Annual power consumption at your residence?
Displaying poll results.17014 total votes.
Annual power consumption at your residence?
Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them?
Missing Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing Option (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing Option (Score:5, Insightful)
I chose it because I have no idea how much power I consume. I suspect that others acted similarly.
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hamsters? oh. haha. i read that as "CowboyNeal".
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Re:Missing Option (Score:4, Funny)
I was hoping for an "I am Al Gore, you insensitive Clod" option.
So that would be... 50000+.
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kWh is how you're billed for your power. Note, your electricity provider is called the "Power Company". There is more than one meaning for the word "power".
How powerful is your computer? Your car's engine? Your vacuum cleaner? A weightlifter? The President of the US?
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I honestly have no idea either... but the bill is a few hundred dollars a month. That's really the only part of it I care about.
Our net consumption!!! (Score:5, Funny)
At the end of the year, the mass and temperature of the house are about the same as at the start of the year. The net gain or loss of energy is quite small. Ergo, net consumption is negligibly small.
Re:Our net consumption!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
If the mass of your house increases by just 1 gram, using Einstein's theory, the energy has increased by "24 965 421.6 kilowatt hours"...
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Do you line your house with space heaters? "A few hundred" seems pretty high. I think we've only gone over two hundred once and that was the month my wife bought the AC powered massage-o-matic.
No, seriously, if you're at a "few" hundred, which I take to mean three, you should have an electrician look the place over unless you're running a server farm. Oh wait, this is Slashdot. Never mind.
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Do you line your house with space heaters? "A few hundred" seems pretty high. I think we've only gone over two hundred once and that was the month my wife bought the AC powered massage-o-matic.
No, seriously, if you're at a "few" hundred, which I take to mean three, you should have an electrician look the place over unless you're running a server farm. Oh wait, this is Slashdot. Never mind.
Perhaps he lives, as I do, in a place where running the air conditio
Re:Missing Option (Score:5, Informative)
He lives, as I do, on the US South coast (along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico). If you don't want all of your clothes to be moldy in a matter of days you must run your AC for 10-11 months of the year to keep the humidity down. Even if you keep it set in the 80's it's on pretty much 24/7 for 8 months out of the year. I run between $200-$300 during the summer months and I have a programmable thermostat which jacks the temp up during the work week. I even have numerous large trees which shade my house half the day which helps immensely. When it does get cold my bills average $100-$150.
Re:Missing Option (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is the clothes you are wearing. Cotton molds quickly. I have lived in Tallahassee Florida when I was a kid and now live in Japan. Florida has nothing on Japan with respect to humidity. When Americans come here I tell them not to bring much clothing -- just buy new stuff when they show up because anything they bring will get moldy.
I don't run AC here at all and I don't have moldy clothes. I don't even have a drier -- hang everything up. Sometimes it takes 3 days to dry (or more correctly sometimes it takes 3 days to get to a day that is dry enough to dry the clothes).
You can always find excuses, but these energy sucking machines aren't usually necessary. Personally speaking, I actually even prefer living this way now that I'm used to it. You just need enough heat/cold to prevent ill health.
Re:Missing Option (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Missing Option (Score:5, Informative)
"In English, the initial g of giga can be pronounced g (a hard g as in giggle), or j (a soft g as in its Greek root's meaning, giant).[3]
This latter pronunciation was formalized within the United States in the 1960s and 1980s with the issue by the US National Bureau of Standards of pronunciation guides for the metric prefixes."
Electricity, and gas (fuels) too... (Score:2)
The poll assumed that people can just add up the power of some appliances, divide by 1000 for kW, and multiply by the amount of hours it is on per year for kWh/yr.
I did just that (*click*). ... And then I remembered my gas stove, and gas powered boiler for heating and hot water.
So I completely screwed up my answer.
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I got a new meter about a year ago and it is reading "3617, -318". The negative number is the amount of kWh I've sent to the grid from my PV cells. So I call tell you how much my house used with a degree of accuracy!
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I know that I pay 135$ per month for electricity at my home, so 1620$ per year, and the price per kw/h is 0.07$, so this gives 1620/0.07=23142.86kw/h per year.
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how about none of your business?? I pay for it, so nobody should care. Besides, where is the 1.21 gigawatts option? It's almost Christmas time, I've got to keep the lights going to annoy the neighbors!
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Average Monthly Bill / Cost per kWh * 12
Turns out I'm over 5000 kWh. I have no idea how "good" or "bad" that is.
