Here is a real time graph of my household electricity use. I’m sharing this so that over the next few months I can share a few tips on trying to save energy around the home. I’ll be posting a guide on how I got this set-up. In the mean time, here are some interesting things I’ve noticed:
1. We seem to have a raft of appliances around the 2.4 kW mark. The kettle, cooker, dishwasher and dryer all seem to use about this much.
2. Our kitchen lights use a lot of power. 6 small spotlight bulbs managed to use just over 200W between them.
3. Lights use a surprising amount of energy! We have just moved into the house, and all the lightbulbs are the standard power-hungry filament bulbs. So as they all die hopefully we’ll be able to see energy reduce as we switch to energy efficient bulbs.
Use your up/down keys or mouse scroll to zoom in/out. The Home key takes you back maximum range. Double-click on a point to zoom in maximum.
A few things to note:
1. Although I am a full-time partner at PlentyWays.com, and our main office is in Laguna Hills CA, I am currently living in Dublin, Ireland. The wonders of the digital age! Therefore the machine I use to record my 230V house electricity usage is a monitor called CurrentCost. There are similar devices compatible for use in the US, some of which we will review on our site soon.
2. The house is a 2 story, 2 bedroom (+ box room) house about 700 sq ft in total. Just my fiancee and I manage to consume all this power.
3. Heating is gas, but cooker is electric. Shower runs off the gas heated water tank, dishwasher is cold feed. I’m looking around for some gas/water usage monitors and if I find any I’ll add that data too.
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