I just went through a page on SMECO's site to determine where the electricity gets used. There were no surprises. But I can never convince hardly ANYONE that over-use of *light-bulbs* ISN'T the culprit. In fact, leaving lights on will only seriously incur increased costs of replacing bulbs.
SMECO's summer rate is 6.32 cents per kW-hour. This means if you left a 100W bulb on all month long and never turn it off, it'd cost about 4.50. That nothing to sneeze at, to be sure - but when you're talking 2-300 dollars, it obviously ain't the problem.
And it identifies the culprits - heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, dryers, hot water. If you have a drafty old house with poor insulation and have older, inefficient appliances, you're paying for that. Going around the house turnning off lights, but keeping the house an oven during the winter or an icebox in the summer is wasting your time. Even such things as leaving the computer on all the time isn't as big a problem as you might think, since most computers have a low-power standby mode anyway.
I'm not even going to mention what our bill was.
One thing I'm unclear on its overall usefulness: I've heard varying degrees of opinion on these: overhead fans. Supposedly, by the cooling effect of the fans, the home FEELS cooler, hence, less need to keep the thermostat down. In the winter, the hot air that rises to the ceiling gets forced downward (although why this isn't a factor in the summer, I can't guess). What I don't get is the need to keep them on 24/7. It seems to me that ceiling fans are useful in rooms that you are *IN*. They don't do any good in a room where you don't spend any time in, because the air isn't blowing directly ON you when you're not there.
I use flourescents where possible - we had one of those SMECO energy audits, and they gave us coupons for flourescent bulbs (among other things). But flourescents are STILL too big for most outlets, and they're ugly in places where the bulbs are visible.
I spoke to an ex-boss yesterday who told me that when she upgraded her heat pump to a very high efficiency model - not simply waiting for an IN-efficient one to outright DIE - she told me her costs were cut by a THIRD. Another friend said something similar with a programmable thermostat. The energy audit provides enough coupons to add insulation and a programmable thermostat ALMOST for *free* - the rebates are THAT high.
QUESTION: Where do you buy a new heat pump? And who do you consult in the event of a large system (currently, our house has TWO heat pumps)?