I’m a big nerd. You all know that. So I’m about to share some nerdy stuff.
I track energy consumption month by month for the places I live. I don’t do this for the cars because it would take additional work to split out car washes and soda from the fuel purchases. I *have* noted that $3/gallon appears to be some sort of mental threshold that causes me to drive a lot less. Also, when I’m out of town for a straight month – our auto fuel bill goes way down.
Anyway: I’ve got data for three full years from the house in Rhode Island, and one full year for the apartment.
| Year | Kw/h consumed | Gal Water | Gal Heating Oil | CCF Natural Gas |
| 2004-05 | 10,254 | 5,100 | 915 | 0 |
| 2005-06 | 8,791 | 9,600 | 868 | 0 |
| 2006-07 | 8,595 | 6,000 | 994 | 0 |
| 2007-08 | 8,895 | 2,749 | 0 | 271 |
I know from experience that it takes about a year to get a place tuned up to use “less” energy. Energy Star appliances, compact fluorescents, and upgraded insulation are totally worth it. Also, one really hot summer or really cold winter can mess up your averages a lot.
That said, here are my impressions:
* I’m starting about 1,500kW/h ahead for being in an apartment vs. my old house. I also have central AC, so I need to monitor its usage to keep it down, rather than sweating until I decide it’s worth it and turning on the AC. I’m confident that with the tuning up I’ve done so far this year, we’ll get that annual total electric usage for the apartment down to the 8k level, if not lower.
* I saw electricity in RI start out at $0.125/kWh. It rose to about $0.19 by the time we moved out. In MA, it’s about $0.14 right now.
* The extra water at the house is mostly garden, I think. Water in RI bills at an average of $0.05/gal. In my apartment in Braintree, it’s running $0.13/gal. The extra cost seems to be incurred because they make Braintree water taste really bad.
* If I assume that heating oil provides 138,700BTU/gallon, and that natural gas provides 1031 per cubic foot, then I get an average of between 1.2E+8 and 1.61E+8 BTU to heat the house (and hot water) for a year, vs. 2.79E+8 BTU to heat the apartment (and hot water) for a year. Yikes! On the other hand, natural gas is giving me a nice consistent $2.22E-6 per BTU, vs $2.28E-5 at the end of owning the house. I guess my old heater really was pretty damn inefficient, and that heating oil really did go through the roof.
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