What's your average kwH per day electricity usage?

[stevejust]

I just looked at my bill from the last two months (los angles dept. of water power does a two month billing cycle) and I was floored to see that my average usage was 7 kwH per day.

This might not sound like a lot to some -- especially when it covers two hot months of some air conditioning usage-- but I was almost literally never at home during those two months. This has me interested in getting a power meter like never before. This is way more than I would have predicted. (Think about 7 150 watt solar panels).

I'm just curious to see what other treehuggers' average kwH per day electric usage rates like... and if anyone has a particular wattage meter they would recommend or not recommend.

[Green in MN]

Here in Southern MN, I am consistently around 600kwh/month or 20/day for my family of 2 adults and 2 young kids. Largest drains in my home are 2 fridge/freezer combos, one deep freeze, electric clothes dryer(rarely used in summer) and the central A/C. We have CF lighting in the entire house and gas water heater. I have a very conservative single friend who is also rarley home and his usage is around 10kwh/day. Best of luck to you as you try to curb usage or find alternative sources of electricity.

[jake3988]

Incandescents are the biggies though. How many lights averaging about 60 to 70 watts are on every hour you're awake? 10? 20? 20*70*10=14000. That's 14 kilowatts a day JUST FROM LIGHTS. (Assuming 20 lights for 10 hours)

20*15*10=3000. That's 11 kilowatt/hours A DAY just by switching to CFLs.

While I'm sure you could do more (we all could)... switching to all CFLs makes your blueprint that much smaller.

Also to note 11kw*365>3650 (that's almost $400!!)

[IanS]

You might want to consider checking out the efficiency of your fridge. An older one can really draw a lot of power.

If you have any desktop PCs which are always on, those really add up.

If there are any lights you leave on all the time(ie: exterior), putting those on sensors and using CFLs will help.

If you did have your AC on, then 7kwh/day probably isn't that terrible, since AC can easily consume a few kwh/day by itself.

-Ian

[IDontSleep]

Family of two adults and one child, small single-family home near New York City.

We've averaged 150 kwh a month over the summer - 5 kwh a day. Our winter usage was slightly higher, but that's before I converted to CFL's.

I stay home with my daughter, so someone is home every day.

The house is sited in such a way that we don't need to use any artificial lighting at all during the day.

We only use air conditioning on the hottest days, and when we do, it is a small unit used in conjunction with fans. Our clothes washer is a new, very efficient front-loader. The dryer is natural gas.

Our cooking range and oven are electric. The refrigerator is a new Energy Star model. Nothing fancy, but at 18 cu ft, a little smaller than average.

We don't particularly skimp on television or computer use -- or anything else, for that matter -- but I am very careful to turn anything I'm not using off.

So 7 khw / day seems quite high. Check all the good suggestions people have made here. I'm sure you'll get your usage down.

[eugene]

My 2006 usage was 6150KW/h dividing by 365 gives me 16.84KW/h per day. For comparison my 2005 usage was 6622KW/h which is just over 18kW/h per day. My 2004 usage was 7530KW/h for an average of 20.6KW/h per day. Our power company has a web site where I can log in and get the last three years of stats so I've started pulling it every so often to see how much progress I'm making. I dropped it into OOCalc and plotted it on a graph then added the linear regression line. At the beginning of the graph my monthly average was just over 625KW/h and at the end under 525KW/h per month. so I've made some progress.

[stevejust]

You might want to consider checking out the efficiency of your fridge. An older one can really draw a lot of power.

If you have any desktop PCs which are always on, those really add up.

If there are any lights you leave on all the time(ie: exterior), putting those on sensors and using CFLs will help.

If you did have your AC on, then 7kwh/day probably isn't that terrible, since AC can easily consume a few kwh/day by itself.

-Ian

It's got to be the fridge.

I run a MacBook Pro, which is pretty darn efficient. I use pretty much only CFLs (there is one incandescent bulb in one fixture in my apartment, and just got a bunch of LED light bulbs to try out in various applications, and when I'm not home none of those run at all anyway. And the computer comes with me when I travel. I am guilty of leaving my tv and cable box plugged in, but that's really my only phantom power drain... that and my computer speakers stay plugged in too when I leave.

I did run the AC, and I have an electric washer, but gas dryer. So it's got to be the flippin' fridge.

