What's your KWH daily average?

Re: What's your KWH daily average?

I try to avoid the "I am great because I am only using 8kWH per day" and then somebody else will pipe up saying they only use 0.8 kWH per day (Tony/Icarus:p).

Keep coming back to energy usage is a very personal subject and, because most of us here are simply "cheap", we try to help the best way we can... Basically education on the tools to measure the power usage and then what to do with the information.

For me, 8kWH per day works out to:

• 8,000 WH per day / 24 hours per day = 333 Watt load running 24x7

And when I look at my power meter (which does have a kW register), I see that is pretty possible. Figure ~125 watts (continuous) to run two refrigerators and a freezer (all cheap energy star units or around 3 kWH per day), that leaves the rest of lighting, cooking, cleaning, etc... No A/C, Central Heating in Winter only, and a few loads of wash and dry.

Your ~29 kWH per day works out to:

• 29,000 WH per day / 24 hours per day = 1,209 Watts

The equivalent of running a plug-in space heater 24 hours a day x 365 days a year... But, with A/C--much of that will be weighted towards summer (I am guessing).

And, do you have electric hot water?

Me, I am a big believer is identifying the addressing the big issues first (don't get on the kids case to unplug their cell phone chargers when they are not needed--Frustrates the kids, frustrates the parents, and does not really save any useful amount of power).

So--A/C... Easy. How much attic insulation (R39 minimum?). And how old is the A/C unit? Can you get a new air sourced (or ground sourced) unit that is 2x the efficiency of your current unit? Can you go with mini-splits and only condition spaces you need to and when you need to (zoned cooling)?

And heating? Hot Air and Hot Water is electric or Propane/natural gas/other? The new heat pump systems are pretty easily 2x the energy efficiency of a resistance based heating system.

Depending on your cost of power, it is possible that a heat pump based water heater will be cheaper over all than solar hot water (less maintenance, no issues of panel placement in sun, no circulating pumps, freeze protection, etc.).

Microwave, electric stoves and ovens, etc... May not be as huge of energy hogs. For example a microwave running 1,500 watts for 20 minutes a day vs a plain old desktop computer and laser printer (network, modems, disk storage, etc.) left on running 200 watts a day:

• 1,500 watt * 20 min / 60 min per hour = 500 Watt*Hours = 0.5 kWH per day
• 200 watts * 24 hours = 480 Watt*Hours = 0.48 kWH per day

So, don't get wrapped up looking at just high power equipment that is only on a fraction of the day. Starting with high power equipment first is fine...

Then, it usually is time to look at the equipment that runs 24x7 (fridge, freezer, computers, DVR's, old stereo system, etc.). Typically a Kill-a-Watt or similar meter plugged in one day for each appliance will quickly identify candidates for energy reduction.

There are several whole house monitors that different people have used here... Not too expensive and usually accurate enough.

If you have, or are planning on installing Grid Tied Solar--beware that not all kWH logging units units are capable of "net metering" (keeping track of the direction of power flow). You will have to pay more for such a unit.

I am sure some people here can give you good recommendations on what house monitoring systems have worked well for them (the Kill-a-Watt meters are limited to ~15 amp circuits at 120 VAC--in North America--and will not work with A/C and other large 120/240 VAC appliances.

-Bill

Re: What's your KWH daily average?

Throw a Kill-a-Watt meter on your AC Fan too... You may be using 300 watts just to run the fan... If on 24x7:

• 0.3kW * 24 hours per day = 7.2 kWH per day

Not saying that your is--But the "little things" we run 24x7 really can kill our energy budget (likewise all the little electronic stuff we have in our homes these days).

-Bill