Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?

[MrSal]

Just switched suppliers today.

PPL went up for a third time in a row to 0,0955 it was enough!

Switched to a 6 month fixed contract with AEP for 0,071

[Gerard]

Our electric is balance billing $240 a month, $20 is the outside light, about $20 is for taxes. Usage around 1800 kwhs in the winter.  [...]  We could cut some but I don't think the bills are that high for what we use.

I think your usage profile is a good example of very efficient micro-choices (what kind of appliances, etc.) combined with big-energy-using macro-choices (size of house, dryer, amount of laundry) and the limits of that strategy. What's worked for me is going in the opposite direction. I don't worry too much about my three remaining incandescent bulbs, but I do live in a small cosy-ish house, dry clothes on a rack or line, and usually take navy showers. I've dropped my usage almost in half (to about 9 kwh/day) and my bill by about a third (to $40-something a month) since mustachianism. Now to do something about my pig of a fridge.

Different strategies for different lives!

[daverobev]

We had a bad month this month,  809 kwh.  I don't know why!  I have been hang drying the laundry and we have almost all CFL / LED lights.  No second fridge, no freezer, wth!

Line drying inside or out? Remember if you're hanging stuff on a clothes horse, it takes energy for the water to evaporate.

[daverobev]

Our electric is balance billing $240 a month, $20 is the outside light, about $20 is for taxes. Usage around 1800 kwhs in the winter.  [...]  We could cut some but I don't think the bills are that high for what we use.

I think your usage profile is a good example of very efficient micro-choices (what kind of appliances, etc.) combined with big-energy-using macro-choices (size of house, dryer, amount of laundry) and the limits of that strategy. What's worked for me is going in the opposite direction. I don't worry too much about my three remaining incandescent bulbs, but I do live in a small cosy-ish house, dry clothes on a rack or line, and usually take navy showers. I've dropped my usage almost in half (to about 9 kwh/day) and my bill by about a third (to $40-something a month) since mustachianism. Now to do something about my pig of a fridge.

Different strategies for different lives!

+1

We're discussing moving to a larger house (in a few years, if/when sprog #2), and it's not just the mortgage increase that worries me - it's the property tax, heating, electricity, maintenance...

Currently we're in a small (well, it isn't really small, it's a 1.5 storey so the bedrooms feel small) 2 bed, with a clunky old furnace, mostly ok windows but a couple with single pane glass and secondary panes screwed on to the outside. And it's not worth changing any of it - our heating bill is relatively low, our electricity is fine considering my wife has showers during peak times, etc, etc.

We'd save a couple of hundred a month on driving costs if we moved, and a lot of my wife's time which is the biggest thing, but the costs would offset the gains.

Go for the big wins, low hanging fruit, etc.

[SeattleStache]

Just got my first electric bill and I'm averaging 3.03 kWh/day so far (1 bedroom condo).  I'm lucky that my place is surrounded by neighbors above/below/sides so I haven't had to turn on the heat yet.  Interested to see what it goes down to as spring and summer arrive.

[Serve&Volley88]

I just got the first electric bill for my new apartment: $220. Ouch! But the heat is electric baseboard, the refrigerator and stove are quite old, and it's not the most well-insulated space (old brick rowhouse).

The "shrink wrap" window films help cut down on drafts. Also, check the actual temp inside the fridge and freezer. I was able to turn my fridge thermostat down one level. LED and CFL lighting will help and they're easy to take with when you move. Good luck.
[/quote]

These are good tips. I put plastic over the windows shortly after I moved in and it reduced drafts significantly. I also put weatherstripping around the front door of my apartment, which was very drafty. I also replaced all bulbs with LEDs, except for one fixture which still has incandescents. Going to replace those soon too.

I wasn't overly surprised by the high costs considering this February was the second coldest on record...and I'm in the Northeast!

When it's in the 30s or 40s I can easily go the whole day without turning the heat on thanks to passive heating from neighbors. My apartment is in the low to mid 60s (thermostat isn't quite accurate) right now and I'm comfortable with a few layers and a blanket.

[MMMdude]

Compared to winter last year i am using 5 or 6 more Kwh per day.  I'm trying to figure out why this is the case.

