How We Cut Our Electricity Usage by 85%

You read that right: 85%. My family of four uses, on average, 4.7 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day. Our electric bill never tops $32 per month. In the past we used just over 30 kWh/day, which is about average in the U.S., although there is huge variation. In our state, the average is over 36 kWh/day.

…Our journey started when our roommate moved out and took his clothes washer and dryer with him. I was seven months pregnant with my first child. I did not want to spend a huge chunk of change on white goods. I did not want to drive the production of more appliances, or pay to run a dryer, or heat up the house and the planet while wearing out my clothes faster.

We bought an Energy Star front-loading washer, but not the matching dryer. Even though we live in a very humid area. Even though I was planning on cloth diapering (eventually I cloth diapered two at once without a dryer). It’s not perfect. About twice a year when it rains for weeks or the cat pees on something, I take an almost-but-not-quite-dry load to the laundromat on my way somewhere else, and give it 75 cents’ worth of time in their dryer.

The rest of the time I hang our clothes on my handmade rack. Washer and dryer together use about 13% of household electricity, but the dryer uses over 9/10ths of that, so with one little change we reduced our impact by at least 10%. (Check out this graphic to learn about energy usage in your house.)

I like hanging clothes. It doesn’t take long. It’s a nice moment to quietly think, write something in my head, plan the garden or answer questions from small children. The clothes usually smell better, and they last much longer. I never get behind on the laundry because I don’t suffer from the illusion that I can do eight loads in a day if it piles up, which means, check it out: I never have to spend a whole day doing laundry! How cool is that! I just do a load whenever it’s nice enough, and it nearly always works out fine. If you think you can’t possibly swing it, you could still give it a try and find out for sure. A clothesline is cheap, and you don’t even have to get rid of the dryer, just pause for long enough to get the knack of hanging. I know somebody who hang dries even though she has ten children.

It’s the same deal all over our house. We choose to give a few extra minutes of our time or a little bit more thought and management in exchange for huge reductions in electricity usage. Flip that around: Americans use huge amounts of electricity to shorten daily tasks by a few minutes, or make them very slightly more convenient. All those negative impacts to the planet and our collective future, just to gain a few minutes, a smidge more convenience. If I chose that, I could think of no reasonable way to explain it to my children, who will have to live in that degraded future we all make by our choices today.

After we got rid of the dryer, we replaced the inefficient light bulbs. In a typical house these might be using 12% of power, while equivalent LEDs use 1/10th as much or less. Then we corralled the energy vampires, which waste up to 13% of total usage. The big computer screen we use for a TV is on a switch. It can be turned all the way off during the 22 hours a day it’s not in use, instead of continuing to draw power. We have just one of these because we’ve gotten rid of most of the machines that don’t truly serve us, but many houses have dozens of devices in this category. And if you have a leaky house, it’s worth another 10% to seal up cracks and add some insulation if you can afford to, especially in the ceiling. It’ll pay you back over time.

So, let’s add that all up. In a house that uses the average 30 kWh/day, these easy changes that don’t cost much in time, money or convenience could potentially save: 3 kWh/day on lighting, 3.9 on standby energy vampires, 3 on heating and cooling by reducing leakage, and 3 on the dryer. Converting those kWh/day to carbon and pocketbook savings, that’s 3.5 fewer tons of carbon put into the air every year, and a 43% reduction in the electric bill.

Close to half the electricity usage in an average house is heating and cooling, and after the cracks are sealed it’s not quite as easy to make more change there. Most of us are stuck with the houses we have and the systems already in place, but there is wiggle room. Lots of folks zone heat, warming just the rooms they’re currently in or just the ones that are used most often. Personal experience with my wood stove has taught me that a house that is different temperatures in different rooms and at different times of the day is much more comfortable than one that is 67 degrees everywhere always. Many people turn down their thermostats at night and in the winter. I know a family who does just fine heating to 65 degrees during the day and 55 at night. MORE