I was thinking about being green, and decided to ask readers how big is your home, what do you spend on utlities like electric and natural gas, and how much do you as a family consume?
Our house is 1900 sq ft townhouse. We consume approximately an average of 850 kWh over the course of one year. The maximum being consumed during the winter when we have to use electric heat pumps and space heaters to heat our house. Last month our usage was 654 kWh, and our highest month december with 1232 kwh. The balanced bill is about $200/month with most of the charges of course during the winter. I just looked at our bills online. One day I will figure out how to put scaled down images in.
We heat our house to 55 in the winter and we cool it to 80 during the summer. We aren’t extravagent in the heating/cooling of our home either. This is with 3 adults living in the house. We also have an electric water heater, washer, and dryer. Because it’s a tonwhouse we can’t install a gas dryer or water heater. But when we moved in I bought a front loading washer and a very energy efficient regular dryer. I think that’s why we use very little electricity when not heating.
As for heating with natural gas we 916 therms from 7/11/07 to 7/12/08. This cost us a $2044/year or $170/month. About $2/therm and it’s set to increase by 40%/per therm this year. So I’m dreading our heating bills this year. When we moved in I think it was about $80/month and I thought that was expensive for heating only during the winter.
I think we use very little for 3 adults in a pretty large home. The biggest savings was the energy efficient front loading washer, dryer, and water heater. If I were staying here long term I would install a tankless water heater to save money on heating water. Also all bulbs since we moved in have been CFL.
What do you consume in energy? Do you think it would be worth investing in newer applicances like washer, dryer, water heater, refrigerator that are energy efficient than your current ones? Definitely when we move into our final home we’ll do solar panels/shingles and tankless water heaters. In asia and europe they only use tankless and it consumes so much less energy though it’s more expensive, you break even quickly.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Ashley @ Wide Open Wallet // Jul 30, 2008 at 12:26 pm
We have a 2400 square foot house and use 1582 kWh a month. We don’t have gas though, everything is electric. We pay an average of $168 a month. Our biggest month is July with 2420 kWh or $281 and our smallest month is March 880 kWh or $80.
2 tom // Jul 30, 2008 at 2:15 pm
1500 sq ft single family in St. Louis:
Gas heat and fireplace, electric everything else:
$40 electric in winter
$95 electric in summer
15% premium on electric - due to buying 100% green power
$30 gas in summer
$120 gas in winter
All CFL light bulbs, high eff. washer, electric dryer, slowly buying new energy star kitchen appliances
I would love to get a tankless water heater/solar water heater, and solar panels in our final house also, but seeing that we are only 25, it’ll be a while!
Also, did you say you heat to only 55 in winter? How do you handle such low temps?
3 tom // Jul 30, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I forgot to mention we just moved in in January so not a lot of data…
Winter Electric: 500 kwh average
Summer Electric: Our 1st real summer bill was 900 kwh
Winter Gas: 130 therms average
Summer Gas: 25 therms average
Roughly $1.15 a therm for gas and $.07 a kwh for electric.
Thermostat is set to 68-70 in winter and 78-80 in summer. Any hotter in the summer and the humidity makes it aweful, even with fans.
4 Dana // Jul 30, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Our home is 1800 sq feet. We in the frozen tundra - Green Bay WI. We know that the best way to save on our heating bill is new windows and new siding… but that’s going to take us a while.
Our electric and gas in on the same bill… we pay equal billing all year - $243/month ouch.
We don’t have central a/c and can’t install it b/c we have no duct work (we have concrete floors - no basement and no attic) We have 2 electric hungry window a/c.
It’s window here the other 6 months of the year.. yikes!
5 GrnMtnGirl // Aug 1, 2008 at 2:46 am
We rent less than 1000 sq ft apt. We have gas heat and electricity for lights, fans, etc. No central a/c. We spend approx $50/month in the summer and $80/month in the winter. We keep the apt in the 70s year round.
In summer we use fans and leave the windows open. In winter, we bundle up in fleece pajamas and blankets but we do crank the heat to the 70s most days.
I know it’s not the same as a house but it’s part of the reason we’re getting ahead as renters rather than homeowners right now!
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