I generate my power with solar (Score:2)
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Consumption is consumption. It didn't ask where you got it, or if you bought it or made it, only how much you used.
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I'm guessing somewhere on the power bill each month it tells you your monthly amount, but honestly, does anyone look at that, and keep a running total to see how much they use in a year?
For that matter, does anyone actually LOOK at the bill for anything other than the amount to send in? I have levelized billing and just pay basically the same amount each month, so I don't ever really look at usage. I mean, it is like gasoline, I need it...I just p
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How would one even know how much power they use in a year?
I'm guessing somewhere on the power bill each month it tells you your monthly amount, but honestly, does anyone look at that, and keep a running total to see how much they use in a year?
For that matter, does anyone actually LOOK at the bill for anything other than the amount to send in? I have levelized billing and just pay basically the same amount each month, so I don't ever really look at usage. I mean, it is like gasoline, I need it...I just pay for what it costs without hardly looking at it...necessities of life and all.
yes, I do.
If I use more than 500kWh per month I go looking for the leech.
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500KWh per month? You're joking right? Do you live in a one-room shack with a single LED lightbulb and a Mac mini? I can burn 500KWh in about a week, sometimes less if the temp drops below freezing.
Granted, I have a fully electric house, but I live damn cheaply. I keep my thermo at 66F (thankfully I like it on the cold side), I am newly single so it's just me at the house now, I have all CFL bulbs and I turn off any light I'm not actively using, and I work two jobs plus consulting so I'm pretty much home on
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500KWh per month? You're joking right? Do you live in a one-room shack with a single LED lightbulb and a Mac mini? I can burn 500KWh in about a week, sometimes less if the temp drops below freezing.
Granted, I have a fully electric house, but I live damn cheaply. I keep my thermo at 66F (thankfully I like it on the cold side), I am newly single so it's just me at the house now, I have all CFL bulbs and I turn off any light I'm not actively using, and I work two jobs plus consulting so I'm pretty much home only to eat and sleep most days.
So please, in all seriousness, enlighten me with your power-miserly ways. Obviously I'm doing something wrong.
WTF dude? Get your appliances checked, _now_. Fridge, furnace, washer, dryer, dishwasher, stove, oven, water heater, everything. Or see if another house is tapped into your feed.
500kwh/week is bloody insane. It's over 71kwh/day, or the equivalent of running 1.65 typical US household circuits (120volt, 15amp) full-bore, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Nobody does that.
I've lived in all-electric houses. Several of them. With multiple people. None used anything close to 71kwh/day.
See also: http://www.eia.doe.go [doe.gov]
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You've got a lot to learn about electricity usage.
Your computer and space heater do _not_ use 2500 watts 24/7.
A typical space heater uses 600, 900, or 1500 watts, and doesn't run all the time (you hear that periodic clicking? that's the heater turning on and off as it reaches whatever you set its crappy thermostat to).
A typical computer at idle uses a couple hundred watts. Under full gaming load, it _may_ reach 800 _if_ you have a ridiculously powerful rig and are playing the latest games at full settings.
Y
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We use about 1000 including pumping and heating water for forty horses.
Yes. Using electric heat.
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Like I said, I have levelized billing....and pay I think about an avg of $220/mo or so. Considering that the AC down here in New Orleans clicks on in late March or early April, and doesn't go off again till maybe early Nov. (it was 80F here for Thanksgiving, so the AC was on again)...I don't bitch too much about that cost.
I generally turn lights off in rooms I'm not in...but I have several computers in the house that are all on 24/7...and when I'm home, pretty much every TV in the ho
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Actually, yes. I can tell you exactly how much (electrical) energy I've been billed for every month for the past several years. In theory this tracks closely with actual energy consumption. I can further tell you that my energy consumption from gas for heating slightly exceeds my electrical energy consumption, but they're quite close (within 1% for the past 12 billed months). My condo association dues include hot water, so my true energy consumption is somewhat higher, and specifically underestimates ga
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How do you know you aren't getting totally f****** on the "levelized billing" system? At the end of the year do you sit down and say "I paid this much x 12, and divided by the actual usage it's the same amount plus or minus some error factor" or do you sit down and say "i paid how much they told me"? Because you could be getting taken to the cleaners and not even know it.
I for one scrutinize my power bill for trends and averages, and look for ways to reduce consumption based on that knowledge. It's one t
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Since he paid it for an entire year before realizing what was going on he wasn't able to get a refund - the EULA states that by paying the bill you agree to the service.
