By using the electricty cost calculator on this website:
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html
I believe I have found the reason our electricity use is so high. I think that the culprit is...
(drumroll...)
the water heater!
DUN DUN DUN!
I mentioned that we turn it off, but we don't turn it off as diligently as we could. According to that website, it costs $350/month to run an electric water heater for 12 hours/day if you're paying $0.25/kwh. That's a little higher than we pay, but it's illustrative. We're probably running the water heater more than we should, because I tend to leave it on all night so that there'll be hot water for showers in the morning. And sometimes we just forget to turn it off.
No longer! It's cold showers for us from now on!
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I didn't even know you could turn water heaters off. how interesting! And it's not like if you turn it off, you just have to pay the same anyway because it uses extra energy to reheat?
ReplyDeleteIndeed! But ours is an electric heater, which is why it's so expensive - every other place I've lived in my life, the water heater ran on gas and didn't cost more than $20 or $30 / month.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is that if the water heater is on, it will heat the water to a desired temperature, and then the water will cool off a little, so it'll heat the water again - the same water - and when it begins to cool, it will heat it again, and again, and again, until you use it. If you turn the water heater off until you're going to use it, it only heats that water once. So it makes sense that it would save energy - it's not wasting it on creating heat that you're not using...
anyways, we'll try it and see if it makes a difference in the phone bill next month... :)