Author Topic: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?  (Read 240073 times)

c

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #100 on: November 20, 2012, 06:20:43 PM »
Last month's bill was $49, $1 lower than my lowest.

I have been an unplugging fiend and generally being more aware of consumption. I got better bulbs for the fish tank, take stuff out of the fridge rather than standing in front of it and snacking (I know!). I have an electric stove and I've been using the burners more efficiently. I wasn't sure it would make any noticeable difference, but it has. I'm really pleased.

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #101 on: November 21, 2012, 10:32:35 AM »
I'm going to start with July, since i know that's the first full month we've been back in my house.  They had a few neat things to play with on my utility's web site I thought I'd include. #d>90 = number of days over 90 degrees, #d>80 = number of days over 80 degrees.  Also, might as well factor in 100% humidity for those who don't think its that hot, it is.

Month--------Avg Usage-------Avg Temp---#d>90---#d>80
July ----------33.83kwh/day------83-----------22-------29
August-------33.00---------------82----------13--------30
September---32.52---------------78-----------3--------30
October------25.17---------------69-----------0--------17

So... fairly obvious the AC is eating about 8+ kwh.  As stated by someone else, it has been a HOT summer.  Two person household.  I'd like to bring this down, maybe I need to find a killawatt.

chucklesmcgee

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #102 on: December 02, 2012, 12:00:35 AM »
I'd like to bring this down, maybe I need to find a killawatt.

The killawatt's definitely a lot of fun. Puts your mind at ease when you can know something's not eating up too much power being plugged in all the time. Is your hot water heater electric? That's a biggy if it is.

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #103 on: December 12, 2012, 09:16:32 AM »
I'd like to bring this down, maybe I need to find a killawatt.

The killawatt's definitely a lot of fun. Puts your mind at ease when you can know something's not eating up too much power being plugged in all the time. Is your hot water heater electric? That's a biggy if it is.

The hot water heater is Gas, and I believe the heat pump (for central heating) is also gas, not 100% on that though.

Now that the month of November is in the books, I'll copy and paste a bit:

Month--------Avg Usage-------Avg Temp---#d>90---#d>80
July ----------33.83kwh/day------83-----------22-------29
August-------33.00---------------82----------13--------30
September---32.52---------------78-----------3--------30
October------25.17---------------69-----------0--------17
November----21.00---------------51-----------0---------3  - since its getting colder : AVG days under 50* = 19

So my total KWh for the month keeps coming down.  Going from 1000 in September, 750 in October, to 588 for November.

Gas usage went from 8 therms in October (3 days under 50*) to 18 therms for November (19 days under 50*) though, so that's a good indicator that my heat pump is gas.  On the other hand we've had quite a few guests in November, including my parents for a whole week.  I do typically notice the gas going up a lot when there are more people taking hot showers.

GuitarStv

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #104 on: December 12, 2012, 09:49:28 AM »
We seem to average about 10 kwh/day during spring, summer, fall and about 20 during the summer (need to run either the A/C or a dehumidifier to keep the basement from getting humid).

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #105 on: December 12, 2012, 04:17:47 PM »
It looks like I'm averaging 6-7kwh a day.  I haven't run the air since I've gotten here, so the only things that are plugged in are a cell phone charger at night, a TV/Xbox, and a fridge.  I turn off lights when I'm not near them.  My stove/oven is electric, and the dishwasher.  I guess the only way to get down to the lowest levels possible are to unplug the TV when I'm not using it.

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #106 on: January 02, 2013, 06:51:07 AM »
Got it down to 19.07 KWh/day (572) in December.  I'm pretty happy with that considering all the family we've been having over to visit.  Gas usage went up 3 therms over the last month (to 21).  Again... showers I'm thinking.

BlueMR2

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #107 on: January 16, 2013, 10:02:19 AM »
I don't know the kwh numbers off the top of my head, but I *do* know the $ amounts.  :-)  We run around $15-20 a month in the spring/fall when we can open the windows as needed.  Winter time runs up around $30-35 due to the furnace motor running a lot.  Summertime is rough.  $150 is our typical peak usage Summer month (and we keep the house at 82F).