So it's all legal if I spam a bill plus EULA to lots of people and a bunch of people pay me, and I even get to fine/charge them even more if they forget to pay later on?
How about this one: By responding to this post, you agree to give me USD100 every month, and howl at the full moon while hopping on your right leg at least once a month in a public place.
Power inputs? (Score:2)
Consumption is consumption. It didn't ask where you got it, or if you bought it or made it, only how much you used.
The question is quite inclusive, but consequently also a bit ambiguous. Everyone seems to assume it refers to consumption of electrical power, but the question is not so specific.
In electrical mains input, we consume about 12000kWh. However, the house has a higher total energy input since some of that electricity goes into a heat pump which produces about 4 times as much heat (transfers energy from outside atmosphere to inside house). This boost would appear to be an additional power consumption at the r
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How could I forget? I just replaced my oil furnace (with its $3 gal. oil) and 19 year old AC with a SEER 15 pack. (not living there yet, moving in a few months) With the $1500 tax credit, it will pay for itself in about 3 years, and pay me every year afterwards. Also adding even more insulation in key places. Should be able to keep the average bill around $100 a month or less for an all electric home with over 2200 sq ft. heated plus a 800 sq ft workshop (part of the basement) that is heated with wood.
A
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Power consumed = power generated by solar +/- (power taken from)|(contributed to) grid.
0-1000? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I am not sure if you are trying to be funny, but that is a range topping off at 1000kWh.
Re:0-1000? (Score:5, Informative)
Haha yes I was trying to be funny. But 1000kWh is not very much electricity for a whole year.
Maybe if you live in an apartment and don't do much cooking or laundry it would come out to that. A fridge is ~400kWh/yr [thegeoexchange.org]. A laptop could be 40W*3hrs*360days=52kWh/yr, and lighting could be 200W*8hrs*360days=576kWh/yr. So you might barely get in under 1000kWh. If you spend a lot of time outside the house, that would obviously be easier.
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WTF?
A small fridge like Liebherr IK-1504, which is big enough for a single person, needs around 140 kWh/year. 576kWh/year for lighting you mention is also way too much. My fish tank needs about that amount of power annually and it is a fairly large one.
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I have a small house (65 m^2), and last year I consumed a little over 600kWh. I have a regular 9-5 job.
My lighting is very minimal though: one 8 Watt CFL, with occasionally 2 additional 11 Watt CFL's if I need more light (and a bunch of 20 Watt spots that I use very seldom).
Other than that I have a laptop, a combo fridge/freezer of about 1m40 tall (no idea how much it consumes, but it's 5-6 years old), an electric cooking fire (generally only used on weekends), an ADSL modem/router (switched off when I'm no
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> do you live in a climate where air conditioning is not necessary,
There is no climate where air conditioning is necessary.
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I am not sure if you are trying to be pedantic, but the point is to ask why they listed "0-1000" when "1-1000" encompasses a smaller set and still includes all feasible responses?
I for one would have liked to see a 0 and a 1-1000, since there could be a portion of the /. population using no energy at home (aka they are literally off the grid) and signing in at a library or net-cafe. Finding out if they exist in any amount is more interesting to me than finding out who managed to live a whole year running o
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1000 kWh is an average of about 100 W continuously...
Or it's 1 kW, but only 10% of the time...
Very realistic for people who are away a lot, as the poll specifies "at your residence".
0-1000? Where's "-1000 to 0?" (Score:3)
Big solar array. But it all depends on which meter you're reading-- our net for last year was a little over 1000 kWh below zero. But if you just look at the meter that tells how much we used (ignoring how much we produced), it's a big number. Air conditioning in Arizona is a monster, even if you keep the thermostat at 82F.
I don't know. (Score:2)
How can we find out? :P
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Ever take a look at the electric bill?
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I don't pay the bills. :P
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I don't either. But I have seen them!
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then, I think, the answer is:
ask your mom.
she knows, or can find out.
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I took a swag as...
usually pay at least a hundred a month, so that's $1,200, plus I spend at least another hundred a month in the summer, so that's another $600, for $1,800
according to my utility's web site, I pay $0.12175 (middle rate of three depending on usage) per kwh, putting me about 15,000 kwh
ymmv
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I do remember elecricity bills going up to $200 during the Southern CA's summer times in the heat waves in this small house. :(
Translation (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Translation (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, best translation ever. Thank you!
