If you're in the United States but not within about 100 miles of the Pacific Ocean, you live where recent weeks' weather maps have shown temperatures in orange and red so fiery it seems the very map might burst into flames.

Listening to the constant hum of your air conditioner, you're probably thinking about how much money you're burning through, since staying cool has to be the most expensive energy sucker in your house.

It's not. But it's high on the list.

With the help of the U.S. Department of Energy (.pdf file), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, spokesmen from utility companies and an energy auditor, what follows is a list of the top energy uses in the typical American home.

(If you have a spa pump and heater or a swimming pool pump, you can put those two uses as Nos. 1 and 2 on your own list.)

• Video: 5 cheap ways anyone can go solar (these articles from Msn.money.com)