kWh usage per month

[Icedawn]

Anyone else know the number of kilowatt hours they use a month? I'm looking at my bill and trying to figure out what we're doing wrong and what areas to focus on...

What I use is between 750 and 950 KWh for a 2 bedroom condo.... is this ridiculously high (as I feel), or actually reasonable?

[HammerRFDer]

Anyone else know the number of kilowatt hours they use a month? I'm looking at my bill and trying to figure out what we're doing wrong and what areas to focus on...

What I use is between 750 and 950 KWh for a 2 bedroom condo.... is this ridiculously high (as I feel), or actually reasonable?

What's included and not included in these numbers? A/C? Heat? Hot Water? Laundry? For which month is this figure?

[BTron]

That seems pretty high, but there's a lot of variables. When you say condo do you mean high rise, low rise, a floor in a redeveloped something or other, etc? How many appliances do you have? How many lights?

I only go through 200 kWh a month, but it's in a 650 sq ft apartment in a high rise and I don't use very much electricity.

[Icedawn]

lets see...

includes heatpump that takes care of both ac/heat, washer/dryer, standard appliances + lights/computers + a 24/7 air filter

2 year old high rise condo building

[B0000rt]

July - 597 kWh
Aug - 422 kWh
Sep - 355 kWh
Oct - 306 kWh

We have a 1br Apartment, 870sqft.

Its probably your heat pump/AC that's taking up a majority of the electricity bill.

Since July we cut down on the AC a lot... We have a gas dryer, gas range/stove, electric water heater and AC/gas forced air furnace.

Your computers, do you keep them on 24/7? If you do, try putting them into sleep mode or something.. So from July to October, the only things I've changed are using the Notebook PC much more often than the Desktop, and AC wasn't used at all.

[Potsman]

Check your rating on your air exchanger/filter. That may be one of your cuprits. If it is running continuously (as most seem to do depending on your humidity), it will eat a lot of power. When I looked at the power meter with it running vs not running, it was unbelievable.

Bewtween April to Oct, my avg usage was about 19 KWH per day and that is electric everything plus a swimming pool. My house size is 1250 sqft on the main floor.

[mymeowcat]

I have a 1000 sq. foot house with 3 people living downstairs and me living upstairs"
July=675 kWh
Aug:=627 kWh
Sept=691 kWh

4 computers on almost 24/7, 2 refridgerators, 2 TV sets along with washer dryer.

All CFC bulbs, TVs are present but hardly used, the is no air conditioning.

[Icedawn]

I have a 1000 sq. foot house with 3 people living downstairs and me living upstairs"
July=675 kWh
Aug:=627 kWh
Sept=691 kWh

4 computers on almost 24/7, 2 refridgerators, 2 TV sets along with washer dryer.

All CFC bulbs, TVs are present but hardly used, the is no air conditioning.

REALLY? Hm, I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

2 computers set to automatically s3 standby after 10 minutes of non use. I do have a laptop that's 24/7 though...

the heatpumps/ac are run maybe 1 hour a day.. usually they're switched fully off.

the BIG problem I do know about is that all my lights are halogen unfortunately. Could it be that this causes the massive electricity usage?

Ex - my dining room is 5x100w halogen sticks... living room is 9x50w halogen potlights, bathrooms/kitchen/foyer another 16x50w although these three are use minimally.

When I do the math... even if I assume 3 hours a day of dining/living room usage... 30 days x 3 hours x 1Kw/h = 90kwh... doesn't fully explain my numbers?

[myapple]

I don't understand why people leave their home computers on all the time...even when they're sleeping or at work.

For example, take a typical desktop computer with a 400W power supply. It won't always be under full load, so just assume it actually only consumes an average of 300W @75% load, that's roughly 2628 kWh per year when left on 24/7. Divide by 12, that's roughly 219kWh/month. :-0

[HammerRFDer]

Refrigerator?
Lots of baking/cooking?
mini-fridge?
Remember, both of those appliances generate heat (and maybe even humidity), which will then need to be removed by the a/c system.