A few things have changed.  My wife now works from home full time and is on her laptop pretty much all day during the day.  With her being home, obviously lights would be used more and the thermostat is left a few degrees higher with her at home compared to last year where i set it to 59 degrees. 

Also, I had two humidifiers on for most of winter .  The one attached to the furnace was on all winter (when the furnace runs) and I also had a stand alone electric one which i ran for about six weeks and I now know those things are energy hogs.   Whereas last year I didn't run either humidifier at all (that I can recall). 

Lastly, I got a brand new furnace this year.  It replaced my furnace of 25 years old and has what is supposed to be an efficient ECM motor which is supposed to use much less electricity compared to the old style motor which I can only assume my old furnace had.

So I turned the furnace humidifier off as winter is pretty much over and i didn't really find much of a difference this winter with it on. I long ago put away the other humidifier after finding out the energy usage.  I can't do much about my wife working from home now electricity wise and i'm hoping it has nothing to do with the new furnace as one of the main reasons for replacing versus repairing was the energy savings.   I guess my question is...is the 6 Kwh per day difference explained by my wife working from home and the humidifiers?

[1967mama]

Compared to winter last year i am using 5 or 6 more Kwh per day.  I'm trying to figure out why this is the case.

A few things have changed.  My wife now works from home full time and is on her laptop pretty much all day during the day.  With her being home, obviously lights would be used more and the thermostat is left a few degrees higher with her at home compared to last year where i set it to 59 degrees. 

MMMdude, I know that I am home all day with 5 kids and homeschooling. 2 of the older kids use computers full time for schooling and the other 3 and myself hop on and off during the day with various activities. We also have to keep a little heat on to keep us comfortable and functioning well. There's also cooking at home during the day, opening and closing of the fridge, the lights, opening and closing of outside doors and perhaps other hidden power draws. My power usage is a lot higher than many here, but I know that this is why.

I imagine that if you had NOT replaced your furnace, your daytime power usage would be a fair bit higher with the less efficient furnace now that your wife is working from home. Probably a good thing you got that done!

[MMMdude]

Compared to winter last year i am using 5 or 6 more Kwh per day.  I'm trying to figure out why this is the case.

A few things have changed.  My wife now works from home full time and is on her laptop pretty much all day during the day.  With her being home, obviously lights would be used more and the thermostat is left a few degrees higher with her at home compared to last year where i set it to 59 degrees. 

MMMdude, I know that I am home all day with 5 kids and homeschooling. 2 of the older kids use computers full time for schooling and the other 3 and myself hop on and off during the day with various activities. We also have to keep a little heat on to keep us comfortable and functioning well. There's also cooking at home during the day, opening and closing of the fridge, the lights, opening and closing of outside doors and perhaps other hidden power draws. My power usage is a lot higher than many here, but I know that this is why.

I imagine that if you had NOT replaced your furnace, your daytime power usage would be a fair bit higher with the less efficient furnace now that your wife is working from home. Probably a good thing you got that done!

OH definitely understandable - just want to try and confirm that the excess usage is related to something besides the furnace.  Whenever those salesmen are trying to sell you something they will say anything.  It makes sense it would use less power than my old furnace.  The only real info i could find online is that a traditional stand alone cool mist humidifier you can buy at any store can use 200 to 300 kwh per month so definitely not using that thing anymore!

[daverobev]

If your wife is using a laptop 12 hours a day it's probably drawing a third of a kWh, or less.

Lights, if they are CFL or LED, are pulling 10W or less each. Even 5 being on all day is 1 kWh.

[Cookie78]

Yesterday was the first time I actually looked at the usage on my utility bill (power, gas, water, sewer, garbage). I'm excited to take the next step in my MMM journey and figure out what steps I can take to lower it. Now that I have a baseline and know how to measure the changes it's exciting to have a new goal to see how low I can get it.

I also have two tenants in my basement who do not pay utilities. They are friends of mine, so hopefully I can get them on board with this, even a little bit.

So many small steps to take!

[Breaker]

Last year I replaced all (6) kitchen ceiling lights with LEDs, I think that is why my usage has dropped about 0.75 Kwh/day this year.  But it is still at 9.27/day. 

