Power Consumption thread

[Briansol]

Spinning this off into its own thread from the BC thread to keep that one on-topic..

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i use less than 300kWh each month. averaged over the last year.

wow, that's super low.
I've converted just about every light in my house to LED and try to be very frugal about not leaving un-necessary things on, and I still use 800-900 kWh a month, as high as 1100 in the summer when the ac is required.

Do you not have a fridge? do you have a washer/dryer? maybe the dryer is the big juice hog...

 

[BigJ]

wow, that's super low.
I've converted just about every light in my house to LED and try to be very frugal about not leaving un-necessary things on, and I still use 800-900 kWh a month, as high as 1100 in the summer when the ac is required.

Do you not have a fridge? do you have a washer/dryer? maybe the dryer is the big juice hog...

Archaic tv's running, dishwasher, etc?

 

[Briansol]

my bedroom tv is a little older (2006?) 32" lcd, main living space is 1 yr old modern Samsung lcd (40"). I do run a dish washer, but don't use the heated dry portion of it. (it doesn't work anyway and just deforms any plastic/Tupperware stuff)

my pellet stove only draws 40-100 watts (40 for fans, + 60 for auger turn every 10 seconds for 3 seconds or so)

 

[GSRCRXsi]

wow, that's super low.
I've converted just about every light in my house to LED and try to be very frugal about not leaving un-necessary things on, and I still use 800-900 kWh a month, as high as 1100 in the summer when the ac is required.

Do you not have a fridge? do you have a washer/dryer? maybe the dryer is the big juice hog...

i have a fridge and a stove, that i rarely use since i'm almost never home lol.
i do not have a dishwasher
i have access to a washer/dryer, but do not pay electric for them.
i turn off all of my lights when i'm not there/sleeping
i turn off lights when im not in that room
the only things that remain plugged in all the time are:
3x air fresheners
TV: Samsung LED
HTPC : which before was set to go to sleep mode after 30 mins of inactivity
a few lamps, off almost all of the time, even when im there
wifi router, obviously on all the time
my laptop

 

[|Chaz|]

I have all of my Tv stuff and 360 on a power strip. I turn it off whenever I leave the house. Its really cut down power consumption. How much of a difference would a more efficient fridge/washer/dryer make? The shit I have now is at least 15 u/o.

 

[DarkHand]

I have all of my Tv stuff and 360 on a power strip. I turn it off whenever I leave the house. Its really cut down power consumption. How much of a difference would a more efficient fridge/washer/dryer make? The shit I have now is at least 15 u/o.

Quite a bit actually. At least around here, the power and gas companies offer incentives to upgrade major appliances (it saves them money in terms of less demand on their equipment). Either in credits on your bill, or in the case of refrigerators, the power company comes and picks it up for free, and gives you $35.

EDIT: After checking it out further, in IL the power company will even give you a loan to buy a new AC system and roll the payments into your electric bill.

 

[Briansol]

I have all of my Tv stuff and 360 on a power strip. I turn it off whenever I leave the house. Its really cut down power consumption.

I used to do that back in the day but stopped after not really noticing a difference on the bill.
Plus, these new tv boxes constantly send data for tv guide/etc out to them and if its unplugged, you don't know what's on what channel.
1st world problems.

How much of a difference would a more efficient fridge/washer/dryer make? The shit I have now is at least 15 u/o.

Washer doesn't use a ton of juice. The dryer does though
I have maytag elite washer/dryer set from 2008 or 9 so pretty much top of the line a few years ago.
The rest of my appliances are original to the house I think (1997).

fridge is tricky even if you have the figures
You would have to research the energy star info off the model number to get a baseline, but it's all averages based on outside temp, how cold you keep it, and if you open the door a lot or not. Plus, how much stuff is in it. a packed fridge actually costs less to run as there's less air to keep cool while the cool products act as 'ice packs' themselves.

 

[FLounder]

This thread makes me interested to see how much i use. Its a fucking lot, i know that. I never unplug anything, still have a fair amount of lights that are incandescent, a large saltwater reef tank with a big pump running 24/7 and powerful lights that create a good bit of heat.... all that coupled with the AC being on for 10 months out of the year.... yes, my home AC is on right now, its a muggy 80 degree day.

 

[TurboMirage]

dude i'd love to see your tank...



we use on average 600kwh a month.

