How many KWH are you using a month?

This month we used 1202.

Yearly average is 795.

In the winter it drops down to 400.

Agree with you about hot water jets being great for relaxing muscles. A hot tub is also a lot cheaper than an in-ground pool.

If you are concerned about total usage, one easy thing to do is read the electric meter about once an hour during the day, noting what stuff you have on. Do it for a couple days and you'll start to get a little graph of peak times and what is on.

We used 668 this month for a family of 3 in a big farm house. No AC, but electric everything else, including a chest freezer in the basement.

I checked back through our history and we used triple that amount a year ago, but we were doing some major house projects around here and had lots of air tools and work lights going.

Side note, our new Desktop, with everything running (speakers, monitor, external hard drive and modem) we clock in at 114 Watts P/Hour, without all that, just the desktop on, (downloading) we clock in at 67 watts. So full time use, averaging that you actually use the computer 8 hours a day for "Full Use" takes you to 900 watts, the rest of the day comes in at 1 KW, so all together, almost 2 KW per 24 hours usage, 60 per month.

Hubby got one of those Kill-a-watts, drove me nuts checking everything, writing it down, had a spread sheet printed up, by the door, took water meter readings in the morning, at evening, same with gas and electrical meter. He gets into that sort of thing. He'll come in and say, ok, it's Tuesday, we gotta keep a eye on the electric, already getting up there for the week.....makes ya wanna smack him.....

Thanks everyone. We home school too so we are home and using stuff all day. I bake everything from scratch so my oven is used daily ( it's on right now lol). I would like to get one of those meters to plug in and see whaty each item using.

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Blessings,
Jean

We use between 400 (summer) and 700 (January's bill) kwh per month.

House is--including basement--3 stories and 2700 sq. ft. 5 people living here (2 adults, 2 teens, 1 preteen).

What's NOT electric: heat (outdoor wood boiler attached to radiant floor heat), hot water (wood boiler in winter, propane in summer), stovetop, dryer.

What IS electric: double ovens, microwave, fridges (1 side by side, 1 regular), freezers (huge chest plugged in year round, upright plugged in for a few months right after hunting & pig butchering season), dishwasher, washing machine, water softener, well pump, and your usual entertainment stuff--1 tv, dvd player, vcr, computer.

We do not have air conditioning, nor any electricity to outbuildings.

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Kris
http://thislittleplacehere.blogspot.com/

2 bedroom house with me and the two kids ran 696 kilowatts in August, we are an all electric house, we each have a laptop as the kids cyber school and we are home all day everyday. I work weekends but the kids are here.

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I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave. Jareth, Labyrinth

Many desktop computers use more power than a refrigerator over the course of 24hrs. If you have 5 of them running 24/7, that is one BIG source of your energy use.

In August I used 211.

That's for one person, one b/room apt. Fridge, stove, computer, vcr, hot water heater, and I use at least one lamp most of the day because my apt. faces north and is dark.


So...do I use a lot of KWH? My bill was $17. 85.

In the winter this goes well up to $140.00 a month as electric heat is my only option here. And, as I said, i'm on the north end and it gets terribly cold.


stef

I am thinking this is probably what is causing most of our usuage too. I know there are other areas we are wasteful and am going to have to really work at cutting back.

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Blessings,
Jean

Ours was 980 KWH last month. About average for August. The bad part is that we've been running that high since June because temps have been in the upper 90s since then. And yes, we have A/C.

Radiant barrier is going in the attic this Fall.

Hi, just chiming in w/my useage - avg of 412 kw/month. 1600 sf house, gas water heat, gas range, 1 AC window unit for july/august use in bedroom, 1 fridge/freezer, single person.

Date met day/Kwh
9/2/2009 32025 31 472 $45.38
8/5/2009 31553 29 511 $48.78
7/1/2009 31042 34 361 $35.68
6/3/2009 30681 29 263 $27.20
5/6/2009 30418 28 192 $21.98

3 BR apt in TX, with AC on in summer.
I have EVERY lightbulb filled with CFL's. Makes a huge difference.
oven/stove is gas.

Use laundromat.

3 laptops in use, much less power usage than a desktop, and we shut them down [hibernate] when not using them.
If your computers are W2K or newer, you can set power options to hibernate and they come up quicker than completely restarting.

Mr. frugal here....

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We will meet in the golden city, called the New Jerusalem,
All our pain and all our tears will be no more.....

I keep the hot tub in service year round so its hard to say just how much its using. we average about 900 to 950 kwh per month. two freezers, two refrigerators and a 1600 sq ft "meat locker". Yvonne likes having the temp in the house at around 55 year round!! I would prefer 85 but we compromised and the window ac keeps the place at about 65-70. heat and cooking is all gas. no well pump to run and I do very little welding in the shop.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

A 1600sq ft house of 2 no a/c elec range 2 tv's computer and fans gas H/W Gas dryer 395kw for Aug just got the bill today.
Tom

i avg 1270 kwh per month over the course of a year (lowest is about 300 in summer, highest is 3200 in winter).

I'm in an all electric house, I have absolutely no other power sources such as gas or wood.

1 person, 925 sq ft house. no deep freezes, very small brand new fridge, no central ac just window units. my biggest bill is caused by my electric baseboard heat. last winter was my highest ever bills in 10 years of living here. I'm in indiana where winter is our worst season. I could get by without a/c if I absolutely had to.

We average about 1200 a month. There are 9 people. Stove is electric, electric water heater, no AC but we run a lot of fans when it's hot. Our house will be about 2000 square feet once the addition is finished. We have 2 refrigerators & 2 freezers running also. None of them are real old. I only use the dryer when I have too.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

When I started reading this thread I was feeling like a real energy hog so I checked our usage for the past 12 months. On average, we use about 700 Kwh per month, but when I looked at this past month's bill, it was well over 900 as opposed to the 435 Kwh last year. Of course that darned A/C is running constantly and it is an old one that just keeps chugging along. Sure would like to the get those hours down, but I don't think DH would be able to stand it with me crabbin' about the heat 24/7...;-)

Edited to add: 2 people, 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1200 s/f log home with cathedral ceiling. Man do I dislike that cathedral ceiling...grrrrr!!!!!

RVcook

I have 6 batteries, sun gives me more kW than I use. <G>
3 bedrooms, 3 guys, gas stove, 19 windows on mountaintop.
Moved into old farm house and have to pay basic electric service bill just to have internet... can't get strong signal 1/4 mile away.

~1500 sq ft, 3 bedroom...1 adult, 1 teen (which counts for around 4 adults). Still have electric hot water tank which I hope to replace with an on demand gas unit in the very near future. Also have a well which means a pump that runs on occasion. Big, power sucking amenities include a hot tub. Down to around 425 KW / month on average from over 700 when we moved in. That average includes the 50+ yr old oil furnace that was replaced last season so hoping this year we drop below 400 or possibly 375 once the hot water tank is replaced. The hot tub may have to go but starting the conversion to solar / wind now that our usage is down.

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CJ