After reading this thread I FINALLY unplugged a VCR that has not been used for at least a year.  The plug was easy enough to reach but finding the right plug on the strip was not.  So, I just let it go.  As of about 5 mins. ago it is unplugged.

What do you do with your rechargeable tools?  If I unplug the charger, they are never charged when I need them but the chargers are using electricity all of the time.

[1967mama]

After reading MMM's current article on cutting your power consumption, I remembered that my power company was offering a special price on a device similar to this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Efergy-Elite-Wireless-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B003XOXU02/ref=pd_sim_sbs_pc_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=12FXDH3CM9ZR7EQCP1AR

The offer ends March 31st so I went ahead and ordered one for $39. It will arrive next week so I can start tracking specifically where and when we are using SO. MUCH. ELECTRICITY. Hoping to see a major drop in our daily usage very, very soon!

[bzzzt]

What do you do with your rechargeable tools?  If I unplug the charger, they are never charged when I need them but the chargers are using electricity all of the time.

I measured my Dewalt chargers with a Kill-a-watt. After the batteries are fully charged, I flip them over on top of the charger and they don't use power.

[LennStar]

Last year I replaced all (6) kitchen ceiling lights with LEDs, I think that is why my usage has dropped about 0.75 Kwh/day this year.  But it is still at 9.27/day. 

After reading this thread I FINALLY unplugged a VCR that has not been used for at least a year.  The plug was easy enough to reach but finding the right plug on the strip was not.  So, I just let it go.  As of about 5 mins. ago it is unplugged.

What do you do with your rechargeable tools?  If I unplug the charger, they are never charged when I need them but the chargers are using electricity all of the time.

What do you mean with rechargeable tools?
I only have the phone (in all the time) and an electric toothbrush (once a week or so from empty to full in a night or on a day, except then unplugged).

[Breaker]

What do you do with your rechargeable tools?  If I unplug the charger, they are never charged when I need them but the chargers are using electricity all of the time.
[/quote]
What do you mean with rechargeable tools?
I only have the phone (in all the time) and an electric toothbrush (once a week or so from empty to full in a night or on a day, except then unplugged).
[/quote]

I own an electric screw driver and grinder which have their own charger.  They are used infrequently but still used several times a year. not on a schedule.  If I unplug them invariably they have lost their charge when I do need them.   

[Merrie]

Wow, this thread was a big face punch for me. Our usage was horrible the last 2 months, average 100kwh per DAY and a $425 bill. Yikes! It's been cold here so I blame a lot of that on the heating. We have a 2100 square foot house that is all electric, 3 people home almost all the time, 2 of whom are little kids who don't seem to care and 1 of whom is my rather un-mustachian husband who likes his creature comforts and is always wandering around in a t-shirt complaining about how cold he is. The house doesn't seem to be very well insulated and I've been going around figuring out the ages of things... the fridge dates to 1997, the heat pump to 1990 and the water heater to 1992. No wonder we have problems. Even in the summer our electric bill has been about $200 (interestingly, it doesn't go up much in the summer versus spring/fall, but winter is ridiculous).

Things I'm contemplating:
Replacing one or more of those horribly old items
Putting in a whole house fan to save on AC usage during the summer
Adding more attic insulation
Turned off the ice maker on the fridge to see if that improves its effectiveness (still waiting for that number on the Kill-A-Watt)
Putting in curtains on the east side of the house to use during the summer mornings--but we have  a lovely eastern exposure that we will still want to sometimes enjoy
Getting better insulated curtains in general

We do a lot of laundry (all in cold except rags and diapers) because little kids are messy, and it's a real pain to hang up a ton of tiny clothes when you have kids nipping at your ankles. I do want to try to do some more line drying. But really I feel that we have large things that are inefficient and I don't want to get too hung up on tiny changes and lose sight of the big ones, something I have a history of.

[LennStar]

Wow, this thread was a big face punch for me. Our usage was horrible the last 2 months, average 100kwh per DAY and a $425 bill. Yikes!

OMG. You are using more then 4KW on average! I dont have electric heating (or cooking) and I would be hard pressed to get that high even if I start everything. I think I cant even go up to that, my cutout(?) would jump at 3.5KW I think.

[louloulou]

we are using 10kwh/day for a family of 4.

We use electric for cooking.

Use woodburner for heat and a wetback on fire to (help) heat water.

