January 2013 Bill Results...Another Big Reduction

A pic of my dog enjoying his new Xmas chew toy.  Yes, those are my super awesome slippers.  They certainly help keep the cold floors away from my toes!

Hello folks-

The holidays have past and so has another year of energy savings.  My Duke Energy Bill was not quite like a Christmas gift (Hey Duke...a great gift would have been NO BILL...hint hint) with the results posted below:

January 2012 Bill
Power Usage:  1,318 kWh
No. of Days:  33
Average Daily Consumption:  39.94 kWh/day
Bill:  $121

January 2013 Bill (Dec 3 - Jan 3rd)
Power Usage:  940 kWh
No. of Days:  31
Average Daily Consumption:  30.32 kWh/day  (24.1% reduction from 2012)
Bill:   $95.84
Absolute Bill Savings:  $25.16
Rate Adjusted Savings ($0.102/kWh): $50.47

I gotta say...wow.  I never expected this...especially since last year we were fully into the Geothermal.  My power usage was the same as last month at 30.3 kWh/day...I'm consistent.  It does make me wonder...let's check the Heating Degree Days (HDD's) from NOAA:

Dec 3 - Jan 3 2012
No. of HDDs:  533

No. of Days:  33
Average Energy Usage:  39.94 kWh/day
Average kWh/HDD:  2.45 kWh/HDD

Dec 3 - January 2013
No. of HDDs:  538

No. of Days:  31 

Average Energy Usage:  30.32 kWh/d
Average kWh/HDD:  1.75 kWh/HDD (28.8% reduction from 2012)

So, there was just as many HDDs as last year...and actually its more given that there's 2 less days.  Yet I had less Energy consumption, so I guess some of my energy reduction projects are paying off.  Most likely the GE Geospring ASHP water heater is really helping given that its this time of year (Brrrr...cold) that a lot of hot water is being used.  But I'm sure some of my other projects are helping out too:

1)  HTPC Upgrade
2)  New Fridge
3)  Better Controlling Ecobee Thermostats  (My HVAC installer is now an authorized Ecobee Installer...He liked my setup so much he signed up!)

Below are some pics from my Ecobee Home IQ for the month:

Downstairs Ecobee Information

Upstairs Ecobee Information

I will say that this Ecobee information is pretty useless to me as is.  I'm got lots of questions for Ecobee.  Such as the stars...how can 1 part of my house be 1 star and the other be 3 stars?  Especially if both systems appear to run identical hours!  And I have the same house information for each thermostat!  And yes, my system runs 68% more than a typical system in my area (BTW...what is my area?)...it's a heat pump...it will always run longer than most conventional systems.  Not to mention it was sized correctly so it will always run longer (closer to optimum) which is its maximum efficiency.  Not to mention, if you're comparing my geothermal heat pump to a furnace, my system will always run longer.  My system doesn't blast out 120F air for 5 min then turn off.   If you notice my average house temp set point is 65F.  That's pretty awesome!  I could let it go less, but there's no reason to.  That's because my house never cools lower than this temp.  Check out the pic below from my Ecobee:

Upstairs HVAC runtime information via my Ecobee Thermostat

First off...let me say that the information above is what really makes the Ecobee spectacular. OK...if you look at the graph above you'll see that when my house cools my system just barely goes below 65F before its called to start heating to meet a "I'm home" set point.  It appears yesterday though that it had to turn on once for about 5-10 min...shame.  Overall, my system doesn't even turn on until it's needed...so a set point of 65F works.

My next project will be installing XPS insulation on my crawl space walls and the rim joists.   My downstairs wood floors are pretty dang cold and insulating the crawl space walls and rim joists should significantly help it...at least that's what people say.   I'm still a little skeptical given that I feel like insulating the floors themselves would be best...although i guess insulating at the source makes sense too. 

A side note to this...I used my handy Black and Decker  thermal leak detector to check out the temperatures in the crawl space.  On a 26F morning...I found that my brick walls which are exposed to the air were somewhere around 38-41F (some small corners registered at 32F!).  Very cold!  The walls that were not exposed (i.e. underground) were 50-55F...so 10-15F warmer.   The crawl space air itself was 59F.  So apparently if I insulate the walls, while letting in a little HVAC air (just a smidgen) I can keep the crawl space significantly warmer which will make my floors warmer.

That should be fun.  When I finally get around to it, I'll post a bunch of pics to show how I did it and hopefully include results...unless we have another freakishly warm January/February like last year.