Author Topic: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?  (Read 240063 times)

Bookworm

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #350 on: March 05, 2014, 11:20:35 AM »
Ugh. My oven desperately needs to be cleaned, and I was going to use some oven cleaner I have on hand to avoid having the oven on for 3-5 hours for self-clean, but I just read that oven cleaner can destroy the special surface of a self-cleaning oven.  I guess I'm stuck wasting the power. :(

Ozstache

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #351 on: March 05, 2014, 03:48:34 PM »
Ugh. My oven desperately needs to be cleaned, and I was going to use some oven cleaner I have on hand to avoid having the oven on for 3-5 hours for self-clean, but I just read that oven cleaner can destroy the special surface of a self-cleaning oven.  I guess I'm stuck wasting the power. :(

It may take a couple of goes and a bit of soaking time but a baking soda and vinegar mix can serve as oven cleaner and is not toxic.

crumbcatcher

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #352 on: March 06, 2014, 05:07:18 PM »
I have electric everything, gas-powered nothing.  The house has high ceilings and is hard to heat, so it always feels cold even when the thermostat says it's a comfortable temperature.

Part of this is electric heat.  It's really not a bad heating method, but it doesn't FEEL as warm.  Fired heat sends out pretty darn hot air (for a shorter period of time) and feels toasty warm.  Electric heat (or at least a heat pump) sends out air that is just a few degrees warmer than the room itself, so it feels drafty.

I have the same problem using a wood stove and using the HVAC fan to circulate.  The low temperature differential feels drafty.  I solve it by wearing more clothes. ;)

interesting! I never thought about this but now that you mention it, I do notice it in our house (air source heat pump) compared to other places I've lived. I think for us another issue is that the vents are in the ceilings... it works well when it's 110 out and we have the AC running, but not so much in the winter :(

Ceiling fan, on low, reverse mode. We have the same issue with our 10’ ceilings and wall-mounted heat pumps above the 6' windows. Ceiling fans are really easy to install yourself, though a lifter/helper is good if you're not very strong.

yes! we actually do this sometimes because although we rent we are fortunate to have ceiling fans in almost every room. the only downside is that depending where you are sitting in the room it can feel a little drafty, but it does seem to distribute the heat better!

I want to make sure I'm reading these comments correctly so I can give this a try.  I have a 14' ceiling in one area of my house (it's a townhouse-style loft with a high sloping ceiling, all very open) and there is a ceiling fan over the downstairs part.  If I turn on the ceiling fan, is it going to distribute the heat better?  Or keep it more focused downstairs?  This is where it is hardest to heat, because the heat seems to go right up over the loft toward the highest part of the house.


aj_yooper

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #353 on: March 06, 2014, 05:37:15 PM »
For the past year we (2 adults) have used an average of 80kWh per month or 2.7 per day.  Our house is 2500 square feet with gas forced air heat, electric air conditioning, and electric dryer.   I feel for the high kWh users.

Rural

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #354 on: March 06, 2014, 06:00:24 PM »
I have electric everything, gas-powered nothing.  The house has high ceilings and is hard to heat, so it always feels cold even when the thermostat says it's a comfortable temperature.

Part of this is electric heat.  It's really not a bad heating method, but it doesn't FEEL as warm.  Fired heat sends out pretty darn hot air (for a shorter period of time) and feels toasty warm.  Electric heat (or at least a heat pump) sends out air that is just a few degrees warmer than the room itself, so it feels drafty.

I have the same problem using a wood stove and using the HVAC fan to circulate.  The low temperature differential feels drafty.  I solve it by wearing more clothes. ;)

interesting! I never thought about this but now that you mention it, I do notice it in our house (air source heat pump) compared to other places I've lived. I think for us another issue is that the vents are in the ceilings... it works well when it's 110 out and we have the AC running, but not so much in the winter :(

Ceiling fan, on low, reverse mode. We have the same issue with our 10’ ceilings and wall-mounted heat pumps above the 6' windows. Ceiling fans are really easy to install yourself, though a lifter/helper is good if you're not very strong.

yes! we actually do this sometimes because although we rent we are fortunate to have ceiling fans in almost every room. the only downside is that depending where you are sitting in the room it can feel a little drafty, but it does seem to distribute the heat better!