Live in a house that makes the most of passive heat- facing sun, double glazed, extra wide wall cavity/insulation and concrete floors.

Don't own a clothes dryer

Feel pretty happy with where we are at for energy. Would like to add solar to water for summer months but currently still too expensive here to make it cost effective.

[bzzzt]

Wow, this thread was a big face punch for me. Our usage was horrible the last 2 months, average 100kwh per DAY and a $425 bill. Yikes! It's been cold here so I blame a lot of that on the heating. We have a 2100 square foot house that is all electric, 3 people home almost all the time, 2 of whom are little kids who don't seem to care and 1 of whom is my rather un-mustachian husband who likes his creature comforts and is always wandering around in a t-shirt complaining about how cold he is. The house doesn't seem to be very well insulated and I've been going around figuring out the ages of things... the fridge dates to 1997, the heat pump to 1990 and the water heater to 1992. No wonder we have problems. Even in the summer our electric bill has been about $200 (interestingly, it doesn't go up much in the summer versus spring/fall, but winter is ridiculous).

Things I'm contemplating:
Replacing one or more of those horribly old items
Putting in a whole house fan to save on AC usage during the summer
Adding more attic insulation
Turned off the ice maker on the fridge to see if that improves its effectiveness (still waiting for that number on the Kill-A-Watt)
Putting in curtains on the east side of the house to use during the summer mornings--but we have  a lovely eastern exposure that we will still want to sometimes enjoy
Getting better insulated curtains in general

We do a lot of laundry (all in cold except rags and diapers) because little kids are messy, and it's a real pain to hang up a ton of tiny clothes when you have kids nipping at your ankles. I do want to try to do some more line drying. But really I feel that we have large things that are inefficient and I don't want to get too hung up on tiny changes and lose sight of the big ones, something I have a history of.

Insulation will be the biggest ROI. It helps in all seasons. Attic is the easiest, but the prep work can still be time consuming to really do it correctly (air sealing, rafter baffles to prevent mold, etc). I have natural gas heat in my house and garage and my winter bills were $180. I had insulated the walls when I dry walled, but I didn't do anything with the attic space as I wanted to use that for storage (only 1000 sq. ft. house with small closets). This past fall I insulated the rafters to only R19 and it cut my heating bill by $50/month! I just finished insulating attic over the house to R60 over the bedrooms and R45 over the kitchen living room (ran out of cellulose and blower was due back) and I can already tell it's a huge difference just by how much less the furnace runs.

Turning off the ice maker will be a small gain, but the fridge is already less efficient than it could be if it has the ice/water in the door. If you enjoy the convenience, I would go after other low hanging fruit (FWIW, it appears MMM has an ice maker, so don't feel bad).

As far as water heater, you can buy a blanket to put on it to increase it's insulation without replacing the entire unit. A 1992 water heater is already past it's normal life, so you can either run it until it breaks or be proactive. Not very familiar with heat pumps, but house insulation might help more than replacing the pump. Example, my house still has a 1982 gas 80% efficient furnace. I have replaced most of the wear items since I've moved in, so I'm going to run it until it cracks the heat exchanger. My winter gas bill is down to $100 as of last month. Even if I replaced the furnace with a 98% unit and assumed all usage was going to heating the house (it's not. Gas heater in garage, stove/oven, water heater), the most I could expect to save would be $18/month in winter months. Assuming 6 months of that bill (not reality), break even would be in the 20-30 year range.

My point about the large equipment is to run the numbers to see if upgrades actually make sense or if they will just be a "feel good" effort.

My wife has a habit where she leaves the lights/fans/exhaust fans on a lot. Other than hounding her and making a mountain out of a mole hill, I have found ways to minimize the waste. All lighting is now LED or CFL. LEDs in all the places that are used often and aren't cost prohibitive. Certain bases are still extremely expensive (candelabra base, GU24, etc), but standard bases have come down a lot in price. Quality of lighting is still all over the board, but that's why I have no problem returning them if I don't like them. I have even put LEDs in the closets, since that's one of the easiest to forget and it's a great place for those cheap lamps that have poor lighting quality.

