The one kilowatt hour day

Well, I’m back after a couple of days of quietude. It wasn’t due to spiritual reasons or battery recharging...I was being cheap with electricity. My end of week tally for usage wasn’t shaping up well and I needed to get the numbers back in line. And I succeeded.

At this stage of the 90% Project, it becomes a little embarrassing to keep making excuses for over use. Especially when I am the only one using resources in this house and I am the one responsible for making the decisions about such use.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, my electricity use had bumped up slightly from what it was before the lad came home. I decided to get to the bottom of it.

On Tuesday, I spent an abnormal amount of time visiting the electric meter. I wanted to make the little dial stop turning. When everything in the house was off or unplugged, I went back out to look at it. The dial was still moving. What the heck?

I took a tour through the house to see what could possibly still be drawing juice. The air conditioner was still plugged in and its little screen merrily announced the room temperature. I yanked the plug out of the wall. Then I pounced on a lamp in my room that I’d recently installed by my bed. It’s a halogen floor lamp with a dimmer switch on it. The dimmer switch is attached to a transformer and there was a little light glowing on the transformer...and the transformer was quite warm to the touch. That means it was drawing juice even though the light wasn’t on. I yanked that out of the outlet, as well.

I went back outside to watch the electric meter. It was not moving. Whoo! And then....it started moving again. Talk about a head banging against the wall moment. What the heck was still on?

I took another tour around the house and couldn’t find anything. As I passed through the kitchen again, I heard a little click. The light dawned. When the lad came home, we had turned the water dispenser’s cooler back on. Since I still have three bottles of Poland Spring water sitting around, I told him that he might as well use it. He drinks a lot of water and it was hot out.

I turned that off and went back outside to look at the meter. It was totally still. Success!

Yesterday, I decided to establish a baseline of electricity use...at one kilowatt hour for the day. What could I use for a total of 1 kilowatt hour per day? According to my scribblings and calculations, it wasn’t much, but I wanted to make sure that my calculations and the electric meter agreed.

As it turns out, they agree. For one kilowatt hour of electricity use over a 24 hour period, I got to use:

coffee maker (one pot) - 160 watts
fridge - 560 watts
one lamp (14 watt CFL bulb) - 56 watts
one hall lamp (3 watt CFL bulb) - 15 watts
computer (1.33 hours at 157 watts) - 209 watts

Total: 1000 watts or 1 kWh

After spending an entire day like that, a 3 kWh day looks like riches. And a 4 kWh day looks positively decadent.

I think that I’ll build in a 1 kWh day per week to remind myself.