As a side note, I also used to run my own web/e-mail/dns servers at home.  Outsourcing that to the cloud saves about $5 a month in electricity (besides the machines running all the time, I can also now shut off the router and switches when we're not home/actively needing the Internet) and costs me only about $20ish a year...

kolorado

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #108 on: January 16, 2013, 11:46:12 AM »
We average 21KWH a day in 1500 square feet(hot water, furnace are gas, no ac). This has stayed consistent since our 1250 square foot rental(also gas furnace and hot water, no ac)and before that our 800 square foot rancher(again gas furnace and water but also gas stove and window ac there). We are a single income, homeschooling family of 5 so there are people at home 24/7. 16-24KWH a day is our range depending on the time of year.
What we pay is the only thing that has really changed. In NJ rates were high so 500KWH would cost us around $95 plus a $5 service charge. Here in CO, 500KWH costs around $60 plus a $20 service charge. Win some, lose some. :/

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #109 on: January 16, 2013, 05:22:23 PM »
It looks like I'm averaging 6-7kwh a day.  I haven't run the air since I've gotten here, so the only things that are plugged in are a cell phone charger at night, a TV/Xbox, and a fridge.  I turn off lights when I'm not near them.  My stove/oven is electric, and the dishwasher.  I guess the only way to get down to the lowest levels possible are to unplug the TV when I'm not using it.

I did this and my usage last week was 5 kwh a day.

Honest Bob

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #110 on: January 17, 2013, 01:21:27 PM »
It looks like I'm averaging 6-7kwh a day.  I haven't run the air since I've gotten here, so the only things that are plugged in are a cell phone charger at night, a TV/Xbox, and a fridge.  I turn off lights when I'm not near them.  My stove/oven is electric, and the dishwasher.  I guess the only way to get down to the lowest levels possible are to unplug the TV when I'm not using it.

Actually they make what is called a smart power strip that may keep you from having to remember to unplug everything.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/sustainable/smart-power-strip.htm

BlueMR2

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #111 on: January 17, 2013, 04:34:41 PM »
I use power strips with switches.  Stuff that needs to stay on all the time goes into the wall directly.  Stuff that can be turned off goes on the switched strip and gets shut off whenever possible.

Kriegsspiel

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #112 on: January 17, 2013, 04:47:55 PM »
I don't really have that much stuff that I unplug.  I just have an XBOX and TV that are easily unplugged from the wall, and I only charge my cellphone and iPhone (used as an iPod and WiFi device) when they need it, which is every couple days.

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #113 on: January 17, 2013, 05:26:01 PM »
Ours went up a bit since my wife started having Lizards as a hobby.. .now we have 3-6 100w heat lamps running 10+ hours per day...

I'm at ~25kwh per day average

happy

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #114 on: January 17, 2013, 08:12:14 PM »
Why do you use so much electricity?:

This question is on my mind today coz its 104F and the aircon is on in 1 room only set to 75F.

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #115 on: January 18, 2013, 06:29:59 PM »
I have been working at trimming down my usage, but following the KW per day does sounds like it has some advantages over merely looking at the bill amounts.

The bill I just paid was 24 KW, and it said my usage last winter at this time was 15 KW. (I have been spending more time at home, cooking on the stove more, and I've cut the gas heat back which means I'm likely to use my electric space heaters in whichever room I am in.)

I'm going to try and turn my computer off at night more often, use the clothes dryer only half-time just for towels and thick clothing, and raise the water heater thermostat only when I'm actually going to take a shower or run the clothes washer ... see how the next bill goes.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2013, 06:33:40 PM by Skyn_Flynt »

happy

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #116 on: January 19, 2013, 01:16:53 AM »
Looking at the bill is very demotivating where I live...our electricity keeps going up, as my KW/day comes down. The bill stays the same :(

chucklesmcgee

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #117 on: January 19, 2013, 09:27:40 AM »
Looking at the bill is very demotivating where I live...our electricity keeps going up, as my KW/day comes down. The bill stays the same :(

Well you're keeping costs down against the unavoidable rise is price. Just as impressive. Calculate how high the bill would have been if you didn't cut your consumption!

zug

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #118 on: January 19, 2013, 09:39:40 AM »
Looking at the bill is very demotivating where I live...our electricity keeps going up, as my KW/day comes down. The bill stays the same :(

Why demotivating? You're managing to keep your power bill steady in a time when everybody else is having to pay more. That's great!

happy

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #119 on: January 20, 2013, 12:36:41 AM »
Meh, I just track KwH/day instead.

