The Self Reliant Home Real Time Energy Usage
Hot Water and Heat Pump Kilowatt Hours
Hot Water and Heat Pump usage are two primary sources of energy cost in our home. We have done alot to reduce the Heat Pump usage which will be documented in the Energy saving Ideas and Projects. We are currenlty working on charting total power as well as predicted cost in the months ahead. The chart depicts the cost of the water heater and heat pump for current billing period. Hot water exceeds my heat pump usage by a good margin. We have invested spray foam and ICF walls to keep the cost of heating and cooling down but haven't spent much money on alternative ways to heat our water. Once we get our grocery cost under control this will be the first thing we will look at to further reduce our energy costs.
Humidity Chart
This first chart depicts the real time humidity in our home. In our Healthy House Article category there is an article that explains how to keep your house at the right humidity level. The chart records the last 24 hours of humidity levels in the home and the attic. The humidity levels in our attic should track fairly close to the levels inside the house because of the way we sealed our attic with spray foam. Be sure to read the spray foam articles when they become available.
Temperature Chart
Our thermostat is set for 68 degress in the winter and 76 degress in the summer. Our thermostat also attempts to control the humidity in the home by running the air conditioner for longer periods than is required by the setpoint. The temperature in the home will actually ignore the setpoint by a couple of degrees whenever the humidity is out of control. Fall and Spring are especially challenging because it's hard for the air conditioner to run because the temperatures are usually not far from setpoint.