My goal is 4 kwH or less, if possible. I don't think I can do it with the fridge I've got. I will report back in two months. I've got a gas heater, so we'll see what happens...

[Adz]

Steve, I wonder how much of your 7kWh/day came from the refrigerator and standy power from TV, stereo etc. ... just trying to think where it may have come from.

About a year ago when we signed up to green power, our average usage was about 15kWh/day.

I just called up the power company and was stunned to be told that our average daily consumption in 20kWh/day. We have just come out of the winter quarter in the southern hemisphere so I wonder whether it is just the average for the winter quarter when we use more lights and some electric heating, but I still think that 20kWh/day is way too high.

My partner and I are really careful to turn lights off when we're not in a room, have changed all our light bulbs to CFLs, we turn the appliances off at the wall before going to bed, and then don't turn them on again until the next evening, we never use the dryer or dishwasher, don't have a second fridge, and we have installed low-flow shower heads.... so I'm very surprised that our usage has has gone up. - We’ll have to try even harder!

The only other explanation I can think of is that we have since had a boarder who lives down stairs. He has his own TV and stereo in his room, forgets to turn them off when he leaves the room (let alone turning them off at the wall at night), forgets to turn the lights off, occasionally uses the drier, uses the hairdryer and bathroom heater... and generally drives me insane. We have electric hot water too so I suppose that an extra person having hot showers means we use more hot water too. And I suppose there is more demand on the fridge and the door gets opened more often. Also the kitchen light is on for twice as long with two lots of dinners being cooked. (He won't convert to vegetarianism, so we don't cook together).

Still, on the positive side, if our bill has only gone up by a third and we now split in 3 ways instead of two ways, I suppose there is still a saving there.

[lee]

You might want to consider checking out the efficiency of your fridge.

It's got to be the fridge

Do you clean your coils? U can ncrease your fridge's efficiency by about 10% by just doing this once a month..

also if you check out the powercost monitor. what is cool about it, is that you can walk around your house with it in your hand, and it will tell u how much energy you are using (in KwH and in $$$) but so you can walk around and do something like look at how much you are spending an hour, then turn off all your power bars and see the phantom, and then you can also go to your fridge and unplug it and see to the watt and/or penny just how much you are using (actually you just need to be patient with the monitor and wait till the fridge kicks in and watch the meter fly...

[eugene]

I am guilty of leaving my tv and cable box plugged in, but that's really my only phantom power drain... that and my computer speakers stay plugged in too when I leave.

I did run the AC, and I have an electric washer, but gas dryer. So it's got to be the flippin' fridge.

My goal is 4 kwH or less, if possible. I don't think I can do it with the fridge I've got. I will report back in two months. I've got a gas heater, so we'll see what happens...

Some cable boxes you have to leave plugged in because they get updates from the cable company.
I just have basic cable so no cable box, I got rid of my vcr, dvd player, and stereo for one of those all on one home theater systems so I dropped from three phantom loads down to one.
If your TV LCD or CRT, if CRT then you need to leave it plugged in.

[stampy]

from monthly kwh usage, we use about 7kwh/day in the summer and 13 in the winter, new england area

were in a newly constructed passive solar house 3500 sqft

our current pv array actually produces 100% of our usage on a yearly basis, so far...

2 occupants at the moment with more on the way!

[stevejust]

Do you clean your coils? U can ncrease your fridge's efficiency by about 10% by just doing this once a month...

I got really excited about this suggestion, but went home to find that the bottom of my fridge is sealed, and I suspect the coils run up along the back of the fridge. I don't see a realistic way of getting it out of the tight spot it's in to clean the coils.

[Wai]

I am using 15kWh per day, the refrigerator alone used up 14.5kWh.

^ That was what I calculated, but the actual electricity bill I got was 7kWh per day.

What is the kWh of your refrigerator? I thought mine was 1.2 kWh, which should equal 864 kWh per month already. What did I do wrong?

[ccrrccrr]

I use 100 kWh in a good month; 200 in a bad month. (That's 3 to 7 per day).

A cheaper way to figure out what is the offender is the "kill-a-watt" meter, which, for $30, will tell you instantaneous power use of any one item, or will add it up over time for you. Great way to check your fridge.

[Tripholiada]

how many kW do computers run up???