I will point out, however, that my electric bill is significantly lower in my 3200 sq ft home than it was many years ago living in a double wide @ 1600 sq ft. On the order of 1/2 the bill for about twice the space, meaning it is 4x as efficient. Much of that is better insulation and newer heat pump, plus less environmental exposure, and much better windows. It does show that an electric bill isn't exactly linear with the amount of square footage you are using it in.
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I live in a desert and don't like heat stroke you insensitive clod!
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I chew about 9000 kWh and I live in a SMALL apartment. So that guide isn't necessarily very accurate.
Having said that, around 70% of that usage is heating. If I had natural gas heating rather than electric, I'd be in the 'apartment' zone, or maybe even the high end of the 'mom's basement' zone ;)
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2500-5000 kWh I live in an apartment
5000-10000 kWh I live in a house
Maybe I'm absurdly efficient, but I average 300 - 400kWh per month (which by my math puts me in your "apartment" category), and I live in a house... And to be honest, I could definitely be more efficient. I still have 10 incandescent lights that I use on a regular basis (dying to do something about it, but 8 of those are on dimmers, and no matter what they say on the packaging, I have yet to find a fluorescent that actually dims), My appliances aren't high efficiency, many of them aren't even all that new,
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10000-25000 kWh I live in a McMansion
Hmm, I used 10,895 KWH and I live in a small 3 bedroom house that I share with 2 other guys. We'd love to know how the hell it's a McMansion, but heck, you can come visit us and see. If you come in the winter, pack a sweater though because we use mostly electric heat (cheaper than diesel) and so the thermostat never goes about 60. New England -- it's *****ing cold during the winter and ****ing hot and humid during the summer. Just heating to 60 and cooling to 80 is easily 3000-4000KWH/year (more in the wint
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10000-25000 kWh I live in a McMansion
Just heating to 60 and cooling to 80 is easily 3000-4000KWH/year (more in the winter, less in the summer, by about a factor of 2).
There's your problem then - electric heating and bad home insulation. Alas, this is an agency problem: you'd have to convince the owners of the apartment building that it is advantageous for them to install better insulation, oil/gas heating and/or a heat pump...
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There's your problem then - electric heating and bad home insulation. Alas, this is an agency problem: you'd have to convince the owners of the apartment building that it is advantageous for them to install better insulation, oil/gas heating and/or a heat pump...
That's a joke right? This house was built in 1955 -- it's a teardown. There's a gigantic crack running down the foundation that precludes ever putting another dollar into it. It has a diesel-oil boiler for heat and hot water. And lead paint in the walls to boot. If this house were sold, it would be sold so someone could tear it down.,
The only thing keeping this house standing (and wasting energy) is the unintended result of rather strict environmental regulations that would make it a huge hassle to tear it
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50000+ kWh - Mad scientist at work
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Prefix those with "I'm an American and...". For Europeans, it's closer to half those values.
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In what way does that back it up?
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/gorehome.asp [snopes.com]
Stating that is just used as an Ad Hom attack used to try to deride the inconvenient truth. Nothing more.
the calculation (Score:2)
Re:the calculation (Score:5, Funny)
You presume that people
(a) know how much their average bill is
(b) know how much the utility fees and taxes are
(c) know what the average price per kWh is
One of the reasons I got married was so I wouldn't have to distract myself with such minutiae. Sex was deemed a fair price to pay for that convenience.
Consumed from the grid? (Score:2)
Absurdly useless poll (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought about how to collect enough information to answer the poll for about a second or two and then voted for the hamster option. Hopefully anyone attempting to compare answers will take into account that most people will only consider their electric power consumption.
We have a natural gas furnace, water heater and stove. Quite a few people have electric water heaters and stoves and some have electric baseboard or radiant floor heating. Their "power consumption" is significantly greater than mine even though we use about the same amount of energy (I'll ignore the cost of conversion from some other energy source to electric power). My electric bill usually drops to around $30 to $40 a month through the winter so I'm not using much "power" but has been close to $200 a month in the summer when the air conditioner runs. My natural gas bill does just the opposite (high in the winter; low in the summer).
And then there are people like my sister-in-law who heats her house with a wood burning stove. What's her "power consumption" when she's got the stove going? She also has electric baseboard heat which she rarely uses since it's much cheaper to burn wood in the stove but the two heat sources are complementary. That is, burning wood in her stove offsets a significant portion of her potential "power consumption."
Really useless poll.
