[mikester]

My house is relatively old as well. I have always been unhappy with the state of my electrical wiring. It isn't that there is anything really 'wrong' with it but it's circa 1950s, mostly aluminum (I think) and is poorly organized in the fuse box.

This makes me really want to have the house rewired; that way I could have rooms organized at the box and maybe even separate lighting from outlets. (I'm not an electrician so I don't know if electrical codes would support that sort of thing or not)

I've been looking at the home metering technologies out there and they seem pretty juvenile to me. I am going to start looking for some 'open source' projects to see if anything like that exists out there. It's a hobby/project time thing for me. Some of the things I have been considering is solar tubes in a few rooms where we usually have lights on during the day. Like my office. I want the privacy of my window shades closed but I would love the natural light in the room. I don't know if those tubes also bring in heat though or compromise heating and cooling insulation.

If I could get an snmp addressable energy monitoring device in the fuse box on each circuit I would be pretty much in heaven on the subject.