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Wasting juice
Thursday, 11:38 am
By Kate
Dec
07
2006
My electric bill arrived today. It shocked my socks off and I am trying to think what in the world I have done differently this month than I did last month. Because I must have done something differently for my usage to leap 160 kWh from last month. I know that turning the lights on at 4:00 in the afternoon (sunset is around 4:00 here right now) accounts for a small portion of it, but I don’t use that many lights and they’re all fluorescent anyway.
The one thing I do recall is the two day period where my dryer ran continuously, but I can’t imagine that could have burned up 100 kWh. Could it? I guess it’s back to reading the meter every day to keep an eye on what’s being used. Vigilance is the best antidote to wasting electricity. Utilities drive me crazy enough as it is. I don’t need to help them fatten their bottom line.
Kill-a-Watt
Friday, 1:17 pm
By Kate
Oct
20
2006
Here’s a gadget called Kill-a-Watt, which measures how much electricity an appliance (or whatever) is sucking up. The idea, of course, is that by measuring usage, the user can effectively cut back where waste occurs. The little object costs between $17.99 and $29.00, depending on where you buy it. So, conceivably, this gadget could bring about enough electricity savings in a year to pay for itself at least once, if not a couple of times over. Not to mention the savings in electricity use, which is always a good thing all by itself—since it appears that our old and infirm power grid is looking at some dark days ahead if we don’t cut our use. I’m thinking about getting it. Maybe from FadFusion.
Since the lad has been away, my electricity use has nearly been cut in half, but I still can’t get my daily use below 8.5 kWh. That seems crazy considering the few items I use in a day. Something is eating up electricity and I’d like to know what.