I'm surprised they didn't show up looking for grow lights up to now!The utility will come out and check things out if this keeps up!
The HWH is probably 14 yrs old so not sure how it stands up to newer models as far as insulation goes.
All the water lines run under the house right at grade. It stays about 40-50 degrees under there. All the water lines run through engineered joists and are all copper uninsulated. I have a circulator pump on the HWH that run about 5 hours a day. I have it set for 3 hours in the morning and a couple hours at night so we don't have to wait 5 minutes for hot water. Pump is minimal cost to run ($2.00/mo). But I'm sure the HWH could benefit from having all the lines insulated. Next project is to buy 100' of pipe insulation and cut it 16" chunks!
I'm surprised they didn't show up looking for grow lights up to now!
The house has about a 4' stemwall with maybe a foot or so above grade. All the floor joist are insulated. Here's the other crazy thing I don't understand. The furnace ducting all runs under the house. It's all properly insulated. But the "hub" under the furnace as a vent in the side of it which would blow warm air under the house. I guess a novel idea of I used the furnace but it hasn't been on in a few weeks. Seems it would have been easier to insulate the pipes rather than heat the under side of the house.I am imagining the typical PNW construction method of a ventilated crawlspace under your home. Then you should have floor insulation between the joists. For some reason your contractor didn't insulate the water system under the house? Wow. That's ridiculous. Not just for energy loss but for freeze protection. The energy loss issue is made much worse by your HW recirc system. Once you properly insulate those pipes I wonder if the crawlspace will no longer be 40-50 as it is now. Better be sure to insulate both hot and cold.
You don't have to worry about U shaped heat traps if your water heater tank is above the crawlspace. The fact that your water lines run out of the tank and then down is like a huge heat trap built in.
The house has about a 4' stemwall with maybe a foot or so above grade. All the floor joist are insulated. Here's the other crazy thing I don't understand. The furnace ducting all runs under the house. It's all properly insulated. But the "hub" under the furnace as a vent in the side of it which would blow warm air under the house. I guess a novel idea of I used the furnace but it hasn't been on in a few weeks. Seems it would have been easier to insulate the pipes rather than heat the under side of the house.
I was burning 2400-2600 kwh a month. Using an average of 82kwh per day.Geez... just stumbled on this thread. Read the first and last page of posts, so I missed the middle, but you were burning 340 kWh per month, and suspected a problem? That's an amazing catch. I'm happy any month we're under 2,000 kWh.
Luckily power is cheap here. The advantage of living with in 100 miles of Bonneville! We pay 8.8 cents a kWh.Holy carp! That's a different story. I just saw the 340 kWh number listed in your first post, missed that later statement. Assuming my local rates, you're talking $400+ months, there.
Our listed "price to compare" is about 9 cents, but our all-in dollars per kWh is around 16.8 cents, after figuring taxes and delivery.Luckily power is cheap here. The advantage of living with in 100 miles of Bonneville! We pay 8.8 cents a kWh.
I'm on a co-op and we just pay a flat $23 service charge whether you use 1 or 10000 kWh.Our listed "price to compare" is about 9 cents, but our all-in dollars per kWh is around 16.8 cents, after figuring taxes and delivery.
Issue solved. See post 83. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/average-daily-electricity-useage.159381/page-4#post-2144454The OP has some problems, prob big ones that are easy to find....my money is on the HWH + circulator + uninsulated HW pipes. The cost estimate on the tank and the circ pump DOES NOT INCLUDE heating the great outdoors for hours through those pipes. Those circulators are notorious energy wasters when the pipes are insulated AND in a conditioned space. The OPs case...triple threat.
Try turning it off for a few days (and still use the HW with the annoying wait) and see what happens.
For comparison, my 2200 sq ft house + 4 people (two teens), all electric including all heat and AC (70°F year-round) + 9000 electric car miles/yr
Our average daily usage is 50 kWh/day.
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