Don't forget about seasonal items that may not come to mind often. I found out that leaving the block heater for my diesel pickup plugged in all the time was costing almost $40/month! Now, it only gets plugged in when I need it. This goes for Christmas lights and gutter/ice dam prevention heaters as well.

Good luck!

[Merrie]

My back-of-the-envelope calculations have heat at ~70% of our total spending. Ack! I think you are right, bzzzt, about the insulation. We will look into that first. AEP subsidized an energy auditor to come out (usually $400 for a whole house audit, we paid $50) and he said we are using less than similar houses and do not have a lot of room to come down. (Challenge accepted.) He said that adding more insulation, replacing the heating system, and replacing the water heater would be the big ones. And sealing various cracks with spray foam. He said probably the whole-house fan wouldn't be worth it, but my husband wants to replace the bathroom fans anyway and if we got really powerful ones we could get close to the same effect.

Running the fridge sans ice maker leads to the same watt-hour usage as with ice maker, so I turned it back on and will try something else.

I'm also experimenting with saving energy while cooking--using microwave/slow cooker where I can rather than stovetop/oven. Cooked some beans in the slow cooker the other day, that reduces electric usage by 75% versus the stove top.

But mostly I think anything else is dwarfed by the heating bill. I can't sell my husband on the "turn it way down and use long underwear" approach, but at least this morning I managed to advance the notion of "if we accidentally leave it off too long, don't put it back on with a big temperature jump or the strips will come on." Grar.

[forummm]

We have 2 electric cars, so some nights we can use 20kWh while we sleep. But with TOU rates, our electric bill in the winter has been about $40. We have gas stove and heating.

[b4u2]

I have a electric tankless water heater with 4 of us in the house. I think I should have really gone to gas or maybe even a tank gas water heater. Gets expensive trying to experiment to find what cuts the electric bill down though.

[bzzzt]

I can't sell my husband on the "turn it way down and use long underwear" approach, but at least this morning I managed to advance the notion of "if we accidentally leave it off too long, don't put it back on with a big temperature jump or the strips will come on." Grar.

Insulating may help on that front also. Before I insulated the attic, we kept the thermostat at 69* to have it feel warm enough. After the insulation, I was able to turn it down to 66* and have it feel the same. I have a feeling we could turn it down further if I blew cellulose into the walls which would keep them from radiating the cold making the rooms feel warmer.

[bzzzt]

Gets expensive trying to experiment to find what cuts the electric bill down though.

Gathering data and doing the math is the key. Yesterday, I noticed my plug in CO detector. Throwing the Kill-a-Watt behind it measured 8w. At that draw, it'll cost ~$11/year to run it. I placed an order on Amazon for a CO detector that runs on 2 AA batteries and cost $16. I already have rechargeable AAs, so it'll take less than two years to pay back and it'll be 70kWh/year that I'm not consuming. Even if you were using standard batteries, two AAs is cheaper than $11/year.

[edit]Like I mentioned, gathering data is key. I checked it 3 days later and it had only drawn .4kWh. So, evidently it doesn't draw 8w all the time.

[1967mama]

My new real-time energy monitor arrived in the mail today! I was so excited! hahaha

It was super interesting to get the initial readings as we turned on things like the dishwasher and the dryer -- WOW! did the usage ever jump! More than doubled from 23 kw/h to 56 kw/h! I couldn't believe it! You'd better believe I got my butt out there and hung 2 loads of laundry today -- one inside and one outside on the line.

If you have a serious problem with huge power bills, I'd highly recommend a device like this in your home! Link is upthread.

[b4u2]

My new real-time energy monitor arrived in the mail today! I was so excited! hahaha

It was super interesting to get the initial readings as we turned on things like the dishwasher and the dryer -- WOW! did the usage ever jump! More than doubled from 23 kw/h to 56 kw/h! I couldn't believe it! You'd better believe I got my butt out there and hung 2 loads of laundry today -- one inside and one outside on the line.

If you have a serious problem with huge power bills, I'd highly recommend a device like this in your home! Link is upthread.

What device did you buy? I saw MMM recommend the efergy device which costs about $140. I was thinking about buying it because the TED I bought a few years ago doesn't really monitor the whole house.