 

[jeffie7]

last month was 450 this month 550 kwh.

I do have gas heat, stove, water heater.

50 inch old school RP LCD TV with a receiver and 5.1 surround sound that comes on all together. 37 inch in the bedroom and 32 inch in the 2nd bedroom, 2 PS3s and 1 xbox 360, 1 Wii. The 360/wii haven't been turned on in year/s?. My PC has a massive power supply to run all its harddrives and I have a 2 monitors a 24 and 22? inch. But I don't use my PC daily, my Ipad does most of the work.

Linh has an Macbook that has the battery life of an old woman's bladder. So it's pretty much plugged in 24/7. We keep the fridge at 38.

Also when in the basement we use a small space heater.

 

[Briansol]

I have no gas here, it's all electric. (my hot water is on the oil boiler ).

It seems like my bulb swaps have been a complete waste of time. And at $14 a pop for the led's, a complete waste of money.

I had incandescent bulbs in 2010-11. cfl's in late 2011-1early 13 and led's in most fixtures by this summer.

 

[GSRCRXsi]

if you dont have your lights on a lot, you wont save much by switching to LED/CFL.

one thing that ive seen some people do, at least with freezers (actually saw this on extreme cheapskates lol), is they use a timer switch to cut all power for a few hours, then turns it back on. you could probably do that with your fridge if you dont mind having stuff slightly warmer.

power strips work well to cut power of plugged in devices, but it can be annoying to constantly switch them on and off (especially for things like TVs that will want you to reprogram everything every time, thats why i stopped doing that with my TV)

 

[fionntan]

They make power strips that have one or two outlets the control the rest of the outlets. This means you plug one device into the control outlet and when you turn off that device it cuts power to the other connected outlets. They usually have an outlet or two that will stay "always on" for things like cable boxes that you don't want to reset. I have switched out most of my house with these and they work pretty well.

 

[reckedracing]

new dryers are not particularity any more efficient, the efficiency is found in the washers
both in using less water, and in getting more of the water out of the clothes before they even hit the dryer
i was researching this when i was looking to upgrade my dryer and found that it wouldn't not really help much

i have my electric hot water heater on a little grey box, runs for 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours at night, the rest of the time the hot water heater is off, only relying on whatever warm water is left over from the morning/night shift

 

[Bob Vila]

817 for last month. All new appliances that are energy star. LED cans and CFL's in all other non-led light fixtures, sans the dining room chandelier. I think the biggest power hogs are my desktop and plasma.

 

[reckedracing]

lets see if this works... edit: did not work....
i average between 1200-2800 kwh for 2 months, 600-1400 per month
that includes electric hot water, electric dryer, 2 window rattlers, plus a dehumidifier in the basement

 

[D16Civic]

I used 514 this month. Average for the last year is around 635/mo although the summer drives it way up. Used 1035 in July running the a/c nonstop. 2 other months over 800.

58" plasma, new appliances, and my kids xbox is always on. Heat and hot water are natural gas. Average electric bill for the last 12 months is a couple pennies over $100.

Electric dryers are very expensive to operate, glad we have gas.

 

[phunky.buddha]

Do the math on how much power your light and small items actually use- it's probably 10-20% of your total bill. It's not worth the cash to switch incandescent bulbs to CFL or invest in LED- you might save a few dollars a month, but that's about it. Large appliances like your air conditioner, water heater, pool pumps etc- THOSE eat a ton of juice.

 

[Briansol]

I wanted the CFL's out of my house anyway. stupid mercury. I dropped one in the garage and it shattered. luckily the bay door was open so I just let it air out for a few hours before cleaning it up, and did it quickly with my breath held as much as I could.

I didn't read the labels at the time and feel victim to 'these are better' and they were basically all you could find to buy at the time anyway.

consider my kitchen has 8 pots for flood lights in a recessed lighting fixture... and I had 100 watt incandescent bulbs in there at one point, that's 800 watts for a few hours a day while cooking/etc. now, its 8x8 or 64. its 1/30th the power use. 800 watts is not nothing. and that of course is just one room. The other single bulb rooms are of course less draw.

I still have a few cfls outside on my porch lights, and those will stay until they burn out, but almost all cfl's inside are now gone. I have a few incandescent still, and will replace with an led when they burn out in the lesser used rooms.

 

[jeffie7]

Do you also hold your breath when eating fish?