We live in a 3,200 sq ft home, it is bigger than the average home in America but reasonably average for the neighborhood we live in (California Coast). The house is new but not all that well insulated. It has some CFL's but most bulbs are of the old incandescent variety. There are four people in our household. They all turn off their lights and other appliances but nobody goes to extremes to conserve energy. We watch TV like everyone else. Only some of our appliances are energy star rated. The others are older and by no means efficient.
All in all, we have a normal existence with all the amenities of modern life. We certainly have gadgets galore and as you can tell, we do use computers. Here are the hard data.
Electric in Kwh total and Kwh per day
Jan 218 7.5
Feb 232 8.0
Mar 222 7.2
Apr 204 6.8
May 202 6.7
June 203 6.5
Gas usage, in Therms, Therms per day
Jan 35 1.2
Feb 33 1.1
Mar 16 0.5
Apr 13 0.4
May 13 0.4
June 10 0.3
All this works out to an average energy bill of $55 a month, give or take a few cents.
2 comments:
Ah, but HOW did you do it? Our house is much smaller, maybe 1600 square feet, yet we use more gas and electric than you. In the winter it makes sense because of our different climates, but why are we so much higher in the summer? We don't have AC. Like you, we use CFLs in many (not all) lamps, and turn off lights and such much the way you describe. Maybe because our house is older?
Remember to unplug all devices, incl. chargers because most keep using electricity when plugged in. Also unplug your satellite service when you don't use it, esp. DVR's (TiVO) because they use in excess of 100W whether on or off.
The easiest way to do this is to put everything on a powerstrip and turn it off when not in use.
Turn off your water heater when you go on a trip for several days (we did not so far this year).
In 2008, we retired our clothes dryer and that gave us a big gain. Last year, with clothes dryer we averaged 294Kwh and 11 therms/mo for June through Oct.
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