[1967mama]

This is the exact energy monitor I got. It is compatible with our power meter outside the house. It was on sale for $35 when I got it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BGDPRAI/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/178-2563505-3440551?fp=1&pc_redir=1427995351

[b4u2]

This is the exact energy monitor I got. It is compatible with our power meter outside the house. It was on sale for $35 when I got it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BGDPRAI/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/178-2563505-3440551?fp=1&pc_redir=1427995351

I have a time of day meter from my power company Alliant Energy. I'll have to see what they use and what will work.

[bzzzt]

New personal low, 300kWh! I still haven't had time to replace my "tan with wood grain handles" second fridge, but it's on the short list. I used to think there was no way I could get my usage anywhere close to MMM's, but I'm sneaking up on it!

The insulation I blew in the attic is helping three-fold. Using less gas because the furnace isn't running, using less electricity because the blower isn't running, and was able to turn the thermostat down 3* (to 66*) because it doesn't feel as cold.

Having a $53 electric bill is total Badassity and I can't wait to see lower!

[lizzzi]

My latest electric bill was cut in half when I started keeping the heat at 60 degrees almost 24/7. I think the blower on the furnace has been responsible for a big chunk of my electric bill. I thought never using the dryer would be more helpful than it has been. (Of course the gas bill was unbelievably low, too. I just wish I wasn't so cold all the time. I know…complainypants…and it is officially spring, for heaven's sake….I mean, it has to warm up sooner or later, doesn't it?) (Doesn't It??!!!)

[MrSal]

I compiled data since my wife owns this house.

I only moved in last year around October so changes were implemented.

Here is a history of it.



As you can see we didn't have much savings on electricity since October... just a little bit. December 2014 though, it would have been a sub 300 month if not for the outside christmas lights. We only had a few, but in total they were burning 1.2 kWh !!!!

Also, January, February and March we have been using the dryer - mostly its my wife - a few times here and there ... also according to my thermostat, the furnace worked 110 hours in January and 116 hours in February...

If we assume that the blower uses what? 300-500 watts ... we can infer that something like 30-55 kWh in the month were just the blower of the furnace!

Also we have a very old fridge from the 80's I believe which runs at 2.1 kWh per day.

I figure that with the new fridge we will be getting , which according to manufacture it consumes 400 kWh a year it will be a 50% savings there, so we will be able to drop 30 kWh right there. Additionally with the blower working less in April and May I assume around another 30-55 kWh drop! In the end we may see a total of 60-90 kWh drop putting us into the 200 kWh a month.

I am eager to see what summer will bring... we will definitely see big savings there I bet since we will use the programmable feature a lot as well I hope (my wife is a teacher so she will be home a lot and she is very trigger happy with the thermostat :D ) ... Will try to use mostly fans if we can or fan from the furnace to circulate air.

One area where we can see SIGNIFICANT improvements is the HEAT!

I installed a NEST in the beginning of November ...  ... of course the results are amazing. Most of the savings come of course from the programmable feature nothing exclusive from NEST, although I was able to grab a NEST on ebay still with 3 years warranty for 85 USD, when on average they were selling for 170 USD even the 1st generation used ones. It was a find!

Some months we got more than 50% savings!!

And this is with 2015 !! being colder than 2014 around 10-15% colder actually!!

I am eager to see what summer will bring... we will definitely see big savings there I bet since we will use the programmable feature a lot as well I hope (my wife is a teacher so she will be home a lot and she is very trigger happy with the thermostat :D ) ... Will try to use mostly fans if we can or fan from the furnace to circulate air.

[1967mama]

@MrSal, You seem to have mastered this stuff of watts and kw/h!

Funny question, but in the spirit of Reddit, would you be willing to ELI5 (explain it like I'm 5)? Maybe there are others who don't really understand these basics ... or maybe I'm the only one :-(

I can read my bar graphs and see when my usage is down. I can read my new minute by minute energy monitor as the kw/h's fluctuate up or down depending on how much electricity is running at that moment but I don't actually understand what it means.

Sorry if I'm unclear!

[Merrie]

I have a feeling we could turn it down further if I blew cellulose into the walls which would keep them from radiating the cold making the rooms feel warmer.

How do you figure out if this is something your house would benefit from? Is there a way that doesn't involve taking the wall apart to see what's inside it?

[MrSal]

@MrSal, You seem to have mastered this stuff of watts and kw/h!

