Delayed satisfaction
Well, son of a gun. My electric bill arrived today and it wasn’t quite what I expected. For the past month, I’ve been meter reading every day, keeping a running tally of electricity used. It helps to remind me to shut stuff off when I’m not using it. My conservation and efficiency measures paid off well enough—by my calculations, my electricity usage for January was 294 kilowatt hours.
But surprise! My bill is charging me for an ESTIMATED 435 kilowatt hours—BECAUSE—the power was off on the day the meter reader was supposed to roll through the neighborhood with his electronic meter reader. That was the day the electric company chose to swap out the neighborhood’s defective transformer. Nice choice of days.
They’ll catch up next month and I should owe next to nothing, but this delayed reward for my planning and effort really disappoints me.
Anyway, I thought I’d make a pretty graph of my electricity use for the past year because I’m geeky that way. The result is a hodge-podge of use that doesn’t seem to portray any particular rhyme or reason. It’s all over the place.
What I can determine:
Dec 05 reflected uninhibited use of Christmas lights. I trimmed those sails this year.
July and August 06 reflect air conditioning. That also has to be trimmed. I have a higher heat tolerance than the lad, but he’s going to have to learn to enjoy fans and evaporation a little more this summer.
Something happened in November 06 for which I have no recollection or explanation. There was no one here but me. How did I use that much??? That really shocked my socks off and sent me scouting around for all the waste that I could trim. I found a lot. I intend to find more.
Incidentally, I designed the graph (free) courtesy of Kid’s Zone, a subsection of the National Center for Education Statistics. Pretty cool.
There is a method to this ‘madness’. I want to get my usage pared down as much as possible and get it to stay within a reasonable range from month to month. Then I’d like to sign up with Citizenre to get solar panels installed. Don’t have to buy them, rent is a locked in price per kilowatt hour produced for the life of the contract, and all maintenance and repair is part of the contract. I really wanna do this.
Posted by Kate on 02/08/07 at 09:42 PM
Kids Zone is a lot easier to use than Excel’s charting technique is. Hear that, Microsoft?
Well now I have something to compare to lol. I run around every morning after everyone is gone shutting of electric strips trying to cut down on the electric bill. But when Heat is the only thing non-electric, its very hard lol. Hey did you get my email about the MX thing?
Posted by justme on 02/09/07 at 07:03 AM
What will you do with all that extra money next month?
I didn’t try the chart software, but will. I use the Excel charting regularly.
Thanks,
Cas
I think Excel is a pain in the rear, too, Linkmeister. Kinda like a dinosaur compared to the Kids Zone.
Yes, J. I’ve been trying to find out some information about it. There’s a lot of promotional material out there, but I haven’t run across any reviews or third party opinions. It seems like a reputable outfit, though. It might not be a bad idea to lock into a lower gas price for as long as possible. I think natural gas is going to be a real problem in the next couple of years.
Cassie, I don’t imagine the monetary savings will be spectacular, but I’m building up my new refrigerator, washer, and dryer fund. Good energy star rated appliances so that I can save even more electricity. 
Oh..and I remembered what happened in November 06. That was the month my dryer didn’t shut off and ran for two days straight without my realizing it.
Posted by Kate on 02/09/07 at 01:51 PM
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I suppose I could be as geeky, um, I mean energy conscious as you, but I’m too damned lazy.