I want to make sure I'm reading these comments correctly so I can give this a try.  I have a 14' ceiling in one area of my house (it's a townhouse-style loft with a high sloping ceiling, all very open) and there is a ceiling fan over the downstairs part.  If I turn on the ceiling fan, is it going to distribute the heat better?  Or keep it more focused downstairs?  This is where it is hardest to heat, because the heat seems to go right up over the loft toward the highest part of the house.

You'll do better if you reversed the direction and then put it on low. There should be a little switch on the side, probably below the blades, to let you reverse the direction. You may get some benefit even if you can't figure out how to reverse it or get to it to reverse it, but you do want the speed to be low. You don't want a strong breeze, you just want the heat to be distributed more evenly throughout the area.

lithy

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #355 on: March 10, 2014, 06:36:22 PM »
8 kWh per day for February, down from 12 kWh per day from February 2013.

7 kWh per day for March, down from 9 kWh per day from March 2013.

FrugalSpendthrift

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #356 on: March 10, 2014, 07:40:10 PM »
I just unplugged the extra fridge in my basement, that was drawing 2.2kWH per day.  My utility company is giving me $35 to recycle it.  I'll eventually get a chest freezer to convert to a kegerator, but I figure that will draw a fraction of the old fridge.

greaper007

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #357 on: March 10, 2014, 08:50:47 PM »
I'm curious about how often the really low electrical users are home.    I used 18.6 KWH per day, but my wife works from home and I'm a stay at home dad.    I keep the house at 55-62 (depending on who's home) during the winter so she has to kick on a space heater in her basement office, I try not to look at the Kill A Watt on that one too often.   

That also includes an almost daily load of laundry (potty training is only going so so, don't ask)but I do line dry, along with a pretty heavy cooking rotation.   I make our bread and other baked goods like granola so it's not rare for me to use the oven twice a day.   

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with 615 KWh for a family of four in the dead of winter that's almost always home.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #358 on: March 11, 2014, 11:58:38 AM »
I'm curious about how often the really low electrical users are home.    I used 18.6 KWH per day, but my wife works from home and I'm a stay at home dad.    I keep the house at 55-62 (depending on who's home) during the winter so she has to kick on a space heater in her basement office, I try not to look at the Kill A Watt on that one too often.   
...
Otherwise I'm pretty happy with 615 KWh for a family of four in the dead of winter that's almost always home.
I'm with you--it doesn't help that we're in a very non-mustachian house, but my wife is at home with the kids all day, so that definitely adds to the power draw.

highwayskies

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #359 on: March 16, 2014, 09:55:45 AM »
I hope I didn't miss this being mentioned here, but remember to double check your electricity supplier, if your state has deregulated.  In CT, I just switched suppliers (thanks to the reminder this post provided), and would have saved $200 on my February bills if I'd done so sooner.  Glad I beat the Summer heat, at least!  Cut from 16.99 cents per kWh to 7.99

aj_yooper

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #360 on: March 16, 2014, 10:08:22 AM »
From another thread:  Will switching to LED light bulbs save money? How to switch?

Quote from: KBecks on Today at 06:46:58 am
Right, we have 25 - 29 kWh per day.  I am not sure how to decrease it that much.  Dryer, dishwasher and lights are nice!  I have looked over the thread about energy usage but I am not sure how to get our use down that much.

LEDs seemed like an easy way to cut down at least a few Kwh/day.    How are you getting so low?

Energy star appliances, refrigerator/freezer combination not all filled up, gas hot water heater, gas cooktop, electric oven, high efficiency hvac, south facing home with french doors on north side of main living area, double pane windows, lap top and iPad, modem and wireless always on, scrupulous about turning off lights, tv, etc., humidity sensor on dryer, power strip for sewing machines and tv on a power strip, all cfl s except some track lights in sewing room.  House is 2500 square feet on a crawl space with 2 mostly stay at home people.  My wife does love to bake which ups the usage in some months and we find using our fireplace ups the electricity usage too so we are backing off on that pleasure.  Thermostat at 62 at night and when we are not in the house; otherwise set at 68.  Full loads on dishwasher and washer.  In IL our electricity comes mostly from nuclear and coal so it bothers me to use up all those electrons.  I think we are pretty lucky with our current usages. 

Hope you can improve your usage!

aj_yooper

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #361 on: March 16, 2014, 11:42:37 AM »
Wow, someone needs to go and tell MMM to hang his head in shame, according to what I've read here 10 Kwh/day (his average usage) is totally gluttonous!!! Even thought the bills don't lie I find this numbers hard to believe, how can you average 10 watts or less a day (MMM territory) running A/C. Am I missing something here?

