The chill is forecasted to reach soon and I am not ready to embrace my winter heating bill. Start throwing open your south facing window shades. Clean the windows to maximize heat gain and shut shades at night. Even W and E windows can give some heat.
Now is the time to fire up the oven, but do so wisely. I aim to cook enough for at least 2 meals. Typically I will bake and roast vegetables (throw a few potatoes in) or make a casserole and immediately follow that with a tray of muffins (my oven has 1 useable rack, everything on the bottom burns). When I do bake small scale, I have a convection toaster oven that uses half the energy of an electric stove.
Electricity in our area is about 18 cents once you figure out all the add ons to the base kWh price, depending on your electrical supplier. Gas is 69 cents/ therm in the plan we are in. Based on these figures, here is what your heat producing appliances are costing you:
Electric oven 36 cents/hour at 350F
Gas oven, 8 cents/hour, plus if electric ignition, 7 cents every time you start it.
Crockpot, 12 cents/hour
Microwave, 15 min on high is 6 cents
The variation changes based on kWh and gas prices for us, but looking at these details made me stop boiling water on the stove for tea (7 cents plus gas used) and instead use the microwave, which can boil my water for less than a penny. I have 3 cups a tea a day on average. In other words, I just saved $76.65 over the course of a year. Little changes add up to big savings and keep you on course. $76.65 is just shy of what I budget for a night at a hotel on vacation.
Love it! Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much the instant boiling water that you install next to the tap costs to use. That's what I have been using for my hot beverages/soups.
ReplyDeleteIf you have Insinkerator, it is .52 kWh per day, plus .02 kWh per 8 oz of water. What is your per kWh rate, including all taxes and fees? In Md, it would be 9-10 cents/day. I think you can fit it in your budget ;)
ReplyDelete