Electricity, Electricity

Do you know how much power you use? Every day? Or do you, like most of us just pay the electric bill every month or two without looking at the details. Your electricity bill will tell you exactly how much you are using on average per day measured in kWh. If it's fancy like my bill, it will show you a little graph of past usage so you can see how much you've been using over time and if you've improved or gone a little overboard on the air-conditioning lately.

My latest reading was running at 23.8 kWh and I'm determined to get it under the 20kWh mark for the next bill. It's a little tricky because my husband and I both work from home, have our computers on all day, and my husband also uses a lot of power tools for his home business. We also have an electric cistern pump for our water, and our stove, oven, and hot water heater are all electric as well, and anything that heats up is a big energy hog.

How do we cut down? Change our most used light bulbs to CFLs, heat water in the electric kettle instead of on the stove, heat with wood, open the windows on the shady side of the house to keep the house cool in summer, use no small electric appliances in the kitchen (except for the kettle!) , line dry our clothes, unplug anything that draws 'vampire' energy when not in use, and wash laundry in cold water.

Keep track with me on the side bar of the blog as I try to keep those kWhs headed south. What do you do to keep those kWhs down? Do you have a good tip to save more electricity? Send us a comment and let us know!