We pay every 2 months for electric and so what is the highest month - January - is actually part of November, all of December and part of January's usage. Those are the times we use heat the most and heat is expensive as you can see. We keep our thermostat at 66 most of the time, though we have gone down to 65 some nights. We live in a 1500 sq. ft mobile home, so the insulation is not that great, especially the floor since we are on blocks and the carpet tends to always be cold. I would imagine in a stick-built home on a foundation with insulation, our usage and costs would be lower.
In the summer, we have 2 window air conditioning units that are on pretty much on all the time during the day and evening but they don't cost much in electric to run, as you can see by our chart for July and Sept. We can plan for more money to save during May - Nov and then also plan for the larger bills in the winter months.
Our yearly average electricity usage is 16,000 kWh, which is, on average, 1300 kWh monthly or 43 kWh a day. Our highest kWh this past year was slightly over 4000 for 2 months (2000 for 1 month) and our lowest was about 1800 for 2 months (900 for one month). These charts are handy to compare year after year and also to see how you can get your usage down.
Some things that we do most of the time to save on electric costs are:
- Keep the lights off during the day and use light from outside when possible
- Use cold water to wash our hands
- Unplug electronics that may pull a charge when not in use (chargers, phones, etc.)
- Unplug things that you don't plan on using daily
- Use full loads in the dryer
- Keep our thermostat at 66 in the winter
There are more but those are just a few - share any that you may have!
