I’ve owned my home for 20 years now. Since I’ve went to 100% wood the last 2 months, I’ve noticed a drastic change in my power consumption which of course is to be expected. My new Trane XR15 is pretty efficient but at 5500 Watts to run and 13,000 Watts with emergency heat, it’s no match for my watt sipping 850 CFM stove fan! And the heat is no match either! So, over the last year, even before wood, I have experimented with several things. First off I went 100% LED lighting in my home. This had a huge impact on my power bill. Yes, it set me back $700 to do the entire home but these bulbs have a 30 year life span if you don’t expose them to the cold. 2nd I capped off my fireplace at the top. 2 pieces of sheet metal cut to shape and siliconed to the top of the chimney. Made the house less drafty. 3rd I put all new door sweeps in and new rubber molding around my front door. Some other small things I think helped as well (expanding foam in all the holes in the basement, wrapping the hot water line in insulation, installed smart power strips/timers on devices) but lastly, I installed a new heat pump water heater and chucked the 22 year electric. The electric one had a annual cost of $515 which after 22 years I’m sure was more. The new hybrid has a annual cost of $100. At the first of the month I also installed a sense energy monitor. If you don’t know what it is I challenge you to google it and read up on it. It clips to your breaker box and over time, learns what’s running and how much power that particular item takes to run. 15 min install makes it super easy. This little unit has tickled me pink. I cannot believe how accurate it is. It has found probably a dozen of my appliances and has named them. It even Alerts me when they come on so you can monitor how much energy each one of them uses per day, week, hour, month etc. It will also tell you how much your power bill will be at the end of the month. My energy usage has dramatically dropped by doing all these but the sense has kept me abreast of how I can be more efficient in the way I use the power. Now I have a family of 5 with 3 teenagers. It’s hard to be a “watt natzi” so I’m trying to keep my mouth shut when there are 3 flat irons running at the same time. Ha! In 20 years we have averaged 1500 Watts per month and 2000 in the colder months. The colder months my power bill is $200 and has never been more than $220ish. In the summer, $150. We have never been able to get under 1000 kWh per month either. Ever! In 20 years. Well, for March 2018 I’m pumped to announce that our kWh usage was 992 and our power bill was $98. We don’t have oil or gas of any kind so there are no other costs involved. I credit it to being diligent and talking with the fam about conservation. As well as all the things that I have son to reduce usage. If you are one of those guys like me that is wondering where the heck your power is being used then I strongly encourage you to look at sense. There are a dozen different ones on the market and I researched them all pretty heavy and decided that sense was for me and I am 100% satisfied with it so far. They are $299 but I feel that it will pay for it self in no time. Here are some pics of the app. Just thought I would share.
Great post! Thank you for sharing. We’ve had an issue here lately with extremely high power bills all across southern Maine since the power company installed new software and they’re now under investigation. As if this winter wasn’t hard enough!
Very interesting post. As I have always said, conservation of anything pays a person back the best because a reduction in costs is a dollar for dollar deal. For every dollar saved, it goes right into your pocket. Trying to increase income ultimately has costs... Maine has something called Kill-a-Watt. They are not as good because you plug each appliance into it, then it calculates how many watts that appliances uses, and by calculating how much it runs, how much each appliance costs you, but Maine had the bright idea of dispensing these to the local libraries so residents can check them out like a book free of charge. It is not often the Government comes up with a good idea, but I thought they did in that case. I don't think the device would work good in my home though because it is wired via the new method by using sub-panels instead of home-runs. That is, instead of running all wires back to a single main breaker box, it has heavier gauge wire dispersing power to various areas of the house via sub-panels. The wiring is thus run to them making for shorter runs. It does not sound like it would detect power usage due to this branching.
It sounds like you, CHeath might do well with a Green Switch. This is a switch located close to the front door where you switch it off when you are not home. This kills any electricity not essential to the home. What that consists of depends on the family. Myself, it holds appeal because as farmers we only leave the house for very short periods of time...seldom overnight.
CHeath it sounds like you are right on top of things and that is good. It does sound a bit expensive to get all set though, especially that dollar amount to change over to all led lighting. That will take a long time to recover that cost. You do have me curious about changing the water heater. I wonder how the cost savings would compare with LP on those or even if there would be a cost savings?
Dennis, Here’s a comparison from the Energy Maine website, posted by the state. They have a similar chart for heating systems as well. I hope you can get some information from it to help. This website has been a great help to us. Maybe Michigan has something similar? Compare Cost of Water Heating
Great info CHeath, 2 questions How is your fridge off? Mine cycles on and off but is always on, or plugged in. What where your bulbs you replaced with LED? I have replaced all regular but still have CFLs in low use areas and outside in cold.
Very interesting post. I did the whole house in LEDs as well. Unfortunately I did several years ago when they cost four times what they do now and were half as efficient. I tell myself the extra years' savings make up for it but I doubt it. I had a little plug in watt meter years ago but it was hopeless - inaccurate and couldn't measure below a certain level (i.e. "standby" level, which was what I was most interested in). I wasn't disappointed when it crapped out completely after a few months since I'd long since lost faith in it. Some time later I read a review of the same unit by some electronic wizz who had all sorts of advanced devices to check its performance and he confirmed that it was wildly inaccurate. I still see the same unit in the supermarket and hardware store. Take home message: Do your research like CHeath did. I'll look into your model, but now I'm in an old house with wire fuses, so I'm not sure if the electronics will handle it. But I'll check anyway. Thanks for posting and for the additional tips on energy saving.
I have no idea about LP but I did have it once at a prior home and it was a total headache. Power and gas bill is not something I want. Plus they come fill it up when you are broke and 2 weeks before pay day every time lol.
I use a killa watt as well. When my fridge is not running it draws 0 Watts unless you open the door and let the light turn on. Not sure what type you have. I had cam lights in the ceiling. 10 of them. 60 Watts a piece. Replaced them with 5 watt LED’s and they are brighter. How’s that happen? 14 four foot shop lights in the basement. One bulb was 40 Watts x 28 bulbs !!!! The LED’s are 14 Watts for TWO bulbs. You see where I’m going right? All 40 watt light bulbs replaced with 3 watt bulbs. Probably 25 total. All outside light changed. I even changed the fridge bulb. Lol.
Holy crap they are great. Let’s say you have a TV, blue ray player, VCR, DVD player and stereo all plugged in as your main entertainment center in your living room. Ok, it’s just a regular looking surge protector and even acts like one but instead one of the outlets is “always on” and this is the one you plug the TV into. All the other outlets are slaves to the TV outlet. When you cut the TV on, all the other devices power on as well. When you cut the TV off, it shuts down every item on the strip. This alone saved me 300 Watts just siting there burning for 24 hours per day. They call it phantom devices.
My home is smart wired, too. I will admit when it comes to paying the electric and natural gas bill I am always on the look out for savings. After seeing what you pay I almost feel like the ultimate miser. I have my gas and electric bill set up on an equalizer program, that's where you take the last 12 months add up the cost and divide it back by 12. My gas bill is 22 dollars a month and my electric is 58 per month. That's in a 1625 square foot home in Arizona that is just my wife and I but I always look at ways to cut it down even more. I do not like paying anymore than I have to.
I would happily pay that for natural gas along with power. I have had friends with 5,6,7 and one $900 power bill so far this year during a really cold snap. My house is 40 years old and 3 teens.
That was. Dual heat pump (up and downstairs) running in energy heat for 16 days. It got abnormally cold here. Like 4 degrees.
I just don't know what to say . I'm a mild mannered person but I just might have to go have a talk with someone if I received that bill.
