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How much electricity do you use?


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Here in Aus it seems to be a national pastime to complain about the cost of electricity but since being back in Aus I've found electricity here to be pretty cheap, at least compared to Japan. From what I can tell though it's not that Aussies pay that much for electricity it's that they use so god damned much of it.

We now live in the biggest house we've ever owned and as it was built prior to gas being connected to the town everything is electrical. We also have for the first time a dishwasher and as we live in quite a cool and wet part of Aus we have to use the clothes dryer quite often. Anyway we're probably using more electricity now than we ever have in the past.

 

Our daily consumption on our last bill was 9.5 kWH per day. On the bill they advise what the average usage is for different size households;

 

1 person - 12.4

2 person - 14.8

3 person - 17.1

4 person - 19.5

 

These figures are for households without a swimming pool. Assumedly those with one use much more.

 

So even though we're a 3 person household we are using almost 25% less electricity than the average 1 person household. And 45% less than the average 3 person household. I just can't quite understand how they're using so much! Anyway how much do you guys use?

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We seem to use just under 300 the last few months.

It used to be a chunk more actually.

I think all the new stuff that we bought is using less of the stuff. We certainly aren't using less from our point of view, I would guess more lights and things.

Good to see it less though.

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We have time-based metering, so we don't get a single total. At this time of year, we use about 300-350 kWH a month combined for the day peak and morning/evening zone, plus 200 to 250 more overnight, which will be the water heater. That might sound a lot but its the equivalent of 25 litres of kero. For a 200 litre home kero tank feeding a boiler, that would be one fill up lasting eight months.

 

We've got three kids.

 

We don't use gas or kero. I work at home, so I'm usually around during the day and there'll be a cooked lunch and umpteen cups of tea and coffee in there too.

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About 300 kWh/month for us, family of 3 -- or 4, if including the dog. (And the dog is responsible for most of the aircon bill in the summer, since nobody else is at home during the day then...)

 

Though we also have gas for cooking and hot water. Average monthly bill is half electricity, half gas.

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We used 290kwh last month and our house is all electric.

But this time of year no heating system being used and no aircon.

Was under 7000 yen but we will get some or all of that back if not more back then we paid because we have solar panels on our roof.

Mind you with all the cloud we have had I dont suppose those panels have been working to full capacity.

 

In winter we are using a lot lot more electricity for the heating system.

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Ours has gone up quite a bit since the disaster and around 15,000 now. Its double in winter, but that includes some of our heating too. The rest comes from firewood.

 

Its way better than the Bubble era house we lived in before. The electricity bill there was the same, with a huge toyu bill on top for hot water and heating. Plus a couple of thou a month for gas for cooking.

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Friend of mine has solar panels on the roof and they keep on telling me how much they generated in a day, so seems they are on top of the info!

 

Just under 300 here too.

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Yes we have a little display that tells us how much electric we produce and use.

It has bar charts and tables which can be used to show the months totals or week,day, or hourly usage / storage.

 

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I don't know..... I just stand outside staring at the meter spinning like an old 45 record yelling at the top of my lungs...."Somebody turn something OFF..!!!"

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I must admit I had no idea how much we used until I noticed our last bill on the kitchen bench (my wife normally takes care of all the bill payments). I was just amazed at how much less we were supposedly using compared to the average Aussie family. We do have a solar hot water system which I guess saves us quite a bit and a slow combustion wood heater for winter. Plus as we live so close to the beach we normally get afternoon sea breezes which cool the house down in summer meaning we rarely need to use the aircon.

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