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This house was built in 1991. It was supposed to be heated by gas. The builder came in and built some of these houses with Cadet electric space heaters. Because of that they had to increase the insulation in the house to meet the different code.
But it is possible to add more. It is also possible that the builder cheated with insulating the walls. I am just not sure that I want to remove sheetrock to find out. Over the years DH has had to do things in the attic spaces, and it has lightly compacted some of the insulation. So I will prioritize some more insulation. I need to replace the sky lights. There are much better options now.
We have maximum insulation- we are real farmers, and live in a MO-beel home, one of the ones the BPA subsidized in the early 1990s, with r-45 walls and R-90 roof insulation and triple-paned argon-filled Low E windows. Unfortunately, we have lost almost all the insulating qualities of the windows on the weather side of the house, so part of our temperature management is covering those windows against radiant heat loss with two or three layer drapes (all of them made by me, and rather eccentric in design, to say the least). But the BIGGEST energy savings was to shut down the electric forced air furnace and use nothing but oil-filled radiant heaters for winter heating. The next biggest was getting a front-loading washer, with additional savings on winter drying costs when we got a high-extraction one last year and cut dryer times for towels to 45 minutes.
We've had episodes of sudden high electrical usage over the years. The most traumatic was when the water heater was about ready to blow, and was leaking heated water at about a gallon an hour. Then there was the episode of the dining-room slider having a one-inch air gap when the wind was out of the south. That needs a real fix because it's just taped closed at the moment and makes all of my outside chores about 100 feet further round trip than they need to be. Twice the high bill was a result of a TV or CRT monitor nearing the end of its useful life and not actually turning off.
Your aquarium pumps might be at fault, too- which is a problem, because they're not covered by Energy Saver laws and it's hard to find out where to get cheaper ones.
Of course the really fun thing lately, speaking of pumps, was the primary pipe in the well nearly rusting through so that it leaking about half the water it moved. That is on a separate meter, and went from a maximum of $20 a month in the summer to $100. I used to be able to hear when stuff like that was going wrong (my side of the bed is directly over the waterline into the house) , but between traffic noise and a replumb of the waterlines that put me at the end of the line, I can't anymore.
Thank you for the input. I am now going to have to Google MO-beel homes though.
I do wonder about the insulating effect of these windows. I was told by a sales person, that the windows were shot. But he was a sales person, and the windows that he was selling were going to be over 10,000.00 not including the skylight, and garden window. I have also seen a report by one of the TV stations, that says we'll get a better return on the kitchen remodel, than the windows. I just don't want to choose. The kitchen cabinets are falling apart, so it's not very optional either. I do think that the Sliding glass door on the East side of the house may be a problem. We can take high winds from the east here, but our house is somewhat protected by the neighboring houses. I also have not really figured out the best drapes for that door. So I will keep looking at options.
The heat system here is only 4 years old, and is a high-efficiency heat pump system. It should be energy efficient. I just don't know that I am convinced. Our hot water, cooking, dryer, and the furnace are all gas. We don't buy our gas from PSE. The City of Enumclaw provides that utility. So PSE is still saying that I am using nearly twice as much power, as do the neighbors who all electric homes. The high efficiency heating system was installed, after the cost of running the gas fireplace became cost prohibitive. I was heating the whole house with the gas fie before then. The gas fireplace now needs another burner in it, and it's debatable if the stove is worth it, because the trim needs to be replaced also.
The washer is the low water, high extraction front loader, and it's only a year and half old. It did make a big difference on the water usage, but nothing noticeable on the electricity usage. I don't need to do as may loads either, but the washer does run longer cycles. It takes nearly 2.5 hours to run the dirty pee-pee towels. I have hard time with not sanitizing that load.
I will have to check the power consumption of the fish tank filters. I am running 2 large Fluval filters. I have been leery of running on just one, because the tank has probably too many large fish in it. It does take both filters to barely keep up these days. It may be worth just getting one large Rena filter. The Rena filters are much easier to clean, and manage. I have troubles cleaning the Fluval filters some days. Still it has to be less expensive to run one filter and clean it more often. At least I hope so. The carbon, and ammonia remover isn't getting cheaper. I may just need to find homes for my fishes, and eel. I would sell the whole thing if I thought anyone would pay for even a little of what I have spent on the set up. It wouldn't make me as crazy, if I could replace it sometime in the future, for same amount I can sell it for. I had another tank, but that is sitting unused rather than using energy to keep it running. I just wish I didn't love the eel some much. He has been learning to do a trick before he gets his dinner. I find that a lot of fun.
I hope this isn't too much over sharing. It's just that there isn't any point for others around the country trying to have input. My biggest question is whether or not everyone's power bill says that they use more energy than their neighbors do? If that is the case I can then just ignore that information.
