I recently bought a house, a brand new house and moved my family of three in there. Given that the house was new, we had the option of selecting our own lighting fixtures and appliances all throughout the house. Being a responsible individual, I was focused on protecting the environment while saving money at the same time. Therefore, I purchased items that were energy efficient (energy classes A, A+, A++, A+++). This helped a great deal with the electric bill. Now after some months of living in the new house I can safely say that I am happy with the way I am managing my energy usage.
Based on the current running consumption for the entire house I can say that my monthly cost so far with energy for a 4 bedroom/4 bathroom 170 square meters house with 3 people living in it at 47.8 EUR per month. Pretty sweet I would say. That’s based on an actual cost of 0.14 EUR per kilowatt-hour (kwh) and a current running rate of 275 kwh per month. The house has everything already installed. Given that the testing was done in wintertime, AC’s were not used much during the testing time. Prior to this home I stayed in a house of about 190 sqm in which was built circa 2008 (with all the appliances from that time). The house was fairly smartly built, so still efficient but not as efficient as my 2018 house). The monthly bill was about 65 EUR. Prior to that house, I stayed in another home built in around 2008 for about the same 210 sqm. Now this house was not efficient, the house would run my electricity in the region of 85 EUR per month.
So, returning to my house: I wanted to understand exactly how my electricity bill for 275 kwh per month gets broken down in a modern house with all the appliances. For that I bought a power socket able to measure each appliance’s consumption. To buy one is not very expensive, you can get a good one for as low as 15 EUR.
Here is how it looks:
With this, I was able to pinpoint exactly how much each consumer comes up to. Althugh these numbers relate to my house and the appliance that I have in my house, it would give you a really good gauge for what it means for any modern house of similar size.
So, let’s break it down for each source of energy consumption without further ado:
Interestingly, the top consumers are: combo washer/dryer and refrigerator. This is not unexpected for a family of three. Also, you can see what you can eliminate.
Here is also a breakdown per each household main function, as follows:
Obviously a house in winter time (when compared with winter time) will incur higher costs with heating (in my case the natural gas bill is higher). On the flipside, the costs relating to cooling the house (AC units) are effectively zero. Expect a larger electricity bill in summertime (for the usage of AC) offsetting the lower natural gas costs. Depending on your climate, it is obvious that is going to cost you less in winter (if you live in a warmer climate) or less in summertime (if you live in a cooler place).
Further, I have currently two cars with conventional gas engine. I anticipate in the next three years one of the cars will be replaced by a BEV (battery electric vehicle). In light of this, is it worth putting solar panels on my house, is the cost justifiable? That will be the subject of a coming article. Stay tuned.