We are under 3kWh per day on a *18 month average.  And, we use a dryer and hvac all year-hot and cold in Illinois!  I am thinking it must be his computers.  Maybe hooking up our power on our neighbor's meter is working out!  (joke)

*Wife made me check this!
« Last Edit: March 16, 2014, 06:40:11 PM by aj_yooper »

grantmeaname

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #362 on: March 16, 2014, 05:23:22 PM »
A laptop computer uses less than ten watts, so that's not it. The projector/home audio stuff may be a big part of it.

aj_yooper

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #363 on: March 16, 2014, 06:49:27 PM »
Servers? 

Too much screen time?


crumbcatcher

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #364 on: March 21, 2014, 12:48:11 PM »
I'm still nowhere near as badass as a lot of people who have posted on this thread, but just got my power bill for the last month and successfully cut it in half compared to the previous month!  It's amazing what a little more conscious effort (and a lot more clothing layers) can do.

Just had to report back how my efforts paid off as a result of this thread.  :-)

PennyMinder

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #365 on: March 23, 2014, 12:06:29 PM »
Shoot!  I pulled out my bill when I saw this topic.  We used 25 kWh last month.  On top of that, we pay $32.21 per month for the monthly charge to have electricity to the house...unfortunately the barn is on a separate account with it's own $32.21 charge.  Rural living, I suppose.

you use <1 KWH per day?!? HOW are all of you doing this?!? you use less in a month than we use in a day :(


LOL  Did I miss putting /per day after my 25 kWh??  I must also be trying to conserve words.  :-)

lizzzi

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #366 on: March 23, 2014, 12:26:24 PM »
I've been lurking for quite awhile, but in keeping tabs for around 9 months in the "new" house (moved here June, 2013, two adults, one is home all the time, 1165 sf), we are using 20 kWh per day, and that is about the lowest I can do right now. It has been easy to see that not using the electric dryer and not using the air conditioner in hot weather is the key to keeping the bills down. I switched to CFL's, but am not changing any appliances until I need to, even though the dishwasher, refrigerator, and electric stove seem fairly old and are not labelled energy-efficient. I stopped unplugging small appliances, as it was just too unwieldy.

rocksinmyhead

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #367 on: March 24, 2014, 09:02:22 AM »
Shoot!  I pulled out my bill when I saw this topic.  We used 25 kWh last month.  On top of that, we pay $32.21 per month for the monthly charge to have electricity to the house...unfortunately the barn is on a separate account with it's own $32.21 charge.  Rural living, I suppose.

you use <1 KWH per day?!? HOW are all of you doing this?!? you use less in a month than we use in a day :(

LOL  Did I miss putting /per day after my 25 kWh??  I must also be trying to conserve words.  :-)

hahaha!!! OMG that makes me feel much better. :)

szmaine

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #368 on: March 24, 2014, 03:53:10 PM »
We are around 16-20 kWh. The high end is in the winter and spikes in July/aug (fans, I guess).
Really interested to see if the death of our chest freezer will show up, it was at least 20 yo.
I just ordered a kill-a-watt, so am looking forward to cutting back...unfortunately husband and daughter are both really bad about shutting things off.

homehandymum

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #369 on: March 24, 2014, 08:50:05 PM »
We're currently using 18kwh per day, but we have electric EVERYTHING - no gas or propane or woodfired anything.  It's also summer, in a cool/temperate/marine climate so not much heating.  And no air-con.

I've never tracked power usage in winter. I bet that's going to be an eye-opener.  We had a colder day here last week and my usage went up to 25kwh just by having the heaters (reverse cycle heatpumps) on for a short time, and using the dryer to finish off a couple of loads of laundry that only half-dried on the rack.

jhartt3

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #370 on: March 25, 2014, 06:03:59 AM »
last month i started paying attention to our energy use.  My wife likes to leave lights on.  i got her to start turning them off.  we started shutting down our media server when not in use as well.  we cut 100 kwh off of our electric bill and it was a colder month than last year.  i have to wait til our gas bill comes in to see how it compares but its looking up

BlueMR2

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #371 on: March 25, 2014, 11:21:44 AM »
Yowza, finally compared this Winter's bills to last years.  Almost 2x as much electricity used.  We used as much monthly this Winter as we usually do during the hottest Summer months when the A/C runs all the time!

