April Bill - Good and Not So Bad?

Howdy Readers-

Another month has passed (roughly) since my last post.  Time sure flies by doesn't it?  Well, it's been a COLD spring so far down in the Southeast US.  Only in the past week has it finally been above 60F consistently.  I say this as I glance outside where its supposed to be a high of 48F, gloomy, and rainy all day.  *UGH* 

Although the forecast does call for sun this weekend with temperatures in the high 60s.  Yippie!

So...let's see where we ended up this month, shall we?

April 2012
Total Energy Consumption:  704 kWh
Number of Days:  32
Average Daily Consumption:  22.0 kWh/day
Heating Degree Days:  117  (note:  only 14 days actual had HDDs)
Energy Consumption per HDD:  2.63 kWh/HDD (based on 14 days)

April 2013 (Mar 4 - Apr 2)
Total Energy Consumption:  737 kWh
Number of Days:  29
Average Daily Consumption:  25.41 kWh/day
Changed versus previous year:  -15.5%
Bill Savings vs 2012 Consumption:  -$0.52
Heating Degree Days:  444  (note:  28 days actual had HDDs)
Energy Consumption per HDD:  1.60 kWh/HDD 
kWh/HDD Savings vs 2012:  39.1%

OK...so at first glance, I did worse than last year.  I used about 16% MORE energy, but luckily it only cost me a whopping $0.52 more.  I think I can deal.  However, when you factor how cold it was this year as opposed to last year, then I'm doing just fine.  If I include the HDDs, I was roughly 39% MORE EFFICIENT than last year. 

 I will say that this was tricky to look at because I had to make an "executive decision" on how to quantify days that had zero HDDs.  For the month of April 2012, if I included all 32 days in my calculation, then it would have said I used ~6 kWh/HDD.  Yes, that's a valid number, but its highly skewed because for nearly most of the month had no heating was needed so it's only looking at my "base" consumption at the time.  So that doesn't give a good indication.  So instead I only used the number of days an actual HDD was recorded.  I did the same for my 2013 values.  This brought the values more in line for as shown below:

2011-2012
12/2011 = 2.16 kWh/HDD
01/2012 = 2.45 kWh/HDD
02/2012 = 1.90 kWh/HDD
03/2012 = 2.14 kWh/HDD
04/2012 = 2.63 kWh/HDD

2012-2013
12/2012 = 1.82 kWh/HDD
01/2013 = 1.75 kWh/HDD
02/2013 = 1.73 kWh/HDD
03/2013 = 1.45 kWh/HDD
04/2013 = 1.60 kWh/HDD

OK...so this makes sense to me.  I'm trending as expected.  So I'm going to consider this a "minor" victory. 

I really don't have any energy efficiency projects in the near future.  Closest that once could even consider may be new window shades in the upstairs.  As we prepare the nursery for the arrival of our twins, I would like to put in some nicer shades than the cheap versions (old school pull down things that I can never get it to stay when I pull it down).  I was thinking about window films.  I tossed in an example link.   I get a little security benefit from it (you can't just smash a window anymore as the window film holds the glass in place...at least for a little while) not to mention some privacy too.  An then there's the potential energy savings too.  We'll see...I contacted my local firm to see how much it would cost.  I'm just curious right now...but if the price is right, I may do it.    I'll let y'all know...