I don't understand why people leave their home computers on all the time...even when they're sleeping or at work.
BitTorrent (especially now that you pretty much need to run your PC overnight when Sympatico is throttling during the "peak hours" of 4:30PM to 2AM)
Servers? IRC? MSN messages?

For example, take a typical desktop computer with a 400W power supply. It won't always be under full load, so just assume it actually only consumes an average of 300W @75% load, that's roughly 2628 kWh per year when left on 24/7. Divide by 12, that's roughly 219kWh/month
I found that my laptop used under 30 watts. I'm doubting a modern desktop even approaches 150w while under low (ie: majority of the time) load (remember, those CPUs can put out 60+ watts at full load). Thankfully, LCD screens are far more efficient than their CRT predecessors.

[cynick]

my desktop consumes 160W when in use, with couple of hard drives, 4gb of ram, and dual-core cpu..
when completely turned off (not standby), it consumes 5W, that's why I power it off from the power bar..
I have a dns-323 device that is always on, network connected, and it consumes 13W with one hard drive..and 6W when the drive is sleeping..

[B0000rt]

I don't understand why people leave their home computers on all the time...even when they're sleeping or at work.

For example, take a typical desktop computer with a 400W power supply. It won't always be under full load, so just assume it actually only consumes an average of 300W @75% load, that's roughly 2628 kWh per year when left on 24/7. Divide by 12, that's roughly 219kWh/month. :-0

Actually, PCs consume only about 100W of power when idling, less depending on specs. So really, cut your number by a third then recalculate..73kWh @ what ? 8cents a kWh in Quebec? $5.84. ;) Even then, here in Jersey i'm paying 13 + 6 = 19cents per kWh = $13.87 ;)

[mymeowcat]

REALLY? Hm, I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

2 computers set to automatically s3 standby after 10 minutes of non use. I do have a laptop that's 24/7 though...

the heatpumps/ac are run maybe 1 hour a day.. usually they're switched fully off.

the BIG problem I do know about is that all my lights are halogen unfortunately. Could it be that this causes the massive electricity usage?

Ex - my dining room is 5x100w halogen sticks... living room is 9x50w halogen potlights, bathrooms/kitchen/foyer another 16x50w although these three are use minimally.

I'd check into your AC, fridge or it could be some mysterious malfunctioning appliance or something

When I do the math... even if I assume 3 hours a day of dining/living room usage... 30 days x 3 hours x 1Kw/h = 90kwh... doesn't fully explain my numbers?

I used something called Kill-A-Watt as seen in this link: http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1223769822&sr=8-1

to measure consumption from everything. I put my 4 desktops with all periperals on a single power bar and turned everything on --- Kill-A-Watt measured it out to be 425 Watts which is not too bad.

Actually I do occassionally turn off 2 of the 4 computers depending on what mood I'm in...most of the time I forget to turn them off....the other 2 are file servers that I need to have running.

My Energy Star rated Fridge/freeze uses up 100 to 125 watts when running.

My 3 tenants living in the basement don't seem to be around often as they have wierd shifts and are out partying all the time...so they don't use much electricity.

I also actively try to save energy --- by doing things like unplugging unneeded appliances/ect when not in use to avoid ambient electrical use, keeping my freezer full, not using lights if possible, etc...

According to this: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html

The formula for electrical cost is ((Watts X Hours Used)/1000) * Cost per Kilowatt Hour so I think your calculation is quite accurate (30*3*950/1000=85.5 kW)

[BTron]

I don't understand why people leave their home computers on all the time...even when they're sleeping or at work.

There's actually a higher risk of failure on a computer if you turn it on and off all the time. Writing system setting to the hard drive before it stops spinning when turning off, starting it spinning from a standstill again when you turn it on, there's other stuff. Similar to how a filament light bulb will burn out faster if you turn it on and off all the time rather than just leave it on.

Not that I'm advocating this, it does waste power, I'm just sayin.

[myapple]

So I stand corrected, I guess desktops don't use anywhere near 300W. However, they can for sure use more than 100W. I tested my PC desktop using the kill-a-watt tool and it reads about 135-140W during idle.

Regardless, it is still a big waste of energy if you just leave it on when not in use.