Early Retirement Extreme Forums

We used 157 kWh/month last year. Electricity is used for cooking, but not for heating (neither air nor water, there's municipal heating in our building). There are a few non-LED bulbs left (one striplight in the bathroom, a couple of halogens that are used sparingly), the fridge/freezer combo is old but the other appliances are new, A+ or better. The TV, microwave (mostly for the digital clock), router and a wifi-speaker are on standby, otherwise only appliances and light sources remain plugged in during the day. We use a MacBook a few times a week and charge our smartphones daily, and the TV is on for about an hour a day. We do use a dishwasher (a small one) and washing machine, about once a day if you average the use over the week. One load of laundry a week is dried by the machine, the rest are line dried.

Seems like the biggest savings would be had by getting a new fridge/freezer and not using the drier or dishwasher. Replacing the bulbs and avoiding standby seems to have marginal impacts. Of course manufacturing a new fridge would use quite a bit of energy.

Does anyone here hand wash all laundry?

oldbeyond wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 06, 2019 9:07 am

Does anyone here hand wash all laundry?

I think brute does.

For the 3 months I lived in Spain I washed everything by hand and it was surprisingly easy. The washing was very simple with some soap and a bucket. The drying was even easier because of the weather - I tried the same here in Portland and the drying left a lot to be desired because of the humidity and temps.

FRx wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 06, 2019 1:58 pm

I tried the same here in Portland and the drying left a lot to be desired because of the humidity and temps.

It's even worse here on the coast, LOL! More humidity and lower high temps (lower low temps right now, too!).

130 kwh last year (1 person, heating is not included)

NYC. May 2019. 1 Bedroom Apartment, 450 SQ FT. 2 People.

Usage: 176 kWh

Supply Charge: 7.9cents/kWh = $15.08

Delivery Charge: $39.50

Sales Tax: 4.5%


Total Bill: $57.04

chasebrooklyn1985 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 28, 2019 11:05 am

NYC. ...
Supply Charge: 7.9cents/kWh = $15.08
Delivery Charge: $39.50
Sales Tax: 4.5%

wow, we in Germany dream of such energy prices/condition. In Germany you must multiply that with 3, because it is taxed very high, due to ecological reasons.

@wolf - The "Delivery charge" likely includes half to a full dozen of different connection, transmission, hookup, metering, emission, etc. taxes and fees. You could also see it as variable costs being 26% while fixed costs are at 74%. This payment structure does not provide much incentive to cut down on energy use. We have a similar summer electricity bill (Chicago, 1000sqft house) and there's no financial reason to keep the A/C thermostat at 82F/28C in the summer (humidity ~ 50%). Lowering it down to 77F would only increase the bill by $10 ... so we just keep it high to "temper" the body.

Water and sewerage has exactly the same problem. In our case, there's a "10 unit" minimum charge. We make practically no effort to save water and even in the summer when we water the vegetable garden, we typically use 9-10 units. We also pay an insane amount for trash service (part of the water hookups) even though we only fill one container each month. (Garbage service picks up TWICE per week ... and some households really do manage to keep them busy!)

This may in part explain why US consumers are so wasteful. Beyond a certain point---2 Wheaton levels above obliviously stupid behavior---there's no financial incentive to try harder. That is, there's a huge gap in terms of disconnecting service, going off-grid, and replacing it with something self-reliant. E.g. it would take decades to pay back a solar installation. This also spills into construction philosophies. When energy is cheap and a relatively high fixed payment is effectively mandatory, it's economically smarter to heat/cool actively ("mechanically") rather than spend extra on insulation.

Now returning to the regular logging ...

Is 176 kWh per month considered a lot of energy for 2 people in a 450 square foot apartment in NYC?

jacob wrote:This may in part explain why US consumers are so wasteful.

Also relevant would be that once you throw down X thousand for location in a decent school district (and/or related basket of amenities) you might as well buy the biggest McMansion for which you can obtain a mortgage, because building materials are relatively less expensive.

chasebrooklyn1985 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:42 pm

Is 176 kWh per month considered a lot of energy for 2 people in a 450 square foot apartment in NYC?

Using myself as a reference, it's a little high. Living solo, no A/C, I don't usually break 100 kWh. When I've had another person, that bumps it up to 130 kWh.

Moving heat around is where most of the usage is. In NYC, I assume you have steam for heat. Not sure what your A/C situation is. For me, the fridge is the biggest user. LED bulbs and computers are pretty efficient now. Electric stoves and microwaves can use a lot while on, but since they spend most of their time off, they aren't big users over the course of a month.

DC area. 1150 SQ FT. 2 People.

May 2019
Usage 340 kWh (AC is on 80% of the time)
Distribution $14.58
Supply $30.22
State/Local Consumption Tax $.52
Total Bill: $45.30

March 2019
Usage 219 kWH (roommate was gone for half the month)
Distribution $11.75
Supply $19.83
State/Local Consumption Tax $.33
Total Bill: $31.58

Gah, I didn't realize how high usage was.