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #120 on: January 20, 2013, 12:59:10 AM »
Hi Happy :)
What about folk running their homes on only solar?
Are there any here? I have, for the past 25 years, and while it takes some patience on occasion the lack of power bills is a huge bonus.

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #121 on: January 21, 2013, 08:13:20 AM »
Nords uses solar, but he has the advantage of being in Hawaii. I hear they get a little more sun than Ohio, especially in January.

Even if you're using solar, it's extremely worthwhile to minimize your usage first to decrease the amount of generating capacity you need to install.

chucklesmcgee

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #122 on: January 24, 2013, 04:21:05 PM »
6.7 KWh/day. Quite pleased. About a 1100 sq ft apartment. Electric heat, stove, water heater and dryer, no gas.

I have a chest freezer in addition to standard fridge, an internet radio, wireless printer, a router with a hard drive, a cat litter robot (ridicule all you want, it halves litter consumption, saves on bags and saves about 30 minutes a week) on 24/7. I have a netbook plugged in on sleep mode (.4 watts) which wakes up on a schedule to backup a website, run some updates, download books and TV shows (5-8 watts) for about an hour a day. Lights are all LEDs or CFLs.

Despite the 19 degree weather here in VA, I have yet to need to use the heating as everyone else's zealous overheated air drifts up to my 3rd floor apartment. It's never gotten below 68!

Water heater is cranked down to 120 and I shower with a 1.5 gpm faucet. I recently turned off the bottom heater entirely (ok down to 90 or something) as I never use more than half the water in a day. We'll see what that does to the bill!

rach

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #123 on: January 26, 2013, 01:20:13 AM »
I average 2 kWh/day, helped immensely by the fact that I live in southern California with no heating, no AC, a small fridge, a gas stove, with no water heating bills (apartment).  I dread the day I actually have to pay for things like water and water heating.

turtlefield76

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #124 on: January 26, 2013, 01:48:14 AM »
Its because those of us on the low end of the spectrum feel gluttonous, when we see what we use compared to what we could use.  We aren't comparing ourselves to "normal" or "average" we are comparing to our own personal expectations.
If you read the specifics of what the OP posted in the first post, it isn't that much (by 1st world standards) yet it obviously could be less (not running computers and internet 24/7).

When I first joined this thread, my most recent bill had said 194kWh for 31 days, or 6.25 per day.
I was VERY unhappy and disappointed about that.  It turns out that the meter reading is apparently delayed from the dates it lists, and the reading had my old fridge, just before I replaced it, jacking up the numbers, but before I learned that I tried to see what else I could change, started leaving entertainment center and computer power strips off more, and started unplugging the microwave when not in use...
Then the next bill came, which was after the fridge change, and it was only 76kwH for the month (2.5/day) which I was perfectly happy with - but I had already started those new habits, and a new one came today: 64.0 for the month, about 2 per day, for a total cost of $8.24
Moral is: never feel you are doing good enough just because you are doing better than "average".  There is always room for improvement.

Of course, climate, house size, household size, and more than anything, willingness to experience minor discomfort, are all huge variables too

damn this is inspiring.  an $8.24 electricity bill.  2kwH/day for a house???  inspiring.  i will seek to emulate.

Spork

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #125 on: February 05, 2013, 03:13:40 PM »

Wifey pointed me at this thread (as a face punch).  We're off to sort out where our demons are sucking our blood now.

I thought I might mention that for Texas (and possibly elsewhere) you can get smart meter usage down to a 15 minute time slice.  It's pretty clear that the peak power usage is happening while we're awake.

www.smartmetertexas.com (requires that your electric company participates and requries that you give them your meter number and ESI from your bill).

Bakari

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #126 on: February 06, 2013, 08:05:39 AM »
if you're using solar, it's extremely worthwhile to minimize your usage first to decrease the amount of generating capacity you need to install.

Extremely much so!  in terms of cost effectiveness, you get an even better return than normal energy conservation, because generating capacity is really expensive.

an $8.24 electricity bill.  2kwH/day for a house???  inspiring.  i will seek to emulate.

Well... as I admit in this thread https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/anyone-else-have-a-higher-utility-bill-for-jan/
it has since doubled :(

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #127 on: February 06, 2013, 09:12:37 AM »
I'd like to bring this down, maybe I need to find a killawatt.