Why we should have used less in theory:  I've switched some more IC lighting to CFL, and a couple to LED.  We've also switched from using our desktop computers all the time to mostly laptop usage.

Why we used more in practice: COLD Winter.  We may have gas heat, but the fan motor still has to run more.  We cut back on going out to eat, so are heating a lot more meals at home.  My wife didn't have a job this year (I think we're at 10 months or so of her being unemployed and unable to find work now) and is home all day long doing things when before the whole house was basically "off".

FrugalSpendthrift

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #372 on: March 26, 2014, 02:24:29 PM »
Now that I am bringing my trend down, I look forward to receiving every electric bill.

Avg Daily Usage
Current month: 11.5 kWH
Last month: 14.0 kWH
Last March: 17.4 kWH

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #373 on: March 31, 2014, 07:40:43 AM »
Smarch!

Month--------Avg Usage(kwh/d)--Total Usage-------Avg Temp---#d>90---#d>80
July ----------33.83kwh/day---------1016----------------83----------22--------29
August-------33.00------------------990-----------------82----------13--------30
September---32.52------------------1008----------------78-----------3--------30
October------25.17------------------755-----------------69-----------0--------17
November----21.00------------------588-----------------51-----------0---------3  -under 50* = 19
December----19.07------------------572-----------------56-----------0---------0 - under 50 = 21
January------23.68------------------805-----------------54-----------0---------1 - under 50 = 25
February-----19.38------------------562-----------------51-----------0---------0 - under 50 = 26, under 40 = 18
March--------22.79------------------638-----------------54-----------0---------1 - under 50 = 23, under 40 = 11
April---------18.55------------------612-----------------61-----------0---------7 - under 50 = 16,  under 40 = 5
May----------19.80------------------594-----------------71-----------0--------15 - under 50 = 2
June---------33.45------------------1037----------------78-----------3--------30
July----------31.81------------------986-----------------82-----------7--------31
August------40.28------------------1289----------------82-----------12-------30 - 32 billing days
September---29.97-------------------869----------------80----------12--------29 - 29 billing days
October------22.43------------------673-----------------71-----------0--------15 - under 50 = 0, 30 billing days
November----17.36------------------486-----------------60-----------0--------2  -  under 50 = 16
December----22.12------------------708-----------------56-----------0--------3 -   under 50 = 24, 32 billing days
January------22.25------------------712-----------------49-----------0--------1 -   under 50 = 28
February-----21.03------------------652-----------------50-----------0--------2 -   under 50 = 27
March--------18.03------------------523-----------------54-----------0--------1 -   under 50 = 21

29 billing days pretty much makes up a full month.  As I've said before, my goal is to keep our average daily usage under 20kwh, so March was a success in that respect.  I'm not sure what is using all this power so maybe its time to start thinking about finding a kill-a-watt and going to town.  The next few months should not show much increase over that 500-600 kwh range I hope.  Its June I have to worry about, and that's when I will find out if the Nest is going to help or not.  Forecast says we're going to start hitting low 80s this week.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #374 on: March 31, 2014, 08:18:29 AM »
Same here - cold winter = more time the furnace fan is on.  I am now retired so home during the day = more use at peak and mid=peak billing times. 
However, there are other places my costs are down (car expenses are one huge one, even though I  live in the country and still do a fair bit of driving).  Net costs are down.

Why we used more in practice: COLD Winter.  We may have gas heat, but the fan motor still has to run more.  We cut back on going out to eat, so are heating a lot more meals at home.  My wife didn't have a job this year (I think we're at 10 months or so of her being unemployed and unable to find work now) and is home all day long doing things when before the whole house was basically "off".

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #375 on: April 01, 2014, 07:23:59 PM »
I just checked ours.  For mid-Dec through mid-Jan, we averaged 32kWh/day...
Latest bill:  about 22.5 KWh/day.  Quite a difference from December!  I'm excited to see our hopefully-much-smaller gas bill this month.  With the (finally!) warming temperatures and lengthening days, I'm anticipating that we'll see a dramatic reduction in our utilities through June.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2014, 07:25:46 PM by zolotiyeruki »

slush

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #376 on: April 03, 2014, 06:09:14 PM »
Last year I was getting bills around $150/mo. I now routinely get $55/mo. That's around 400 kwh/mo. I'm now down to 12 kwh per day, which I think is pretty good considering my electric vehicle uses 8kwh to recharge after a typical commute.

