About a month ago, we moved into the new house. We’ve combined households and my mom is living with us. So we built a large house.
After a month the first full electricity bill is in and I was very impressed. Yes, I know, a sample size of one does not a successful experiment make, but it’s a good sign.
We went from a 1600 square foot house to a 4600 square foot house. We had one AC unit and now have two. We had an ancient fridge, now have a new energy star fridge. Single paned windows vs. double-paned windows. All incandescent bulbs vs. all CFL and LED.
Now we have set the AC in the new house to 78 instead of 74, but it’s still very cool in the house. Our last full electricity bill for the old house was $152. First full month for the new house was $144. And the temp was much higher for that full month in the new house.
It seems that older homes could really benefit from upgrading to double-paned windows, new, high efficiency AC units, and CFLs/LED bulbs. According to the LEEDS website, a home built in the last year will have half the utility bills of a home built even ten years ago.
One way to really reduce carbon dioxide is to simply use less electricity. These kinds of upgrades are one way to do this and it seems to really work.
UPDATE:
We’ve now had a full billing cycle and the results are amazing.
Water bill – Within $5 of each other, in the hottest part of the summer. The new house we have two water heaters and have been watering new sod twice a week all month long. In the old house, we had 1 water heater and never watered the lawn. I put the benefits squarely on the high efficiency dish and clothes washers and toilets. Oh and the new house bill includes garbage and recycling, the old one didn’t.
Gas bill – Within $7 and the new house was cheaper. The bill was for a full month in the new house and 20 days in the old house. The differences? The old house had 1 water heater and a gas oven/range combo. The new house has 2 water heaters (still set to ‘melt lead’) and an electric oven.
Electric bill – as stated above, almost exactly the same.
I’m very happy.
