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Old 09-23-11, 03:10 PM   #1
strider3700
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Default strider3700's energy use tracking

I had been holding out hoping the forum tracker would get implemented and usable soonish but I'm just going to go ahead and create a thread instead.

My house is 2400 sqft on two levels with the basement being partially above ground.

100% electric with great southern exposure for solar gain and really quite good overhangs for summer shading/cooling considering they were not planned I'm sure.

Heating is by an airsource heatpump that is probably 10+ years old. Water is a 40 gallon electric tank without heat traps that turns the first 10 feet of the hotside into a space heater.<EDIT> it's now a 60 gallon, 6 year warranty with additional insulation added, I built simple heat trap loops when doing the install </edit> I also have a fireplace upstairs that does not get used and a 3 year old airtight insert downstairs that gets used a lot.

I moved in July of 2009 and the first values should be taken with a grain of salt due to the switch over.

First up electic consumption


and a link to the raw data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...thkey=CJC147YI
As you can see winter heating is a much larger user then summer cooling. I bet the AC ran for less then 12 hours all summer.

Right after the 2010 dec/jan bill I put R40 fiberglass in the attic overtop of the old which was somewhere between R12 and R20. I also started getting serious about air sealing. This did result in a decrease through most of the winter when you take HDD into account. The winter was quite a bit longer however and I was working away from the house so April/May showed a spike due to early morning heat pump use instead of me lighting the fire.



My goal is 10% lower usage over the entire year starting august 1st of this year going to august 1st next. My electric company will give me $75 for accomplishing this. so far I was 5% lower on the last bill. Of course that bill is equivalent to 1/4 what one in the middle of winter is likely to be so lots of time to make up the difference.



I also track water usage


The oct-jan reading for 2010 is not accurate. My meter failed half way through so they estimated usage based on the previous year.
Raw values are here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...lLbnc&hl=en_US

I expect water to spike up over the summer again since I have 1000+ sqft of garden that gets watered. I did install a lot of drip irrigation this year so hopefully that helps. Costs are tiered here and my summer usage can get downright ugly.


Last edited by strider3700; 10-09-12 at 01:22 PM.. Reason: updated water heater info
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Old 09-23-11, 03:58 PM   #2
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Good to see another person tracking their usage online.

I wish we had the energy tracker up and running, but I no longer have someone to do the programming. Its being looked into, but progress will be slow.
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Old 09-23-11, 11:36 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by strider3700 View Post
I expect water to spike up over the summer again since I have 1000+ sqft of garden that gets watered. I did install a lot of drip irrigation this year so hopefully that helps. Costs are tiered here and my summer usage can get downright ugly.
A simple rain and/or grey water system? Quite a few here on ER.
The last two summers here were not too hot and had a bit of rain, so I've found lots of uses for the rain water - not only watering the lawn, but also house plants, washing the car and garden tools, rinsing my hands, toilet flushing, etc. This, and conservation, dropped my water usage by 25% within 2-3 years
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Old 09-24-11, 01:04 AM   #4
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I have something like 150 gallons of storage. that's less then 2 days usage. The drought this summer was something like 30 days between rainfalls and that rainfall was only a drizzle and I doubt a drop got to the barrels. It then went another 2 weeks before raining again. That rainfall filled the barrels in a few minutes. graywater would help but realistically I use a lot of water in the summer. The good news is I live somewhere reasonable to use water for gardening in the summer. Vancouver island isn't known for it's desert like conditions.
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Old 09-24-11, 01:23 PM   #5
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Funny timing. I got up this morning and found my newest water bill in the mailbox. This summer I used 65 cubic meters in 111 days. That works out to 154 gallons a day which is frankly amazing considering the size of the gardens as well as having a freshly potty trained 3 year old that still regularly flushes 2 times when she goes and goes pretty much every hour.

This is a 12% decrease from last summers water usage and the gardens are larger. I'm very happy with that number.
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Old 09-25-11, 12:43 AM   #6
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... as well as having a freshly potty trained 3 year old that still regularly flushes 2 times when she goes and goes pretty much every hour.
Looks like you missed the first chance to implement the "If it's yellow, let it mellow..." rule.

