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Nothing's wrong about you ecomodding your house at all! Congratulations on the 10% reduction!
You shouldn't give up on getting better mileage if one tank didn't work out great though. You got 24.4 MPG, and your grandmother got 24.6. But, did you fill up at the same station? Did you fill it up to the first click each time? With a difference of .2MPG, any variation in how it was filled could explain it, not necessarily driving habits. Although it doesn't hurt that your grandmother is a conservative driver.
Since your routes are so small, it's really hard to tell what's working and not working without instrumentation. You could get 40MPG one trip, but you wouldn't know it, because the next time someone else drives, they'll get like 15MPG, and cancel it out. If you really do want to get better mileage, then you should start saving up for a scangauge. I would also agree that taking a long trip would be a great way to see if your hypermiling is having an effect.
And as for people getting pissed at you for driving 5MPH below the limit - who cares? Are you ever going to see them again? Probably not. Are you doing anything wrong? Absolutely not. It's a speed LIMIT, not a speed REQUIREMENT. If you want to go 5MPH under the limit, go for it, there's nothing they can do about it. Just because everyone wants to go 5 over doesn't mean that you have to as well.
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