Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Electricity Use Update

We got 2 electricity bills in the mail lately. One for our main house, the other for the cottage. I've been looking forward to them as I was sure we have managed to further reduce our usage this year vs. last year.

We have used 47% less electricity at home this month vs this month last year. Our actual electricity usage cost comes to $21.69 for June. (Incidentally, our water use -- same bill -- was $10.46 for June) So we are averaging less than $1 a day for water and electricity.

The explanation for the reduction comes from manually shutting off the hot water heater (ours is electric and owned), reverting to washing most dishes by hand (makes a difference even though our dishwasher is energy star), using our dehumidifier in the basement on an as needed bases and eliminating our use of an additional basement deep freezer. We also cook with gas. We have only used our central air conditioner for 1/2 hr so far this summer so August numbers may be higher.

For the cottage, we get bills quarterly. So, for the last 3 months, we have used $15.38 worth of electricity. We are slightly lower than last year but very close to the lowest we can go for that property. When we leave, the breakers are turned off.

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