What do you think? I still haven't been very aggressive with changing to CFLs. I've done just a few things. Canceled DirecTV so the TV is almost always off now. I turn off all lights if we aren't in the room. I swapped in a new 5+2 4-step thermostat.

Any tips? I'm thinking unplugging more devices when not in use. My house consumes .16 kwh at steady state. (Is this about average?)

At basically 4 kwh of use per day, I think we would be killing it without the EV. It's amazing as I have done very little but just moderately try. I'm wondering if it's worth a whole lot more effort. Diminishing returns ... but it would be great to stay in Tier 1 even with the EV though. Tier 1 is 339 kwh/mo.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2014, 06:17:04 PM by slush »

rocksinmyhead

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #377 on: April 04, 2014, 07:57:26 AM »
For those of you pondering how this cold winter has affected your energy use, if you're a huge nerd you might enjoy degreedays.net!

I'm still working on reducing our outrageous energy use. I also suspect that a lot has to do with our poorly insulated and maintained 1920s rental house (literally has plexiglass in some windows) and a poorly maintained air exchange heat pump system, so I was curious about how well-correlated our energy usage was with the weather (i.e., is heating and cooling really the bulk of our energy use?). in the meantime, I made myself feel better by making some plots that show that even though our usage didn't show much of a decline this winter, we were doing pretty well considering the weather!

we've swapped out about 8 incandescent flood bulbs (in recessed fixtures) for LEDs in our 3 most-used rooms, but the bigger change was keeping the indoor temp at 58-63F all winter. I was cold as fuck but maybe it was worth it! :)

lithy

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #378 on: April 07, 2014, 04:01:18 PM »
8 kWh per day for February, down from 12 kWh per day from February 2013.

7 kWh per day for March, down from 9 kWh per day from March 2013.

8 kWh per day for April, down from 9 kWh per day from April 2013.

Greg

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #379 on: April 08, 2014, 10:39:51 PM »
We recently got a fascinating letter from our utility comparing our use to our neighbors' use.  We used 890 kWh from Jan-Feb.  Our ~100 neighbors used 1936 kWh in the same period. Of those, the most efficient 20% used 1014 kWh.  According to the letter, we used 51% less than our neighbors, 12% less than our efficient neighbors, saving $854 per year.

The bad news is we used 1% more than the same period last year.  But, this is for one household of 3 and a rental household of 1.  So technically 2 households.  At basically 30 kWh perday for 2 households it's not so bad.

greaper007

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #380 on: April 09, 2014, 12:47:23 PM »
412 kwh last month!   Down from about 800 at one point.   I think it really helps that my wife has an office now and isn't rocking the space heater all day.

niknak

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #381 on: April 11, 2014, 11:22:02 AM »
We live in one of the most expensive places in the US (San Jose). However, we save money because of the temperate climate. Our 12-month average electricity usage is 2.25 kWh/day. We have a natural gas water heater, range, and wall mounted furnace.

Line-drying laundry, switching off our modem/router at night, and using energy-efficient bulbs helps the usage stay pretty low. We also use ceiling fans instead of A/C during hot spells.


burly

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #382 on: April 11, 2014, 11:52:35 AM »
1200 Sqft home... 2 adults, 1 child, 1 dog

Gas water heater and gas boiler... Everything else electric... Hoping to do better this summer with AC! Every bulb in our house is now LED or CFL except the recessed lights are hallogen... I am working on replacing those with LEDs in the near future..

b4u2

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #383 on: April 15, 2014, 10:44:57 AM »
The "Smart" energy strips I bought are really paying off. My bill has dropped but I still seem to have an energy draw. I am looking into replacing my electric tankless with a gas tank water heater. I need to put the kill a watt on my fridge and see what it is drawing.

aj_yooper

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #384 on: April 15, 2014, 11:06:09 AM »
switching off our modem/router at night

Good idea.   That will also keep our network less available.  Starting that today!

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #385 on: April 15, 2014, 01:13:57 PM »
switching off our modem/router at night

Good idea.   That will also keep our network less available.  Starting that today!

So this is probably okay for most people... but as an aside... it will affect anything that is network driven.  I.e, things like DVRs tend to do upgrades at night when they're least used.