Funny question, but in the spirit of Reddit, would you be willing to ELI5 (explain it like I'm 5)? Maybe there are others who don't really understand these basics ... or maybe I'm the only one :-(

I can read my bar graphs and see when my usage is down. I can read my new minute by minute energy monitor as the kw/h's fluctuate up or down depending on how much electricity is running at that moment but I don't actually understand what it means.

Sorry if I'm unclear!

What do you mean you dont understand?

It's pretty straight forward its only a unit of measurement just like speed.

For example let's say your Microwave. It has a power of 1000 Watts. Watt is the unit of power just as gram is a unit of weight or meter is a unit of distance. So, the same way a KILOmeter or a KILOgram equals respectively 1000 meters and 1000 grams, so an appliance with a power of 1000 Watts is also a power of 1 kW.

Now, this is only unit of power and NOT a unit of measuring electricity consumption, the same way when you're driving a car you dont say "oh im driving at 50 miles". you are indeed driving at 50 mph.

Then we have the Watt-hour which is the unit of energy equivalent to 1 watt of power expended in 1 hour.

So lets go back to the microwave, it uses energy at the rate of 1000 Watts-hour or 1 kWh. It just means that if the microwave is on for 1 hour it will have expended 1000 watt-hour.

Even though you're expending at a rate of 1000 watts-hour, doesnt mean you actually spent that amount. Let's say you turn on your microwave for 6 minutes. Sure the rate is 1kWh at any given time BUT in the end you only spent 100 Watt-hour, or 0.1 kWh NOT 1000 Wh/1kWh ... why? Because you only had it turned on for 6 minutes.

It's the equivalent of saying that you are driving at 100 miles per hour for 6 minutes. You were indeed driving at 100 mph but you didn't travel 100 miles in the end. You only got to travel 10 miles total. You would travel 100 miles if you would had mantained the rate of 100 mph for a total of 1 hour.

The exact same thing with electricity.

[1967mama]

Thank you, Mr Sal!!!!

[lizzzi]

To MMM dude--I sent you a PM. Let me know if it doesn't come through.

[pagoconcheques]

The fish tank?

Yes, the fish tank.  Absolutely. 

When we finally got rid of our 20 gallon heated freshwater tank after using it for many years, our electric bill dropped noticeably.  You've got a pump, a heater, an aerator, on all the time.  Depending on your fish and tank location, you may have a light on as well a lot of the time. 

Looking back, we really didn't love the fish that much.  If you have kids who care enough to do the maintenance then keep it for a few more years, otherwise consider putting the tank, fish, and all on craigslist. 

[b4u2]

I had my daughter go count all the lights in the house, top to bottom and garage. We have 42 lights total. Most of them are cfl currently. Most are not used for weeks at a time, like the basement lights. So does i make sense to switch them all to LED at once?

Where do you get the best price for LED?

[LennStar]

I had my daughter go count all the lights in the house, top to bottom and garage. We have 42 lights total. Most of them are cfl currently. Most are not used for weeks at a time, like the basement lights. So does i make sense to switch them all to LED at once?

Where do you get the best price for LED?

$ wise it makes no sense to change from CFL to LED, the difference is quite small. However LED often have better lights and dont take time to get to full light.
"Best price" for LED is not always what you aim for (and strongly depends where you are I think). You should look at how the light looks and if the LED makes a sound (like most CFL do) when on if you want it for e.g. reading lamp or a room where you sleep. Or if it takes half a second to start or not. There are unfortunately a lot of small differences between LED lamps and depending on your situation a few bucks more can really be worth it.

But overall I would prefer bad LED over CFL (if I need a new one) every time.

[MikeBear]

I had my daughter go count all the lights in the house, top to bottom and garage. We have 42 lights total. Most of them are cfl currently. Most are not used for weeks at a time, like the basement lights. So does i make sense to switch them all to LED at once?

Where do you get the best price for LED?

Home Depot, and go for the "CREE" brand of bulbs. 2700k for the traditional "yellow" look, and 5000k for a bit starker bright white type. My wife and I used all 5000k bulbs for everywhere (especially outside) except in the living room.

[b4u2]

I;ll check those out. I hate the "yellow" light. My CFL are all daylight bulbs.

