August 2015 Energy Reports

I haven't been doing much stuff on my house because I am still building my little cardboard houses for the Head Start Fundraiser.

I do have my most recent energy report from Duke Power for August 2015. And John brought me his report as well. It's kind of interesting the comparison because we use almost exactly the same amount of energy. I'll talk about that in a minute.

This is my report for August. Still doing very well. We are still very much in hot summer mode, still requiring air conditioning frequently. I am very interested to see what will happen in the winter with my improved insulation though I have probably 2 months before I will use any heat.

The chart shows things better than the graphic above. You can see that I am WAY down from last August but there were 3 people living here at that time.

Ok, so here is John's report from his new highly insulated house. My house is about 2000 sq ft and I think his is about 1300 sq ft.

So why did he use almost exactly the same amount of electricity as me? Well, he keeps 3 TVs plugged in while I have none. My computer and router are on power strips that are turned off when I am not using them. But most importantly, he keeps his house at about 65 degrees all summer where I pretty much only use the AC at night to sleep and I turn it down to 74. When I am cooking I may turn on the AC for a little while, mostly to combat humidity.

Ok, so here is John's energy chart for the past year.

John did not move into his house until the middle of September 2014. We were over there a lot in August and September painting, doing the floors, but no one was actually living there so that explains why his energy usage is higher for this August and September. John asked me why his electricity usage was higher than the energy efficient homes in January through March. It took me a second to figure it out - his all electric house is being compared to NON-ELECTRIC homes for heating. We'll have to call Duke Energy and get him in the right category.

That's it for now. I finish my fundraising project in early October, then it is back to air sealing and insulating more on my house.

Thank you for reading.