Roland of Gilead

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #386 on: April 15, 2014, 01:20:27 PM »
Big drafty home, even though we have closed off 3000 sq. ft. of it and use a small space heater, our electric bill in the winter is around $300 a month for ~2800kwh of use.  Part of that is we have electric stove and electric water heaters but the other factor is I am keeping a dehumidifier and small heater running in our RV while we build it in the garage.  The dehumidifier alone is producing a half gallon of water a day....#@$% Seattle.

I do have LED lights around the house :-)

metro2005

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #387 on: April 17, 2014, 03:37:21 AM »
My wife and I are electricity gluttons.  I leave a computer (and network equipment) running 24/7 as a media/web server, and we have plenty of lights on, and she uses a blow-drier daily, and our power consumption is 5-8kwh/day.  We live in a small house in Silicon Valley, so we don't really need to heat or cool our home since we wear sensible clothing for the current weather.

Do you use much less than this?  Much more?  How do you do it?

I think 5-8Kwh a day is a lot (but still below average) , especially if you both work during the day. We use a little under 3 Kwh a day. How? Power everything off when we're not home or when we are asleep which is about 16 hours of the day in total.
Also invest in energy efficient appliances and lighting and mount on/off switches between the wallsocket anddevices that cant be turned off (internet modem, cable tv box) and turn them off when you leave or go to bed.
Other than that we dont do anything special to save energy,


aj_yooper

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #388 on: April 17, 2014, 04:25:20 AM »
+1 metro2005!


jba302

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #389 on: April 18, 2014, 08:01:29 AM »
First bill in the new house came in. 581 kwh for March. Gas furnace, gas water heater, electric range. we're swapping the range for a gas anyway, but that was about 25% higher than expected. Big part of this is 4 damn computers running from 4-9 every night for studying and homework. Not sure how to fix that but I started swapping out lights for LEDs and am looking at buying some timers for appliances.

positronic

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #390 on: April 18, 2014, 11:07:19 PM »
Husband just brought up that maybe I'm running the heat too much at our new place, and that our electric bill seems high. It's something I haven't paid much attention to and didn't really consider that it can have much of an impact. But since we had just talked about it, I had to click on this thread.

After seeing some of the average kwh/month other users were posting, I thought I better figure out what ours was... *gulp* An average of 48 kwh/day since we moved in a month ago! This number wouldn't have meant anything to me, but seeing the other averages on the thread, it is not okay!

We live in a 650 square foot condo, which we rent. It's an older unit, and there are two big glass sliding doors and a window that are fairly old. Our front door isn't sealed as it lets out into a hallway, but other tenants leave the outside door open and the hall gets pretty cold. Our furnace, hot water, and oven are all electric. I work from home, so I have a PC and monitor on pretty much all day. Husband comes home and his PC/monitor come on as well. Both go off at night. We occasionally watch TV or play video games in the evening. We try to cook most meals at home, and our appliances seem not terribly old. Laundry is communal and I don't think we're responsible for the usage there.

Our lowest usage day was 15kwh, while our highest was 95!!! How can this even happen?? I am reeling. It was a Sunday, so maybe it was an all-day video game marathon? And a batch of cookies in the oven? And time to charge our robot maids?? Ah..

Needless to say, I'll be keeping an eye on our daily usage from now on and trying to figure out how to reduce it. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is for me to bundle up more while I work from home. I get cold easily, so it will be a challenge (I'm chilly right now!).

Thanks for the wake-up call!


aj_yooper

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #391 on: April 19, 2014, 04:45:40 AM »
Positronic, you will be able to make phenomenal progress!  Keep us informed, please.

positronic

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #392 on: April 19, 2014, 10:07:48 AM »
Hope so! The experiment starts today, and the thermostat is set with the little red marker UNDER 70 degrees for the first time ;)

daverobev

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #393 on: April 19, 2014, 10:41:24 AM »
First bill in the new house came in. 581 kwh for March. Gas furnace, gas water heater, electric range. we're swapping the range for a gas anyway, but that was about 25% higher than expected. Big part of this is 4 damn computers running from 4-9 every night for studying and homework. Not sure how to fix that but I started swapping out lights for LEDs and am looking at buying some timers for appliances.

A desktop computer probably only uses 100W, maybe 150, if it's not being thrashed. A laptop uses under 50W, usually. Even 4 computers running at 150W for 5 hours is only 3kWh a day.