[takeahike]

I;ll check those out. I hate the "yellow" light. My CFL are all daylight bulbs.

Personal preference is a funny thing.  I despise daylight bulbs lol. They are just so intense. Reminds me of work.

[urover]

March is one of the warmer months of the year here in tropical India, followed by intense heat in April and May. Our bill for the month of March came to less than 10$ for 190 units (kwh). We pay 5cents per unit, which is not very expensive. We are an upper middle class family that more or less lives on american middle class standards in terms of what we own and use. Our house is 1700sq ft in area.

Let me know if anyone's interested in knowing the details of how we achieve low bills.

[A mom]

March is one of the warmer months of the year here in tropical India, followed by intense heat in April and May. Our bill for the month of March came to less than 10$ for 190 units (kwh). We pay 5cents per unit, which is not very expensive. We are an upper middle class family that more or less lives on american middle class standards in terms of what we own and use. Our house is 1700sq ft in area.

Let me know if anyone's interested in knowing the details of how we achieve low bills.

Yes, please.

[Ozstache]

My solar power system was installed last month and has been generating around 14 kwh per day on average since then, which has reduced our consumption cost by nearly half. We now try to use high power appliances during periods of peak generation to take best advantage of the system.

If anyone is interested, the following is a link to the pvout website with stats for my system http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=37052&sid=34002. Due to problems I was having for a while feeding correct consumption data to this website, these statistics are only useful since I fixed it on 09 Apr15.

[MrSal]

My solar power system was installed last month and has been generating around 14 kwh per day on average since then, which has reduced our consumption cost by nearly half. We now try to use high power appliances during periods of peak generation to take best advantage of the system.

If anyone is interested, the following is a link to the pvout website with stats for my system http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=37052&sid=34002. Due to problems I was having for a while feeding correct consumption data to this website, these statistics are only useful since I fixed it on 09 Apr15.

how much did it cost? 14 kWh a day would be enough for us and still sell almost 4 kWh a day!

[Ozstache]

My solar power system was installed last month and has been generating around 14 kwh per day on average since then, which has reduced our consumption cost by nearly half. We now try to use high power appliances during periods of peak generation to take best advantage of the system.

If anyone is interested, the following is a link to the pvout website with stats for my system http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=37052&sid=34002. Due to problems I was having for a while feeding correct consumption data to this website, these statistics are only useful since I fixed it on 09 Apr15.

how much did it cost? 14 kWh a day would be enough for us and still sell almost 4 kWh a day!

It cost $7000, which is quite high for a 3.7kW system (even for expensive Oz!) because I went with quality panels and micro inverters. The micro inverters were necessary because I have a neighbour's tree shading some of the panels during winter mornings and it allows the system to still function at 75%+ generation capacity (versus 0%) during such shading. The system will probably take 8-10 years to pay itself off.

Although 14kw is more than I need in a day too, in winter I will be more inclined to use an electric heater to warm up the room I am in while the sun is shining rather than using the gas central heating. While this means my electricity consumption will go up in winter, it will not cost me any more and I will instead be saving money on gas.

One thing that has happened in Oz lately is the Feed In Tariff (FIT) rates have dropped quite significantly, meaning you are far better off using any excess generation you have (if you practically can, like in my heating example above) rather than passing it back to the power grid. The FIT is currently about 1/6 of the consumption rate for where I live.

Regardless of the economics of the system, the thing that pleases me most is that I produce more electricity that I consume, hence I am as close to environmentally neutral as possible with this amenity.

[LennStar]

Funny looking LED - Mark thinks its good and cheap

http://boingboing.net/2015/04/13/philips-dimmable-led-bulb-for.html

The first time I have ever seen this shape.

[dunhamjr]

Funny looking LED - Mark thinks its good and cheap

http://boingboing.net/2015/04/13/philips-dimmable-led-bulb-for.html

The first time I have ever seen this shape.

i have bought a large number of these.  HD had them on sale 6 months ago or so, for about $3.  i think i ended up buying about 25 of them.  i have replaced pretty much every bulb in the house possible so far.

i like that they dim, they give off even less heat than a CFL and they are essentially all plastic, so are very safe for kids/lamps (won't burn or shatter)