My Wife goes just about as often (too much tea!), especially now that she's pregnant, but she flushes every 2-4 visits, and I usually go in the meantime. This did wonders to our water bill in the winter, when we don't use rainwater.
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Old 11-23-11, 04:03 PM   #7
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Hydro bill came in today.
Code:
heatingDD    704.7  
CoolingDD    1.4 
Dayscovered 62
KW.h used   1490  
cost/kwh      0.08079
kwh/day      24.03
kwh/HDD     2.114
We're down another 4% over last years usage for the same period. It's down 5.4% when you take the higher HDD into account. little bits here and there are slowly adding up.

We averaged 1 kwh per hour last winter we doubled that during the coldest period. and during the summer we only get down to 0.83 kwh/hour. I'm hoping I can get this PC sleeping better and save a bunch

Last edited by strider3700; 11-24-11 at 12:12 PM..
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Old 01-22-12, 11:17 AM   #8
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My first bill since getting the smart meter installed came. Funny thing about the smart meters is the remote reporting isn't active yet so I saw the meter reader walking through the snow on friday.

Anyways I had been tracking daily usage since the meter was installed. this bill would cover about 2 weeks before that happened as well so I was estimating what the bill would be.

My estimate was 1823 kwh costing me $142.
The bill was actually 1827 kwh costing me $156.79 for 59 days.
So this tells me that my usage is pretty stable. The running average of 30.4 kwh was only off by 4 kwh over that missing time frame. Also it tells me that my average cost per kwh has gone up since I last looked at it. I'll need to figure out what it actually is now. It's mostly changed in fees/taxes/credits/rider rates/... not in actual cost per kwh.

Anyways here's the raw info
HDD (18.5C) 952.9
CDD 0
Days Covered 59
KW.h used 1827
cost/kwh 0.08582
kwh/day 30.966
kwh/hdd 1.917

So first thing obvious is the kwh/day is up from last the oct/nov bill. Year over year it is however down 25.2% Even when you take into account the fact that it's been slightly warmer according to the HDD it's down almost 25%

I believe the increased usage month over month is coming from the central air fan running almost continuously on circulate to push the heat from the woodstove around. When that fan is on the UV light using 34 watts is on as well.

I believe the drop from last year is coming from appropriate clothes and me being serious about using the woodstove. I've also managed to get some of the laundry on clothes lines in the back. The smart meter has let me realize that the dryer was using almost double what I thought it was, so I do my best to plan laundry days for sunny days.

On the $75 credit front the electric company tells me I used 29.5% less on the last bill and I'm down 16% so far since they started counting.


Overall I'm very happy with the improvement.
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Old 03-22-12, 02:28 AM   #9
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Another bill arrived. Am I the only person that gets excited to see a bill from a company that he hates?

My estimate was 2135 kwh costing me $181.48.
The bill was actually 2128 kwh costing me $185.12 for 60 days. Difference in the estimate is probably due to whenever they read the meter. I read at 1 in the afternoon they could have read anytime in the morning. The cost is different because I'm not doing exact calculations as the tiered system makes it a pain to do it. As well they keep changing how it's worked out...

My usage is up mostly due to lots of reno's taking place in the house and me using the Heatpump more then normal rather then take the time to light the fire, bring in the wood,...
The running average has slowly been creeping up and is now at 33.5 kwh/day

Anyways here's the raw info
HDD (18.5C) 944.1 Yes I used more power when it was a bit warmer...
CDD 0
Days Covered 60
KW.h used 2128
cost/kwh 0.0884
kwh/day 35.4666
kwh/hdd 2.254

While the usage is up when it really shouldn't have been I'm still pretty happy. It's a 27% decrease in kwh from last year. Also this means my yearly usage is now 1607 kwh or 21% lower then I would have used at this point last year. As great as the $75 credit if I keep that savings at or above 10% is I've roughly saved $135 on the bills already.
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Old 06-17-12, 03:03 PM   #10
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May bill arrived here. The much anticipated rate increase of the cost electricity is realized. The cost here was $0.15 per Kwh to $0.17 per Kwh incuding the delivery and other fees. This equates to about a $600.00 increase to our annual cost. However the reduced cost of operation with the input of solar hot water of approx $1200.00 per year has increased to a savings of $1356.00 per year. The thought of all the sweat equity is starting to pay-off. In a couple more years with any more increase to the cost of electricity the savings will be huge. Stock Market Ha. Eco-renovating YES.

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