5 ms·

Just to add more anecdata: * 150-year-old rowhome in central Pennsylvania, USA. * 2 adults, 2 small children, dog/cat. * Window unit air conditioners (2 runn

Just to add more anecdata: * 150-year-old rowhome in central Pennsylvania, USA. * 2 adults, 2 small children, dog/cat. * Window unit air conditioners (2 running most of the time in summer, with a 3rd in the attic office running a lot less since I don't use it much). Hoping to install mini-split system eventually, but it's low priority * Gas steam heat * Gas stove/oven * Gas water heater (I think) * Electric baseboard heat in 2 rooms * Electronics: tv/roku, modem/router, 2 laptops. 2 phones charged occasionally * Lights are almost entirely CFL/LED. My usage over the past year is just a hair under 14,000 kWh. Around 1500/mo when the A/C or baseboard heaters are on. Lowest months were April/May when both of those were off and I dipped down to 500 kWh. If my math is right, most of the rest may be due to ceiling fans -- we have 5-6 that are left on pretty much year-round. Assuming they're each 75 watts, that's around 50 kWh/mo per fan. It never occurred to me to wonder how much power they might use. So, if I leave A/C and baseboard heating off, and only run fans in currently-occupied rooms (bedrooms at night, living/dining/kitchen during the day), my usage would be about 4000 kWh/year. How do you use so much less? Tiny efficient fridge? That's the only big item left in my house.

swerling 10y ago
I've got an 80-year-old row house in Queens, NY. Family of 4, no pets. Our electricity usage is well below yours. We don't make a huge effort to conserve, and I don't believe our house is particularly well insulated. We have no special energy tech, unless you count the LED lights. We have a lot of electronic gizmos sipping away at any given time. Winter: we don't have the baseboard heaters, but I work from home most days and have an infrared heater pointed at my desk for a good 8 hrs or so each day. Summer: my wife hates A/C when she sleeps, so we only have one air-conditioned room at night (me and 1 kid in the room w/ A/C, wife and other kid in the other). No pets, so we leave the A/C off when we're out, it comes back on (by timer) about an hour before we get home. So big difference in summer. Still, that doesn't sem to account for all of the difference. I just checked my con-ed history online. Some typical usage numbers: Feb: 310 kWh Apr: 240 kWh Jul: 410 kWh Sep: 270 kWh We spend anywhere from $80-$350 a month for electricity. Maybe there's a big difference between an 80-year-old row and a 150-year-old row? We have - 3 window A/C units. - 3 routers, running 24/7 - 2 servers (mostly used as NAS), running 24/7 - FireTV, a few sonos devices, drawing a bit 24/7 - Many lights, mostly LED. We're pretty good about turning them off. - ~10-15 phones/kindles/laptops/tablets/gizmos constantly being topped off - Gas for stove, water, and household heating EDIT: After reading more discussion below, I thought maybe I'd made a mistake, since there is a difference between our usage and most of the other US folks. I double checked, and the numbers are right. Our total usage for the last 12 months is 4340 kWh. We were gone for a few weeks in the summer, else it would have been a bit higher.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  The GP had electric baseboard heat. That's a black hole for electricity usage purposes.
ghaff 10y ago
That's quite similar to me with a 4BR in Massachusetts. I'm in the 550-600 kWH range for most of the year. Goes up a little bit in the summer if I'm running my 1-2 window unit ACs on occasion. In the summer, I do run several fans more or less continuously. I do have an electric oven, dishwasher, washer, dryer, and several refrigerators. I also still have a fair number of halogen or other incandescent lights although I'm slowly swapping in LEDs. On the other hand, it's mostly just me and I do a fair bit of traveling so appliances and lighting probably don't add as much as they could. I have a little bit of baseboard heat but I rarely use either that or my space heaters. (Forced hot water heat and water heater.) My electric company says my use is about average in the area for the size of my house (albeit their figure is a few hundred square feet too low).

swerling 10y ago

I've got an 80-year-old row house in Queens, NY. Family of 4, no pets. Our electricity usage is well below yours. We don't make a huge effort to conserve, and I don't believe our house is particularly well insulated. We have no special energy tech, unless you count the LED lights. We have a lot of electronic gizmos sipping away at any given time. Winter: we don't have the baseboard heaters, but I work from home most days and have an infrared heater pointed at my desk for a good 8 hrs or so each day. Summer: my wife hates A/C when she sleeps, so we only have one air-conditioned room at night (me and 1 kid in the room w/ A/C, wife and other kid in the other). No pets, so we leave the A/C off when we're out, it comes back on (by timer) about an hour before we get home. So big difference in summer. Still, that doesn't sem to account for all of the difference. I just checked my con-ed history online. Some typical usage numbers: Feb: 310 kWh Apr: 240 kWh Jul: 410 kWh Sep: 270 kWh We spend anywhere from $80-$350 a month for electricity. Maybe there's a big difference between an 80-year-old row and a 150-year-old row? We have - 3 window A/C units. - 3 routers, running 24/7 - 2 servers (mostly used as NAS), running 24/7 - FireTV, a few sonos devices, drawing a bit 24/7 - Many lights, mostly LED. We're pretty good about turning them off. - ~10-15 phones/kindles/laptops/tablets/gizmos constantly being topped off - Gas for stove, water, and household heating EDIT: After reading more discussion below, I thought maybe I'd made a mistake, since there is a difference between our usage and most of the other US folks. I double checked, and the numbers are right. Our total usage for the last 12 months is 4340 kWh. We were gone for a few weeks in the summer, else it would have been a bit higher.

Spooky23 10y ago
The GP had electric baseboard heat. That's a black hole for electricity usage purposes.

ghaff 10y ago

That's quite similar to me with a 4BR in Massachusetts. I'm in the 550-600 kWH range for most of the year. Goes up a little bit in the summer if I'm running my 1-2 window unit ACs on occasion. In the summer, I do run several fans more or less continuously. I do have an electric oven, dishwasher, washer, dryer, and several refrigerators. I also still have a fair number of halogen or other incandescent lights although I'm slowly swapping in LEDs. On the other hand, it's mostly just me and I do a fair bit of traveling so appliances and lighting probably don't add as much as they could. I have a little bit of baseboard heat but I rarely use either that or my space heaters. (Forced hot water heat and water heater.) My electric company says my use is about average in the area for the size of my house (albeit their figure is a few hundred square feet too low).