Energy at Home

Daniel Miranian
Journal 3-4
3/9/08

I. I found out that wire gauge is a way to measure the diameter of a wire. The smaller the gauge number is, the larger the diameter of the wire. For example the smallest number for a gauge is no. 0000, which is a wire that is .46 inches in diameter. On the other hand the largest number for a gauge is no. 36 which corresponds to a wire that is .0005 inches in diameter. The system for labeling the wire diameters is called the American wire gauge (AWG).

II. This past week in class we started by looking at the amount of energy our homes consumed. We did a cool survey online in class that estimated the amount of energy you spend on heating and cooling your home each year. It also gave a break down on how much energy different appliances use. I found out that my home uses a lot less energy than similar homes. One reason for this is we keep the thermostat very low in the winter time and very high in the summer. To cool our home in the summer, we typically put box fans in the windows to circulate air flow at night when it is cooler. This way we do not always have to the A.C. on. We also had more time to work on our Rube Goldberg projects.

III. For next week I would like to find out how much energy we use to heat our water each year.