The killawatt's definitely a lot of fun. Puts your mind at ease when you can know something's not eating up too much power being plugged in all the time. Is your hot water heater electric? That's a biggy if it is.

The hot water heater is Gas, and I believe the heat pump (for central heating) is also gas, not 100% on that though.

Now that the month of November is in the books, I'll copy and paste a bit:

Month--------Avg Usage-------Avg Temp---#d>90---#d>80
July ----------33.83kwh/day------83-----------22-------29
August-------33.00---------------82----------13--------30
September---32.52---------------78-----------3--------30
October------25.17---------------69-----------0--------17
November----21.00---------------51-----------0---------3  - since its getting colder : AVG days under 50* = 19

So my total KWh for the month keeps coming down.  Going from 1000 in September, 750 in October, to 588 for November.

Gas usage went from 8 therms in October (3 days under 50*) to 18 therms for November (19 days under 50*) though, so that's a good indicator that my heat pump is gas.  On the other hand we've had quite a few guests in November, including my parents for a whole week.  I do typically notice the gas going up a lot when there are more people taking hot showers.

Month--------Avg Usage-------Avg Temp---#d>90---#d>80
July ----------33.83kwh/day------83-----------22-------29
August-------33.00---------------82----------13--------30
September---32.52---------------78-----------3--------30
October------25.17---------------69-----------0--------17
November----21.00---------------51-----------0---------3  - since its getting colder : AVG days under 50* = 19
December----19.07---------------56-----------0---------0 - under 50 = 21
January------23.68---------------54-----------0---------1 - under 50 = 25

December and January added to the list.  December 'ended' on 12/24, January had 34 billing days.  December was the best yet for electricity, but as you can see, January wasn't so much....

Ottawa

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #128 on: February 08, 2013, 10:57:16 AM »
Just thought I'd share my electrical usage over the last 2.5 years or so.  This is a 1200 sf house with 600sf basement (total 1800sf). 


Rollin

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #129 on: February 14, 2013, 08:06:11 PM »
the fridge which is 16 years old.

I know this post is old, but good savings can be had here.  If the fridge is older than 8 years it's a good time to think about replacing it.  Otherwise, for those of you that air condition your house it is the same as running a 1000 watt space heater inside for four hours a day!

On another note - our power company varies the number of days in the billing cycle from 28 days to 35.  Also, there is a surcharge when you exceed 1200 KWHs in any billing cycle.  Guess when they go to 35 days most often - Summer (July, August, and September) so more people exceed the 1200!  I've tried to get their formula/policy, but they won't release it.  I'm not a conspiracy theory person, but I really do think this is on-purpose.  Multiply their excess overage fees times hundreds of thousands of households and that is a significant profit (they have stockholders).
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 08:16:45 PM by Rollin »

Spork

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #130 on: February 14, 2013, 08:58:48 PM »
the fridge which is 16 years old.

I know this post is old, but good savings can be had here.  If the fridge is older than 8 years it's a good time to think about replacing it.  Otherwise, for those of you that air condition your house it is the same as running a 1000 watt space heater inside for four hours a day!


That depends....  Some of the older fridges are quite efficient if you don't mind defrosting.  It was when they added self defrosting that things got dicey.  And that is EXACTLY like running a space heater, since that is what it does.

Bakari

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #131 on: February 14, 2013, 10:03:47 PM »
I'm planning to install a switch, so I can leave the auto defrost off most of the time, and then turn it on maybe one day a month or so.
Just need to buy the switch

jrhampt

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #132 on: February 15, 2013, 06:59:50 AM »
Hoho! My January bill is usually higher as I find my electricity usage peaks in July and December, but last month it was $53!  Not bad for a 2200 sq ft house in a New England winter.

Spork

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #133 on: February 15, 2013, 08:44:33 AM »
I'm planning to install a switch, so I can leave the auto defrost off most of the time, and then turn it on maybe one day a month or so.
Just need to buy the switch

Along those same lines, there are folks that LOVE the old school retro fridges that do the same thing in reverse:  they have a timer that turns the fridge off for a certain number of minutes a day to deter frost.

giwo

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #134 on: February 16, 2013, 04:20:13 PM »
Looks like we have some work to do. 1100sqft house, Gas Heater & Water Heater, Average of 20.4 kWh / day on my latest bill, but I was at an average of 33 kWh /day during summer when the AC was running. Clearly there is quite a bit of waste going on to be using that much during the winter.

