipment performance, and individual usage patterns.

For exact billing information, always refer to your utility provider.

Independent by Design

Home Energy Lab is an independently developed educational project, not a utility company or an official government resource.

We do not provide utility services or determine the rates charged by electricity, gas, or water providers.

Our focus is on creating accessible tools and educational content that help people understand their household expenses and make more informed decisions.

Who Created Home Energy Lab?

Home Energy Lab was created by Daniil Hora as an independent web development project.

The website combines software development, interactive 3D technology, and practical household cost calculations into a single educational experience.

I built Home Energy Lab around the idea that useful information should also be clear, approachable, and engaging. The project reflects my interest in developing interactive web experiences that solve practical problems.

I continue to develop and improve the website, its calculators, and its educational resources.

You can learn more about me and explore my other work on my personal website, or connect with me on LinkedIn:

• Daniil Hora — Personal Website & Portfolio
• Daniil Hora on LinkedIn

Questions or Feedback?

Have a question about a calculation, noticed something that needs correcting, or have an idea for improving Home Energy Lab?

Feedback is welcome, especially when it helps make our tools and explanations more accurate and useful.

Get in touch

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Home Energy Lab is an independent educational resource. Calculator results are estimates and should not be treated as official utility bills, guaranteed savings, or professional energy assessments.