Thank goodness for some cooler, non-humid weather! Now we don't have to run that big honkin' air conditioner in the dining room window for 12 cents per hour. Imagine - $1.20 to run that thing for 10 hours.
What? You don't have that kind of data on your major appliance energy consumption and cost of use? Well, obviously you don't live with a member of The Energy Patrol.
He's on my heels daily -- turning off lights, ceiling fans, monitors,... All I need to do is step out of a room for a moment; when I return, energy consumption has been reduced to 0 kilowatts, or as close to that as possible.
We have these little doo-hickeys, yes that's the technical term, into which you can plug electrical items, and they keep track of energy consumption. For a while, the refrigerator was plugged into one of these doo-hickeys. Off the top of my head, I don't recall what that's costing us, but I'm looking out for the day when the fridge has to go because it's costing us so much to operate. Can't wait to live out of a picnic cooler! Well, at least we'll be able to make ice blocks in our chest freezer, which I think costs about $25/year to operate.
There are 2 lights above our fireplace, and I like to have them on in the evening when I'm reading. If I leave the room to grab some laundry or do something in the kitchen, when I come back the lights will be off. I don't know what it's costing us for me to read by light, but it's a little something that I enjoy. I wonder if someday I'll be reading by candle-light?
You think I'm exaggerating? This Energy Patrol Officer would like to hook me up to a machine to generate electricity while I blog. I don't know how much energy the computer uses, exactly (I'm sure my resident officer knows), and I'm not opposed to burning calories while I blog and/or work.
However, I think that we should find a way to capture the energy released when he snores and convert that to electricity; now that would be $ in the bank.
LOL!!! Please don't tell my hubby about those do-hickeys. My whole house would be shut down.
Posted by: vw bug | Thursday, July 07, 2005 at 07:57 AM
We can visit each other in our tents!
Posted by: Marie | Thursday, July 07, 2005 at 05:36 PM