My electric bill was $27 last month!!! (221 kwh)

[Sularus]

I would love to own a home and attempt to reduce electricity usage to those levels. I am renting a 3000sq ft home built in 1920. We use at minimum 2000kw/h a month and the highest was 3000. That bill was $580 for the electricity. Hoping to buy soon, but that depends on if I leave for deployment or not. Love the military, never know when your coming or going until the last minute.

[DamageX]

I`m doing pretty well on electricity, about 150KWh per month. Ever since I got this laptop I haven`t been using my other computers much, and with this ULV Pentium M CPU the power consumption is very low. There is a switch, access point, modem, and another Pentium M -based mini-ITX PC that run all the time. And a silly cable box, which I tried unplugging when I wasn`t watching TV but it would take quite some time to "reboot" when I did need it, and after a short while it stopped working entirely. So after I went and got a replacement I decided to let that one alone. Lighting is mostly CFLs.

There is of course a refrigerator, which is probably responsible for a good portion of the electricity usage. I heard that top-opening units are more efficient, since all the cold air doesn`t roll out when the door is opened. But I just bought a new refrigerator of the usual type about two years ago so I`m not itching to replace it right away.

So during June-Sept. I had the lowest bills, of about $50, with $23 of that being fixed delivery charges.

In Dec.-Feb. the bill spikes to about $170 because of heating (and that is with the thermostat set to 64 F). I have a 93% eff. natural gas furnace, but insulation was sparse (I guess heating was cheap back in the `50s). I just finished adding some insulation throughout my attic so hopefully the cost will improve this winter.

[sid]

I don't have cable. I've got DSL and I turn off the modem when I'm not using it. I've been doing this for at least three years without any problems. If I turn the modem on just before I turn the computer on, the modem reboots by the time the computer is finished powering up.

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by DamageX

There is of course a refrigerator, which is probably responsible for a good portion of the electricity usage. I heard that top-opening units are more efficient, since all the cold air doesn`t roll out when the door is opened. But I just bought a new refrigerator of the usual type about two years ago so I`m not itching to replace it right away.

Mine's ~30KWh/mo.

A clear vinyl shower curtain, cut in to 4" wide strips, will keep most of the cold air in when you open the door. Downside: mine always has a thin film of condensation which makes it a little harder to see what's in the fridge. Your wife wouldn't approve.

[04_Sentra]

I can't believe how low some of your electricity usage is...30kwh/month?

I think that my cable modem/wireless router/computer uses that much. Only need them for a couple of hours a day so i'd love to turn them off for most of the day but the last time I tried that my better half went insane.

Last year my family of three used 17000 kwh and this year we're on track for 15000 kwh so I am making progress, swimming pool and brutal Phoenix summers are holding me back.

[RobertSmalls]

No, my fridge is 30KWh/mo. My electricity is more like 100KWh/mo.

[sid]

100 kwh/mo is pretty good. Is your house all electric?

Mine is all electric and I was typically averaging about 90 kwh/mo. It is hard to tell this year since I converted to solar power. I'm generating much more power than I use and solar power is offsetting most all my daytime use, so my meter is basically just indicating my nighttime use plus the rare times when I'm using more during the daytime than I'm generating, like when it is raining or I'm running my clothes dryer.

Too bad more don't have such low power use. I feel most of the electricity used in this country is simply wasted due to ignorance or laziness. I feel most households could cut their electric use in half with negligible change to lifestyles or comfort if they just put a little effort into it. But that is not going to happen unless rates dramatically rise.

[Angelus359]

how much did it cost to do that sid?

[Frank Lee]

I just completed a survey from the electric COOP about usage patterns and trends. It will be very interesting to see if I hear back from them heh heh.

[Angelus359]

I was reading online about drain water heaters... where they capture the heat of the drainwater leaving your house, and shove that heat back into the waterheater...

Pretty cool stuff for saving money. Also there are a lot of solar water heaters that function pretty well...