Alan2

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #135 on: February 19, 2013, 06:55:23 AM »
I use about 14 Kwh per day, though now I've stopped using my tumble dryer this should go down a bit.

The average UK usage is 9 Kwh, so I'm quite a bit above the norm.

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #136 on: February 20, 2013, 08:16:49 AM »
A coworker just sprung for a Nest (v1) and put it in his apartment.  He said it had the heat on for all of 30 minutes yesterday (I guess it can report that sort of thing?).  The wife and I have been interested in one, but $200-$250 is significant enough of a purchase to require more research, so I'm interested to see how it works for my coworker.

Spork

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #137 on: February 20, 2013, 08:29:45 AM »
A coworker just sprung for a Nest (v1) and put it in his apartment.  He said it had the heat on for all of 30 minutes yesterday (I guess it can report that sort of thing?).  The wife and I have been interested in one, but $200-$250 is significant enough of a purchase to require more research, so I'm interested to see how it works for my coworker.

Caveat: While I have always worked in the tech side of things, I am a bit of a Luddite in real life.  My opinion here is that simpler is almost always better.  I get that some amount of a timer can be an easy gain.  I have a hard time believing that the ability to modify my thermostat from my smart phone (or have it notice when I leave), or modifying it from the interwebs is a real benefit.  (There are edge cases here as MMM has actually outlined... but I seriously think this is an unlikely edge case.)

The gotcha on the Nest is that it isn't just $200.  It's $200 plus $200 for a smart phone.  Plus a likely $50 extra for a data plan.  Plus some other wizbang gadget that plugs into something else.  Yes, there are ways to reduce this, but my POS dumb phone is from about 2005 and works pretty darn good.  My legs work enough for me to get my ass up and look a the thermostat.

I'd also mention: I can estimate my heat has run about 2 hours *this winter*.  Forget yesterday.  The downside here is that my wood stove doesn't have an app to light it.  ;)

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #138 on: February 20, 2013, 08:42:17 AM »
A coworker just sprung for a Nest (v1) and put it in his apartment.  He said it had the heat on for all of 30 minutes yesterday (I guess it can report that sort of thing?).  The wife and I have been interested in one, but $200-$250 is significant enough of a purchase to require more research, so I'm interested to see how it works for my coworker.

There's actually a thread on the Nest here already. It's overkill, IMHO, and not very mustachian when you consider what you get for the money. A decent offline digital programmable thermostat should be plenty on its own if you just learn to adapt to more extreme temperatures and it'll track usage with the filter replacement counter. As such, I know we've used the heater for a total of five hours, 44 minutes since we swapped filters at the end of December... and that was with a month of drafty single-pane windows (our landlord just reno'd our unit with new double pane windows a couple weeks back - it's snowing outside right now and the heater hasn't even kicked on since our last snowstorm).

If you feel you somehow need a networked thermostat, you can get nearly the same functionality outside of the human detection bit out of a Radio Thermostat CT30 for under $75. As Spork has pointed out, it's basically nothing more than feature creep and lifestyle inflation.

Spork

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #139 on: February 20, 2013, 08:51:05 AM »
And here's where I'll appear batshit crazy and contradict myself entirely:
I'd totally do the Nest concept if I could build it myself from off-the-shelf components for the same price and McGyver it together into an ugly mass of perl scripts and graphs.

I'd do this not as a money saving exercise though.  If I did it, it would be an entertainment/educational expense.

Daley

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #140 on: February 20, 2013, 09:28:36 AM »
And here's where I'll appear batshit crazy and contradict myself entirely:
I'd totally do the Nest concept if I could build it myself from off-the-shelf components for the same price and McGyver it together into an ugly mass of perl scripts and graphs.

I'd do this not as a money saving exercise though.  If I did it, it would be an entertainment/educational expense.

Good news, friend, you can do just that... but for less.

Spork

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #141 on: February 20, 2013, 09:39:56 AM »


Good news, friend, you can do just that... but for less.

I was thinking Raspberry Pi or Ardueno.  But my list of projects won't allow it in the near term.  And it's for fun, not for necessity.

But: cool.

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #142 on: February 20, 2013, 02:47:35 PM »
A coworker just sprung for a Nest (v1) and put it in his apartment.  He said it had the heat on for all of 30 minutes yesterday (I guess it can report that sort of thing?).  The wife and I have been interested in one, but $200-$250 is significant enough of a purchase to require more research, so I'm interested to see how it works for my coworker.

