Poll

How much electricity (in kWh) per day does your home use when you are away traveling (on average throughout the year)?

Less than 0.5 kWh
0 (0%)
0.5 kWh to 1 kWh
3 (25%)
1 kWh to 3 kWh
5 (41.7%)
3 kWh to 5 kWh
1 (8.3%)
5+ kWh
3 (25%)

Total Members Voted: 12

Author Topic: How many kWh per day does your home use when you are away traveling?  (Read 22280 times)

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jlsoaz

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Re: How many kWh per day does your home use when you are away traveling?
« Reply #33 on: September 04, 2016, 10:40:27 AM »
no pilot light?

No.  Older pilot-light boilers can be less than 50% efficient, wasting quite a lot on just the pilot light itself!

Rgds

Damon

Good to know... I'm so behind on some of these things.

I am not sure where to post it (I had gone on about my own home/setup issues) but to avoid standing on procedure and just do a semi-irrelevant-to-this-thread shoutout, a comment from me as to my home setup:

- this week will be having some work done to modify a battery/inverter setup I had installed a few years ago.  Basically, when I had it installed, it was simplest (in terms of wiring) to power the whole house, but over time I have changed my mind and decided that I am not really going for off-grid at this time.  So, in my "hybrid" approach (on-grid, but capable of some limited islanding during an outage even if it extends over several days), it seems best to modify what I've done only to power the lower-power circuits plus the HVAC, as these seem like they would be more essential during an extended outage.

dnix71

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Re: How many kWh per day does your home use when you are away traveling?
« Reply #34 on: September 04, 2016, 11:32:57 AM »
I was forced to remove my solar panels because the owner's insurance complained. Since then I have been 100% on-grid. I still use less than 1kwh a day. Piped in city gas is used for cooking and hot water and I use a small box fan instead of a/c. I switched my Engel MT35 to 120vac from 12dc. I have a new energy-efficient washer and air dry my clothes on a wooden rack.

My bill is about $12.5 a month and 2/3's of that is account service fees and taxes. The absolute minimum bill for electric is now just over $10. My elderly neighbor turned her a/c on last month. I am younger and was born here so I have more tolerance for the heat/humidity in south Florida. If a/c wasn't available, south Florida would be empty in the summer like it was when I was growing up.

Mary B

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Re: How many kWh per day does your home use when you are away traveling?
« Reply #35 on: September 04, 2016, 05:55:49 PM »
Pilot light appliance are dinosaurs... they stopped making most of them back in the 90's!

DamonHD

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Re: How many kWh per day does your home use when you are away traveling?
« Reply #36 on: September 04, 2016, 07:34:59 PM »
Still too common in some situations.

We just came back from a holiday in the South of France, and we stayed in a mobile home.

It had incandescent light bulbs, and a propane instant water heater with pilot light.

And indeed all the places that we go on holiday in the UK also seem to be equally backward.

I do leave a comment on the feedback form.

It is especially silly having incandescent bulbs (and pilot light) blasting out waste heat when the temperature is 36C.  Ho hum.  Clearly energy remains too cheap, or they'd sort themselves out.

Rgds

Damon
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jlsoaz

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Re: How many kWh per day does your home use when you are away traveling?
« Reply #37 on: September 04, 2016, 10:36:46 PM »
I was forced to remove my solar panels because the owner's insurance complained. Since then I have been 100% on-grid. I still use less than 1kwh a day. Piped in city gas is used for cooking and hot water and I use a small box fan instead of a/c. I switched my Engel MT35 to 120vac from 12dc. I have a new energy-efficient washer and air dry my clothes on a wooden rack.

My bill is about $12.5 a month and 2/3's of that is account service fees and taxes. The absolute minimum bill for electric is now just over $10. My elderly neighbor turned her a/c on last month. I am younger and was born here so I have more tolerance for the heat/humidity in south Florida. If a/c wasn't available, south Florida would be empty in the summer like it was when I was growing up.

impressive attainment of low energy use numbers.  I live in a similarly hot climate (southern Arizona) but am kind of lax and use my A/C and other energy-hogs somewhat liberally.  When I'm not at the house, I've unfortunately had some mission creep as far as keeping the numbers down.... things kind of add up, so I guess I'm using a bit over 3 kWh/day when I'm not here.