Your average kilowatt-hour (kWh) usage? Anyone care to post theirs??

[UberMama]

Just curious. I was looking over our electric bill, and at first happy that we dropped our kWh usage from a year ago. BUT then I got to Googling and found a lot of people use way less than we do.

We're in a 950 sq ft home (400 sq ft garage), five people (two adults, three children), electric everything, two computers running too often (I AM going to get better about that!) but we don't use a/c and so far, we aren't using heat this fall. We do have an extra freezer out in the garage, and I do need to stock it up as it's nearly empty. My kids are pretty good about turning off lights when they are not in the room, but I do tend to go through the house every hour or two turning things off in case they are left on.

Last year, we used 37.4 kWh per day on average (during Oct '08). This year, for Oct '09 we used 33.3 kWh per day on average. So we did drop our usage some, but still.... So our total use for 29 days of service was 967 kWh.

ETA: Just convinced DH to turn off his PC at night. We're going to try and stop using the small fan that we use for white noise. We have one lightbulb in the bathroom in use all night, as DD insists it be on. I am going to look into a more energy efficient night light for her (too bad there's not a plug in in the hallway, grr).

[Pepper44]

To be honest ours is probably horrific. But I will still share it. Where do you find your usage numbers??

[UberMama]

I looked on my electric bill online. It has the little graph for the usage for the past year, and then says our averages for Oct '08 and Oct '09 (since the bill was for Oct '09).

[greenmamapagan]

I love topics like this. Our last one is 27.8. Up a bit from usual even though it was Spring here because our chimney (we normally use wood heating) was blocked so we used electric heaters quite a bit.

[greenmamapagan]

Out of interest can I ask what your company charges? According to our bill we pay 9.7cents and 16.5 cents ($AU) per kWh.

[Pepper44]

Originally Posted by UberMama

I looked on my electric bill online. It has the little graph for the usage for the past year, and then says our averages for Oct '08 and Oct '09 (since the bill was for Oct '09).

I'll get my DH to look at the online bill tomorrow when he gets home from work! (He pays the bills online and I don't know how. )

[UberMama]

Originally Posted by greenmamapagan

Out of interest can I ask what your company charges? According to our bill we pay 9.7cents and 16.5 cents ($AU) per kWh.

Last year, we paid $3.47 per kWh and this year it's $3.37 per kWh.

So for Oct '09:

Basic Charge10.00
Energy Use Charge
250.000 kWh x 5.12400¢12.81
717.000 kWh x 6.89900¢49.47
Transmission Charge
967.000 kWh x 0.21200¢2.05
Distribution Charge
967.000 kWh x 2.89700¢28.01
TOTAL: $102.34

[3plus2isme]

I can't find my October bill but for September it says we used 427 kWh for the month which works out to 14.7/day (it was a 29 day billing period..)

Seems weird, I'd think it'd be higher then that if yours is in the 30's...

[Malva]

We have electric everything and live in cold Ontario. We line dry everything, have almost everything on power strips that get turned off at night, we keep the heat at 59F in the winter and in the summer, only use the A/C if night time temps don't drop for a few days in a row.

My most recent bill, up to Oct 14, we averaged 20.05 kWh/day. Bill looked like this for a 62 days period:

Green Electricity $110.66
GST $5.53

Provincial Benefit $47.44
Delivery $58.27
Regulatory Charges $8.08
Debt Retirement Charge $8.34
GST $6.10

Hot Water heater Rental $20.72
GST $1.04

Total $266.18

What drives me crazy is that regardless of how much or how little I use, the majority of the charges don't change. I could average 2 kWh/day and yes, the Electricity line on my bill would show a smaller amount but the rest of the bill would stay the same.

We get billed every two months.

Our account history shows:

2009-10-14 20.05 kWh/day
2009-08-13 17.95 kWh/day
2009-06-10 21.24 kWh/day
2009-04-15 29.12 kWh/day
2009-02-11 42.74 kWh/day
2008-12-12 26.17 kWh/day
2008-10-10 19.25 kWh/day

[yeahwhat]

We average 25 kwh during the summer months. For Sept/October we averaged 34 kwh/day. There was a lot of rain, so we used the dryer more than usual plus we started heating in mid-October. The coldest months of the year we average more like 80 kwh/day.