There's actually a thread on the Nest here already. It's overkill, IMHO, and not very mustachian when you consider what you get for the money. A decent offline digital programmable thermostat should be plenty on its own if you just learn to adapt to more extreme temperatures and it'll track usage with the filter replacement counter. As such, I know we've used the heater for a total of five hours, 44 minutes since we swapped filters at the end of December... and that was with a month of drafty single-pane windows (our landlord just reno'd our unit with new double pane windows a couple weeks back - it's snowing outside right now and the heater hasn't even kicked on since our last snowstorm).

If you feel you somehow need a networked thermostat, you can get nearly the same functionality outside of the human detection bit out of a Radio Thermostat CT30 for under $75. As Spork has pointed out, it's basically nothing more than feature creep and lifestyle inflation.

For us the real money would be saved during the summer when the AC is running, but yeah, I should probably just look at some manually programmable t-stats for less than half the cost.  We just saw them in Lowes and had one of those "Ooooohh Shiny!" moments.

BlueMR2

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #143 on: February 21, 2013, 09:58:50 AM »
Just got my most recent bill.  The average for 2012 came out to 10kwh.  Our historical graph shows us consuming 13kwh as an average for 2011, so there's been an improvement!  :-)

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #144 on: February 28, 2013, 11:34:12 AM »
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

February was our lowest total KWH since moving back, 562, it shows more per day cost than December, but thats because it was a shorter billing cycle.  Gas usage is up a little, but it has been getting colder, so that make sense.  Haven't bought any programmable t-stat yet.  I'm not sure what I want to do on that front.

I added the totals per month to my little table up there.

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #145 on: March 01, 2013, 09:58:08 AM »
We're lucky enough to have gas heating and cooking, we have only CFL bulbs, and rarely have more than one of them lit at a time. We do have a computer and wireless setup that runs 24/7 (we supply our tenants with wifi). In our 1500 sq ft. apartment, we've averaged 4.21kWh/day over the past 12 months. That's down from 5.77kWh for the prior 12 months, since we didn't use AC this year (despite nearly identical summer temperatures).


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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #146 on: March 04, 2013, 08:46:18 AM »
I returned from a couple months away when everything was unplugged. I realized that in February in New York, near my windows was cold enough that I could store food I would normally put in the fridge there and didn't need to plug my refrigerator back in.

My electrical bill was something under $1 for electricity and about $15 for taxes and other fixed fees.

It would make more sense to shut down my electrical account, run an extension cord from my neighbors' apartment, and share those fixed costs since I use so little power, even when the fridge is on.

adam

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #147 on: April 02, 2013, 08:15:09 AM »
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

Creeping up a bit. Not entirely sure why.  I bought and installed a storm door for the front door with an integrated screen.  This allows us to open the screen up front and the sliding screen door in the kitchen and get a pretty strong draft through the house.  Right now that's not very important, but as it starts to warm up it should mean I can put off turning on the AC for maybe an extra month?  It remains to be seen.  I was also up in the attic and noticed that the entryway is just 'sealed' with a piece of drywall.  No insulation there at all.  Might be something else to look at, but now the coldest months are over with so its not like I'll be losing a lot of heat for the next 8 months.

N

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #148 on: April 02, 2013, 08:15:50 PM »
its my  6 month of consecutive sub-400 kwh months.
But Im starting to worry about summer and the a/c.
We have horribly old and inefficient thru-the-wall a/c units. last year our usage was over 1000 per month for 3-4 months. we hadnt caught mustachianism yet, but my husband has a real bugaboo about the a/c. our bedroom in summertime is FRIGID and its colder than in the winter. I dont know how to get him to relax and lower the acceptable temp.

anyway, the last 6 months have been pretty good.

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Re: Why do you use so much electricity?!?!?
« Reply #149 on: April 03, 2013, 07:32:49 PM »
our bedroom in summertime is FRIGID and its colder than in the winter. I dont know how to get him to relax and lower the acceptable temp.


misadjusted thermostats and thermometers, that say 50 degrees when its really 60, and 60 when its really 70.

and maybe pointing out that when its cold, you have to bundle up in baggy sweats, but when its warm you want to strip down to a thin undershirt and shorts - I imagine that would be some motivation for most normal guys