Greg

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #394 on: April 19, 2014, 11:26:14 AM »
Hey positronic what kind of heat do you have?  Is there one thermostat for the whole condo or do the rooms have separate controls?  If you have one control for the whole place, try closing the vents in the rooms you don't use while working at home.  Investigate the door weatherstrip and see if you can get folks to close the front door, it will help.

positronic

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #395 on: April 19, 2014, 01:39:24 PM »
Greg, just the one thermostat, good idea! Just closed the bedroom and bathroom vents =)

Bottom of our door has weatherstripping, but nothing around the sides/top. I wonder if that's something our landlord would be okay with us installing?

jba302

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #396 on: April 19, 2014, 05:23:46 PM »

A desktop computer probably only uses 100W, maybe 150, if it's not being thrashed. A laptop uses under 50W, usually. Even 4 computers running at 150W for 5 hours is only 3kWh a day.

No kidding? Then I have some investigation to do don't I.

LucyBIT

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #397 on: April 19, 2014, 10:02:51 PM »
I'm one of those avg. 7 kWh per day people...but our heat and hot water are natural gas. So there's that, and I turn off lights like a maniac, and...I wonder if the fact that I don't use a hairdryer or curling iron etc. does much? I don't know what else, we do have CFLs. I think the gas is probably the primary factor, though.

Our gas usage is avg. 2 therms per day. I don't know what that means, should find out. *facepunches self*

According to this (http://blogs.denverpost.com/thebalancesheet/2013/08/21/energy-10617/10617/), we are below average for Colorado in both gas and electricity (CO households in general use less electricity than the national average because natural gas). Sweet.

fmzip

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #398 on: April 22, 2014, 07:04:27 AM »
I just ordered a Kill a watt to play with....we have so many devices plugged in curious to see which is sucking the most watts!

Read Date   Usage   # Days   P/day   Charge   Temp
11/13/2013   800   29   27.59   $127.93   47.6
10/15/2013   801   29   27.62   $128.06 59.5
9/16/2013   944   32   29.5   $148.09 69.6
8/15/2013   1030   29   35.52   $160.12 72.8
7/17/2013   1221   33   37   $185.17   76.5
6/14/2013   896   30   29.87   $140.69 64.7
5/15/2013   706   29   24.34   $114.25 55.1
4/16/2013   963   33   29.18   $150.02 42.8
3/14/2013   908   29   31.31   $142.37 36.2
2/13/2013   935   29   32.24   $146.13 28.2
1/15/2013   1089   33   33   $171.35 34.5
12/13/2012   902   30   30.07   $147.29 38.6
11/13/2012   741   29   25.55   $123.86 50.8
10/15/2012   866   31   27.94   $142.07 58.7
9/14/2012   917   30   30.57   $149.47 70.8
8/15/2012   1059   30   35.3   $170.15 75.6
7/16/2012   1138   32   35.56   $178.77 75
6/14/2012   831   30   27.7   $132.75 66.6
5/15/2012   833   32   26.03   $133.04 57.3
4/13/2012   746   29   25.72   $120.82 50.2
3/15/2012   790   30   26.33   $126.99 40.6
2/14/2012   809   29   27.9   $129.68 34.9
1/16/2012   945   33   28.64   $155.21 35.2
12/14/2011   791   29   27.28   $137.60 43.2
11/15/2011   595   29   20.52   $107.47 47.7

Quite an improvement since getting rid of our hot tub in December!

Read Date   Usage   Days   Usage   Charge   Avg Temp
4/11/2014   481   25   19.24   $93.75    41.4
3/17/2014   635   32   19.84   $118.65 29.3
2/13/2014   595   29   20.52   $112.18 24.7
1/15/2014   765   33   23.18   $131.44 30.1
12/13/2013   726   30   24.2   $117.59 36.6

LennStar

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #399 on: April 22, 2014, 10:47:22 AM »
gas cooking/heating:
We (2) were using about 2000kWh a year in the past (in a flat). With computer + laptop + TV mostly 2 of them running at the day.

New Computer last February - from 220W down to 130W with a bit more power. LEDs in June. But most importantly new refrigerator (last one was 20 years old). 2013 usage: 16XX kWh. I expect it to fall to about 1400kWh this year. (Which would be ~1/2 of average)
The refrigerator alone should save shortly under 300kWh while beeing a bit bigger. Since we could shop around and not having the "old broke down, need new NOW" frenzy, the prize was a sale. It should pay itself in energy saving in expected 7 years, in best condition and medium rising electricity prices in 5 years.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!