Here’s the dealio. I’m single and live alone. When I Ieave home in the morning, all lights are off and no appliances are being used from 5:30 am until about 4:00 pm. When I’m home, I have a 40 watt living room light on, my kitchen light, and my TV Other than that, everything else is on standby just like in every other average person’s home. Nevertheless, I keep getting reports that I’m an energy pig. Here’s my 2023 report:
Efficient Neighbors: 1,867 kWh total use.
Average Neighbors: 2,878 kWh total usage.
Me: 4,399 kWh total usage.
I’m to believe that I use over twice as much electricity than my “efficient neighbors”, many of those who have kids? What, they eat raw vegetables and read books by candle light? I’m thinking it’s bullshit or a ripoff but, if accurae, opinions would be appreciated as to what might be going on.
What do you use for space heating: natural gas, electric…? What do you use for water heating: natural gas, electric…? There are other things like clothes drying and cooking which also can be natural gas or electric–but those are more minor.
Wow, these are all great responses and ideas! Gas heating and gas powered laundry facilities. Gas oven. I do have an electric Ninja Cooker, but I use it maybe once or twice a week for an average of 30 minutes.
Dorjan’s shocking statistic leads me to believe that the letter from ComEd is inaccurate in regards to my so-called energy efficient counterparts. My numbers sound feasible because I don’t have anyone else using power in my residence, so I should be well below the average he quoted.
What climate are you in?
How big is your place and what is it (apartment, house)? Do you have air conditioning? Do you leave it on when you’re out at work?
I’m in Chicagoland, so my AC season is basically 2 1/2 months. Unless it is over 90 in the daytime, I cool the place enough to shut it down and sleep with the windows open.
It is a large 4 room apartment with an additional bathroom adjacent to my bedroom.
I have AC, but I turn it off when I leave for work and keep the blinds closed to prevent additional greenhouse heating.
4.4kWh per month is a 6W constant load. Which is basically nothing.
My last bill was > 500kWh (for an all-electric house), and that’s much lower than the average out here.
ComEd sends me these things and I don’t bother reading them anymore. Apparently all my neighbors are Amish cavemen. I’m half convinced that ComEd tells everyone this to shame us into using less power.
I used to be better then the most efficient for my vacation home. Over the years I noticed a trend where in the summer I started to slip to almost better than the most efficient homes. I assume, but don’t know, that those with solar were being calculated and being factored in. I also recently upgraded installing 2 heat pumps which became my primary heat over the still existing and now backup heat source propane furnace. This kicked me into the higher usage range. However when I went to their sight I saw that I could input my electric usages to help them better place me, which I did and not fall between the most efficient and middle range.
I get analogous emails and it’s ridiculous. I’m a single person and am very energy aware. My particular neighborhood gets significantly cooler than the rest of my city but I don’t use the heat that much. My appliances are all new and not run that much. Maybe my house is being compared to little apartments all over the city but I still don’t get it.
For a data point, our weather here in Cleveland isn’t hugely different from the Chicago area. For our single-family home with attached garage (about 1442 sqft), out electricity usage for the year was 6,134kWh. We do not have central air, just one window unit that we run if it gets particularly hot. FirstEnergy usually peggs me at using around 31% more than my “most efficient” neighbors, and around 12% less than the neighborhood average.
Maybe Fast Freddy has secreted a large extension cord to your house and is swiping your electric to power his nefarious comic book forging scheme and baking crumb cakes on the side.
Look for big orange power cord running thru your living room and out a window. Follow it to FFs lair.
Unplug that rat bastard.
4399 kwh for the whole year, or is that the average per month? If it’s the average per month, that translates to about about a constant load of 6000 watts, which is pretty unusual. My mother had a case where she got a bill for usage of over 8000 kwh, and it turned out she had a leaky water heater (big energy draw), so it was running much more than it needed to.
If it’s 4400 for a whole year, then color me impressed. That translates to less than 400/month. At one time when I was living in an apartment, and my utility had a special low rate for people using not more than 420 (:snicker:). But I used the AC very sparingly, and in the winter weeks, kept the thermostat at 55. So that kind of usage is possible, but somewhat austere.
How about a computer? A gaming rig? I big gaming rig can draw 500W easily when playing a game. Maybe even 1K.
Do you leave your computer on? Maybe you’ve got malware doing bitcoin mining or something.
The average Canadian uses about 1 MWh per month, or 12,000 kWh per year. We live in a pretty big house with a 2.5 car attached garage, and we do 1-1.4 MWh per month.
Does Com Ed still have an “energy audit” program? When I had bought my house in Chicago and was appalled by my utility bills I had one of these done. This was about forty years ago so the details are a bit hazy, but as I recall the cost was fairly nominal. I found out that my windows may have been left open for all the good they did to keep heat in, the attic needed to be insulated, and there were a few other recommendations.
Same here. One month, that letter tells me I use far more electricity than my neighbors. The next month, it tells me I use far less. I’m not radically changing my usage patterns from month to month, other than AC usage in the summer, so that letter is, IMO, utterly meaningless.