@vshart. I agree. Our own experience has been that the big spikes tend to be the wow factor when people start monitoring, but knowing your demon appliances is just one part. An equally critical part of the story is the baseload, always on or, as Chris calls it, background noise. (I write about baseload in this post: http://www.energycircle.com/blog/2009/06/18/electricity-monitoring-the-i...)

Many of these vampires are the obvious ones--entertainment centers, game systems and the like that draw in sleep mode. And then there are appliances like DVR's for which there is a reason they should stay on, but which are so far poorly engineered for energy, and draw as much in off as they do in on. Still, as conscientious as we are about this (we've individually kill-a-watt-ed every device in our house), there is still a baseload gap that remains a mystery. That's where experts like Chris Hunt come in.

The specialist concept of an Electricity Auditor is a relatively new idea in our experience, and Chris is a pioneer. I'd suggest researching the Energy Auditor community, and looking for someone who has Chris's level of electric expertise. Let us know if we can help.