In previous place, first floor of an old house that was near Boston, four people

Sept 2018
Usage 556 kWh
Distribution $67.70
Supply $101.69
Total Bill: 169.39

Here's mine. I'm quite proud
Billing Month | Electric (kWh)
August 493
June 403
April 303
February 541 xmas lights
December 462 xmas lights
October 499
August 573 wall A/C unit
June 398
April 389
February 574 xmas lights
December 540 xmas lights
October 486

These are bimonthly, so divide by 2 for 1 month usage

Example March+April bill I found in the cabinet:
$17.92 customer charge
$ 5.72 Distribution
$ 4.04 Transmission
$25.38 energy (303 kWh)
======
$53.06 for the two months.

size: 1290 sqft home
occupants: family of 4 plus a dog
city: Pasadena, California

There are some months where we are under 200kWh!
The utility reports say our "typical" neighbors use 4x-5x what we use and that we beat our "efficient" neighbors handily too. I know my immediate neighbor is probably 10x.

Details explaining our usage:
1 wall A/C unit on the south wall which we use for a few hours ofter 5pm in August
1 cable modem
1 energy star refridgerator
1 induction "burner" that I use a lot for cooking
gas dryer and gas range and oven
3-4 loads of laundry per week
California mid-century ranch with large windows facing East to tall shade trees. These trees are worth thousands of dollars in equivalent A/C.
Only a few lights (LED) since the homes from the 50's didn't have tons of built-in ceiling lighting.
When we're gone for the day the house draws little electricity

Some really impressive numbers here - we have cut our usage from 34.000 kWh last year and will be using about 26.000 kWh this year. While these numbers might look utterly redicilous compared to some in this thread they do come with the caveat that I live in a country with cold climate (we use no A/C in the summer, however) and it's proper dark for a good chunk of the year and electricity is the main source for heating homes and also for heating water. All cooking is done with electricity. We have an heating pump that helps cut the usage somewhat and the number also include all "fuel" for the car as we have an electric car. So it's pretty much our total yearly energy bill for a family of four living in a detached family home requiring some heating for about 8-9 months per year and with a car. Heated area is about 2400 sq ft spread over two floors + one room in the basement. Rest of basement has basically no heating.

The reduction is despite it being quite cold so far this fall / early winter but we have used the wood stove a lot more actively this year and we get the firewood for free. Indoor temperature has ben kept somewhat lower in the cold season.

Electricity is also the cheapest source of energy here and as the electricity generation is almost 100% renewables (hydropower) you don't have to feel bad for using it as the main source of energy.

So despite numbers being high in the context of this thread I'm quite happy with the reduction. In the months requiring no heating we use about 800kWh / month for all appliances, getting hot water and the car. Very little lightening required in the summer here as it never really gets dark. In price terms this corresponds to less than the cost of filling up a regular car tank (we have cheap electricity and very expensive fossile fuel).

Looking over the past year:

Dec 2018 249 kWh
Jan 2019 298 kWh
Feb 2019 228 kWh
Mar 2019 200 kWh
Apr 2019 201 kWh
May 2019 178 kWh
Jun 2019 200 kWh
Jul 2019 456 kWh (A/C on all day while home unemployed)
Aug 2019 495 kWh (A/C on all day while home unemployed)
Sep 2019 284 kWh
Oct 2019 225 kWh
Nov 2019 223 kWh

Average = 270kWh/month

This is for 2 people in about 1000 sq ft, keeping the house at a warm 62 in winter and 78 in summer (55 and no A/C when we are out all day, respectively). All on top of gas which we use for heating and cooking (average 29 therms/month; low of 10 during summer and high of 72 during winter). Yowza. And I thought we were doing pretty well on this front.

Energy usage in the last 12 months: 231kwh
(1 person in a flat, heating not included)

Average electricity consumption comes about to be 3 kWh/day and LPG to 0.5kg/day.

Electricity usage for 2019 was 991 kWh (~83 monthly avg., ~2.7 daily avg.)

Pretty sloppy with turning off unused lights and devices in general.
Computer stuff (including a desktop) probably accounts for half of total usage...
Not powering a dishwasher, washing machine, A/C or heating.

Expected to worsen in 2020 by a couple of hundred kWh's due to the desktop computer.

2 adults in studio apartment priciest month was Dec-Jan @ 440kWh, including: heating, hot water, washer/dryer, all cooked meals+hot beverages, winter baking/roasting (lots of time at home), daily dishwasher, daily computers/tablets, music: $60.

I'm afraid I don't know our average usage, but the local kWh rate is 10.8 cents per kWh and our bill averaged around $60 per month last year. The two of us live in Central Florida in a 2700 sq ft 2-story townhouse. We will both be home full time in 2020, so bill may go up slightly. Our unit has two A/C units. Our main energy users are air conditioners and the water heater. We generally don't use the heat at all during the winter.....maybe once or twice at most during a season. During moderate days in the "winter" months, we open the windows as an alternative to air conditioning. We also only turn on the water heater for 30 minutes a day. I always take cold showers, but the spouse likes a warm shower. Otherwise we wouldn't turn on the water heater at all, except for guests. We eat at home most of the time. Our high months are Jun, July, Aug & Sept. Our bill can get up to around $175 during the hottest months. We try to keep the temp around 76 degrees F during the warmer months and will let the house get down into the 60's in the winter months. We use cold water for washing clothes and dishes. We don't use dishwasher and we wash clothes one day a week and we use a dryer to dry our clothes. We have kids and grandkids over at least twice monthly. We use LED lights throughout home and watch more TV that I would like to admit. Wife doesn't care for microwave, so most food is cooked on stove or in oven and inside toaster oven or air fryer.

Our electric is lower than our water/sewer bill during some months. Our water is around $62 a month, regardless of usage.