Yesterday (Day three) brought a lot less usage on appliances, except when it came time for dinner. We traditionally aren't hot breakfast and lunch people (the thought of cooking breakfast only really sounds good at midnight the previous day), so it really wasn't much of a choice.
Dinner in and of itself was (again) done on the grill, except for a pot of rice that took all of 25 minutes on the stove to cook. It's really nice, actually, not having a bunch of pots and pans to do. Following dinner, I filled both sides of our double sink to wash the dishes and spent far less energy than the dishwasher would have, I'm sure (see article below on using the dishwasher vs. handwashing dishes.)
By using the light of the day, getting things done during waking hours, and planning when things will get done such as washing, drying, etc., things are falling into place around the house. The oven wasn't even on yesterday, sparing me my internal debate about whether or not something is broken with it, being as it takes (or seems to take) longer and longer to heat up.
The air conditioning was forced to run for about 5 hours yesterday; however, it was turned off about 10:00PM, before anyone went to bed, and has remained off since, so I'm not too concerned about energy usage from it.
However, today (Day Four) is washday, so we'll see how many loads of laundry it takes to keep this family in clean clothes for the rest of the week! Also, since the teenager of the house was gone most of the weekend but has now returned, the laptop is once again vying for full domination of the house, especially since youtube seems to be a favorite channel...along with the Zune that is constantly plugged into some system or another and blasting music that I fondly remember enjoying in my youth, despite its heavy-metal-ness and contstant instrumental solos that sound rather...painful.
Thank you everyone, have a good day! More on the currently family project tomorrow.
Showing posts with label oven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oven. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Day Two...and Other Updates...
Well, Day Two was, just like Day One, "not so bad", though I think, again, stove usage got us. The oven was on for about 1.25 hours or so while I baked some potatoes as a midnight feast for the hubby and myself. I did, however, do a steak and peppers on the grill, so that wasn't so bad.
I am, however, getting a little worried about the oven. It seems like it takes forever to reach temperature. I haven't timed it, so I don't know for sure. It could just be me agonizing over every minute that something is in production. Further updates as events warrant (as Calvin and Hobbes like to say...)
We also had to have the air conditioning on for a portion of the day, about 5-6 hours, since the daytime just got too hot and humid to deal with otherwise. After dark it got cool enough that we could turn it off, so we did, and it has been off ever since (and is still off into Day Three! Hooray!)
Now, about those updates.
The project was reset two days ago, and suprisingly enough that's about when the usual monthly regards came from DTE Energy, our local energy provider, not surprisingly demanding what feels like a king's ransom to an already-stretched budget. In fact, my husband and I joke that our budget isn't a budget, it's a dishcloth. We stopped stretching years ago when it became more efficient just to wring it out over two weeks and then add more.
This energy bill, however, was actually eagerly anticipated, as it would show us actual meter readings and let us know how much energy we had saved by unplugging our appliances, if any.
Well...as you can see, the family has managed to decrease its energy usage over the last 30 days by unplugging appliances. Our average usage per day of kWh decreased by 9%, from 34.9 to 31.6. This bill was also helpful in that we used the actual meter reading - 54655 - as the starting point for this 30 days, when we will do further experiments on usage and cutting down to see where we can save even more money and energy.
Okay, so I know that what we saved as far as energy doesn't seem like a lot, but hey, every little bit counts - especially when it counts towards the bill.
So, for now, we're enjoying a nice day without air conditioning, and hopefully we'll be able to say that we saved even more money at the end of the month! :)
I am, however, getting a little worried about the oven. It seems like it takes forever to reach temperature. I haven't timed it, so I don't know for sure. It could just be me agonizing over every minute that something is in production. Further updates as events warrant (as Calvin and Hobbes like to say...)
We also had to have the air conditioning on for a portion of the day, about 5-6 hours, since the daytime just got too hot and humid to deal with otherwise. After dark it got cool enough that we could turn it off, so we did, and it has been off ever since (and is still off into Day Three! Hooray!)
Now, about those updates.
The project was reset two days ago, and suprisingly enough that's about when the usual monthly regards came from DTE Energy, our local energy provider, not surprisingly demanding what feels like a king's ransom to an already-stretched budget. In fact, my husband and I joke that our budget isn't a budget, it's a dishcloth. We stopped stretching years ago when it became more efficient just to wring it out over two weeks and then add more.
This energy bill, however, was actually eagerly anticipated, as it would show us actual meter readings and let us know how much energy we had saved by unplugging our appliances, if any.
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| Energy Bill, August 2011, Page 1 |
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| Energy Bill, August 2011, Page 2 |
Okay, so I know that what we saved as far as energy doesn't seem like a lot, but hey, every little bit counts - especially when it counts towards the bill.
So, for now, we're enjoying a nice day without air conditioning, and hopefully we'll be able to say that we saved even more money at the end of the month! :)
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