The holiday season is typically one where we use a lot of extra power... the oven is on more than usual, Christmas lights are blinking away on the tree. It's also the darkest month of the year and if you have family visiting like I did, it means that the thermostats are probably up a bit or on a bit more often than usual.
When I received my power bill today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that despite a relatively normal holiday season, with a full house, my power consumption from Nov 16 to Jan 14 was down by 21% from the same period last year! The daily average was also down roughly 17% (meaning the savings was not consistently spread around maybe). Depending on the math (and not including any prices increases), that's about $175.00 in real savings.
I find this very encouraging and I will be taking further steps to lower this even more! Here's what was done during this period that may have contributed to the savings:
- every room has a programmable thermostat set to 15C. Active living areas get up to 19C when in use, but automatically turn down over night and during the day.
- the new wood stove burned roughly a 1/2 cord of wood during this period. This was certainly a major contribution to the savings.
- the windows and new insulation were started during this period and while they were never more than 50% complete, this will be a major contributor moving forward!
- Christmas lights were mostly LEDs and even the outdoor red and green lights were CFLs.
- While the pop can solar furnace didn't get a whole lot of attention (or sun!) over this period, it did warm up significantly on a few days which would have mitigated any losses to that part of the house.
Share
No comments:
Post a Comment