511 KWH on the last electric bill. Can you beat that?

[jjbaer]

I wish I knew. We have a two story colonial 2700 sq. ft.

We blow through about 40 KWH per day. The best day that we ever had was 23 KWH. (Yes that is right I track it every day to try to find out our usage. )
Electric dryer doubles the usage, A/C tripples the usage.

Now this really is bothering me. I think it is time to do more investigative work to find out where the juice is going.

If I had an 850 month I would be estatic.

well, I have a smaller home but the 850 was worst case bill in the summer with the A/C running......a larger home means more items that could be left on and not turned off and therefore consuming more juice....ex: I have 1.5 baths...maybe you have 3 and if lights are left on in all of them, well, there's 50% more juice right there. Same for number of lights in the house, etc., but I'd say you could easily drop it below 800. BTW: my Nov bill is for about 540 KW-hrs but the two girls are at college. Would probably be 680 if they were home.

 

[Highbeam]

I am all electric in 1700 SF. The lights are only a minimal amount of my 1000 KWH per month. The hot tub, water heater, and clothes dryer use the large majority of the juice. The next culprit is the refrigerator. Lighting is a drop in the bucket when you think about it.

My summer and winter usage are only slight different since I have no AC.

 

[velvetfoot]

You probably pay a less for your juice in WA than other places though.

 

[jjbaer]

I am all electric in 1700 SF. The lights are only a minimal amount of my 1000 KWH per month. The hot tub, water heater, and clothes dryer use the large majority of the juice. The next culprit is the refrigerator. Lighting is a drop in the bucket when you think about it.

My summer and winter usage are only slight different since I have no AC.

that's pretty good because I figure that if I had an elec hot water heater instead of my NG unit, the equivalent additional electricity I'd use is about 380 KW-hrs/mo more which would bring my elec in Nov to about 920.

 

[DiscoInferno]

We have a large outside hot tub that's empty now, but when we used to run it the electric bill went through the roof. It was nearly as bad as the A/C.

 

[eba1225]

No Hot tub, No Elec Hot water heater (oil furnace heated)

Refrigerator - Yes, Chest Freezer - Yes, Light - Not left on,
Computers (At least 2) - Yes.

 

[jjbaer]

No Hot tub, No Elec Hot water heater (oil furnace heated)

Refrigerator - Yes, Chest Freezer - Yes, Light - Not left on,
Computers (At least 2) - Yes.

when I redid my estimate as though I were to have elec hot water (I don't..I have NG) I came up with about 940 KW-hrs and got to thinking that this may be why yours is so high...now that you say you use oil for hot water, the 1200 KW-hr usage is even more perplexing........unless you have big energy hog devices, you should easily be able to get it down to 800...........

 

[Highbeam]

I suspect our 40 gallon tank water heater is the biggest part of my 1000 KwH. The hot tub only adds about 15-25$ per month to our bill based on comparing years with and without the tub. This has been my hot tub experience in another home as well. They really arean't bad if yo uleave the cover on and have good tub insulation.

As far as the mystery 1200 KwH use I would suggest that you either have a bad meter or a bad appliance. All of the little plug in things are mostly minor consumers.

You know when the dryer is running and how fast that meter spins. How about the refrigerator units? The good news is that you can put them on a kill-a-watt and see how much they are actually costing you.

Turn everything off and go check your meter for spinnage. You should have a low speed of spinnage from just the parasites. If it is moving along pretty good and you want to find out why then start turning off breakers to isolate the sucker.

Our Pacific NW power is pretty cheap but I still want to keep my consumption minimal.

 

[GVA]

You just said where your power was going.... Teenagers................:cheese:

Tell the son to unplug the Playstation or game console and the cell phone chargers and the stereo etc... and all the other stuff in his room Not that the daughter is off the hook too she probably has just as much plugged in too...

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Can you BELIEVE a playstation 3 has a 400W power supply?? Game time adds up fast with that kind of usage.
Sandor, great job. I study electric bills on a daily basis, and the mean that my clients use is around 800kWh's..

 

[barnartist]

mountainguy,
How much power does a Wii use? And when its off?