[mama_ani]

I'm in Ontario, Canada. My most recent bill covered May-August 2009 and we used 19.95 kwh/day. In those months there were 7 of us living in a 1000 sq ft townhouse.

[Sk8ermaiden]

We don't have our October bill yet. September's bill was an average of 34.5 kWh a day.

Our highest usages are June, July and August, where we average 83 kWh a day. Our a/c runs essentially 24/7.

Our lowest usages are in December and January, where we average about 13 kWh a day.

We are two adults living in a 2,200 (or 2400, I forget) sq. ft. house.

[GardenStream]

Our average for the last 4 years in October are:
2006 - 17.71/day for an average cost of $2.15/day
2007 - 31.29/day for an average cost of $3.80/day
2008 - 25.45/day for an average cost of $3.29/day
2009 - 16.71/day for an average cost of $1.93/day

Everything except for heat and hot water are electric. We have one of those outdoor wood boilers that we use for heat/hot water.

Oh 2 adults and 2 little kids in a 2500 sq. ft. house

[Delicateflower]

This can't be right. Ours was 9.96kwh/day in October. 2600 sq feet. But maybe because there wasn't much a/c or heating that month? Our average price is 8 cents per kwh, more in summer, less in winter.

[UberMama]

It's weird, because some people have such a LOW usage compared to me and others are dramatically higher. I don't get why there is such a difference. I know there's differences when it comes to number of people in home, size of home, energy efficiency, etc. But that dramatic of a difference? Hmm..

I'm going to get better about turning off our power strips as well. :/

[Sk8ermaiden]

Originally Posted by UberMama

It's weird, because some people have such a LOW usage compared to me and others are dramatically higher. I don't get why there is such a difference.

It's amazing to me that just in MY house there is a 70 kWh a day difference in different seasons based on A/C ALONE.

[UptownZoo]

Originally Posted by UberMama

Last year, we used 37.4 kWh per day on average (during Oct '08). This year, for Oct '09 we used 33.3 kWh per day on average. So we did drop our usage some, but still.... So our total use for 29 days of service was 967 kWh.

I think you must have something going on that you don't know about. I just looked at our account online and we use 24-30 kWh per day - nearer 30 in the summer when we run our evap cooler, in the mid-20s in the milder months. We used 25.1 kWh per day last month. We have a large house (3500 sq ft) and use lots of electricity. Seriously, a lot: 3 computers, two refrigerators and a freezer, two medical devices in use 3-9 hours per day, lousy turn-it-off habits for DH and two of the kids, the frog tank heater on 24/7, every load of laundry for a family of 6 dried in the dryer, and worst of all, one electric space heater running in our unheated sunroom AND one running in our unheated, converted garage (which is our older boys' bedroom). Maybe our lower kWh number is due to a mild climate, but that seems unlikely considering the huge differences between our two households (esp. the sq footage).

Is your house very poorly insulated? Bad/old windows? There's no way that your bathroom light being on all the time is making that much of a difference!

[Sk8ermaiden]

That is true. My house is more than twice the size of yours and we run lots of appliances, I am bad about turning off lights, and refuse to buy any more CFLs, never shut off our computers and rarely the TV, and I often wash load of laundry several times because I keep forgetting it's in the washer, and without A/C we still run less than 20.

[UberMama]

The house was built in the 80's, newer insulation (like re-done two years ago), new windows put in two years ago. When it's in the 20's outside at night, it gets down to around 62ish in the house. Or like during the summer when it was 110 during the day, it'd get up to 80 or so in here (no a/c or fans running).

I'm going to talk to my Dad, see what his bill is like (he lives near us, similar sized home, etc.). I may call the electric co. next week to ask them what our neighbors are using (I know they'll give us averages).

[UptownZoo]

Originally Posted by UberMama

The house was built in the 80's, newer insulation (like re-done two years ago), new windows put in two years ago. When it's in the 20's outside at night, it gets down to around 62ish in the house. Or like during the summer when it was 110 during the day, it'd get up to 80 or so in here (no a/c or fans running).

I'm going to talk to my Dad, see what his bill is like (he lives near us, similar sized home, etc.). I may call the electric co. next week to ask them what our neighbors are using (I know they'll give us averages).

Hmmm...so the insulation/windows aren't the problem. I definitely think that doing some more investigating is worth your time. Something just has to be going on there. Although I did think of one thing: my oven/stove are gas, so if you cook a lot and yours are electric, maybe that's part of the difference?