Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Preliminary House Data

Here is some basic apples and oranges comparison. As with all statistics, you can bend them any way you want. We have some pretty good data from oil and electricity bills from our old house and only a couple months of data from bills in the new house for oil, gas and water.

Old house (average cost per day):
  • Oil: $9.90
  • Gas: $0.00
  • Water: $0.00
  • Electricity: $3.56
New house (average cost per day):
  • Oil: $7.32
  • Gas: $0.97
  • Water: $1.10
  • Electricity: $0.00
Totals:
  • Old: $13.46/day
  • New: $9.39/day
So far, the difference is approximately 30% so far for only a couple months of records. The 30% during the winter will drop once the clothes washer is moved. This will require more energy and water to operate. We also have had to dump a fair bit of electricity from past wind events that might be captured for later use. The savings should improve a bit more during the rest of the year as we start gaining energy from solar and reduce the need to run the generator.

Fundamentals

Old house:
  • Electricity (source: electrical grid/GVEA)
  • No gas service
  • Water (source: well, electrical pump)
  • Oil (domestic hot water and water baseboard heat)
New house:
  • Electricity (source: off grid, wind, solar, generator)
  • Gas (tanks, supplies oven and refrigerator)
  • Water (delivered, electrical pump)
  • Oil (oil burner for domestic water and radiant heat; generator)
While there is no cost for electricity from being detached from the electrical grid, the real cost for electricity shows up in oil use as burned by the generator.

Come back later when more data is available.