Cheers,
Dave
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Just to complete the picture for you... We had Thanksgiving dinner with them. The main course was a venison roast. You can't beat meat that someone went out and shot to put on the table. Elk is tasty too but this year he got a deer.
Quite a few people live "off the grid" or make attempt to do so as much as possible. It just helps if you live in a fairly rural location.
Cheers,
Dave
17kWh/Day for me (Score:2)
My household of a family of 4 averages 17kWh/Day.
http://mrflash818.livejournal.com/101951.html [livejournal.com]
(17kWh/Day)*365Day/Year=6205kWh/Year
Therms to kwH conversion? (Score:2)
One therm is approx 29.3 kwH. I should have looked that up before I picked my answer. I just guestimated based on the electricity bill this month. Electric doesn't change month. Gas goes sky-high in the winter for obvious reasons.
Units... (Score:2)
Why do we talk about power consumption in units of kWh/year. Why not simply measure average consumption in kW (kilowatts)?
And why do we pay by the kWh and not by the MJ (Megajoule)?
Don't they teach everyone stuff like this in school?
Are we talking about electric only... (Score:2)
Missing option (Score:2)
What are these KiloWattHours of which you speak? (Score:2)
My residence is entirely powered by steam, which is as god intended, you insensitive clod.
Blame Dell... :P (Score:2)
Too much (Score:2)
But I noticed my bill going up quite a bit ever since I got Mac Pro. That thing dims the lights in the house when you turn it on
The other large consumer is the drier and washer. These go on a lot since we got the kids.
almost 4000 last year (Score:2)
at 0.4$ pr kWh i know damn well how much i use, and i write it down every month.
Stupid 75% eviromental taxes.
Wow (Score:2)
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Virtualization?
I mean, if you're running multiple servers because you're using up 100% of your CPU on each, you won't get any more efficient going "professional".
If you use multiple servers and they're idle most of the time, you really need to get started on some form of virtualization. Desktop, Jails, Hypervisor... seriously, it doesn't get much more efficient than that.
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"Pro" servers can save you a ton of energy either way... If you are pushing a half dozen single core P4 "server" systems to 100% you could put all that work on one quad core xeon 1u system and still have headroom (assuming you don't have an outrageous amount of i/o.) That alone would cut the energy use to 15% of what it was (6 servers to 1 server).
Now how long it takes you to recoup the cost of the shiny new xeon system is an exercise left to the owner/operator.
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I went the opposite direction, I discovered that it is cheaper for me to pay for a VPS then to run a server at home... in fact, due to the absurd pricing of internet plans with static IP addresses, I now pay less for a VPS and 15 meg ADSL then I used to pay for just my 2.5 meg ADSL with 2 static IPs
And I don't pay to power the server 24/7 either.
Sure I liked having the server at home, but this is cheaper, and gives both me and my server more bandwidth. Has the added side bonus of never having to worry about
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So the difference isn't in that area.
The difference is in where your "crown jewels" are stored. Depending on where you live and who you might offend, it might actually be safer to put your "crown jewels" in the "cloud" rather than closer to home.
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If my ISP drops me and my servers are local I still have my data. I can drop the servers in the trunk of my car and drive to another location, ahead of the authorities. Try doing that when the feds strong arm your provider in to turning off your VPS.
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"In physics there are no Switzerlands"
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But kWh/year is a unit of power. It's about 0.114 watts.
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Power consumption" is a measure of energy, just like "months of salary" is a measure of money.
You poor thing (Score:2)
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My utility company brags that we have among the cheapest electricity in north america at 7 cents per kilowatt hour.
What they don't tell you, is that the price of the electricity they charge you, and brag about, doesn't include getting it to you... for that I also have to pay:
- Administration charge
- Delivery charge
- Distribution charge
- Transmission charge
- Local access fee
And on top of that, they also have these more confusing items:
- Trans Access Defer Acct Rider
- Balancing Pool Allocation
(whatever those
Re:Help me out here (Score:5, Interesting)
100W is 0.1kWh per hour. There's 365*24=8760 hours in a (non-leap) year so 0.1*8760 = 876kWh/year. Here's the breaks after you convert them to an average power draw in watts (numbers are rounded):
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What are you talking about? That's obviously what the hamsters are for!
There's a very straightforward conversion factor to horsepower, and to do anything else remotely useful with it you only need to divide by gravity (~32 ft/sec^2) and take the circumcision of the British royalty's turgid penis.
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You're retarded.