If I can't have daylight, at least I can have warmth
A week ago we had a house meeting about winterizing Cacique, and on Sunday we taped or caulked any cracks around the windows downstairs and sealed them with plastic. Some people also sealed windows in their bedrooms. I then turned on the thermostat and set it to our agreed-upon program: 62 degrees from 11pm to 5pm, and 68 degrees from 5pm to 11pm.
We'll have to wait to see the heating bill to know if we're actually using less energy, but I'm optimistic. Last night it got down to 39 degrees, but when I checked the thermostat at 8 am, it was still 65. So the heat never kicked on last night, and the temperature only dropped by 3 degrees over 9 hours. I'm quite pleased.
I made a graph of Cacique's gas usage history, as far back as I can go (I took over all the bills in September of last year, and the bills from Washington Gas document the past twelve months of usage):
Yes, I'm plotting dollars and heating degree days on the same axis... and yes, I feel guilty about it. But the point is that I had to write a check for $529 last February, and I don't want to do that again. I honestly wasn't anticipating such high bills last winter, and it's not like we were comfortably warm, either. For those of you who pay for energy, does your gas bill (or whatever you use for heat) go up by a factor of 10 in the winter?
We'll have to wait to see the heating bill to know if we're actually using less energy, but I'm optimistic. Last night it got down to 39 degrees, but when I checked the thermostat at 8 am, it was still 65. So the heat never kicked on last night, and the temperature only dropped by 3 degrees over 9 hours. I'm quite pleased.
I made a graph of Cacique's gas usage history, as far back as I can go (I took over all the bills in September of last year, and the bills from Washington Gas document the past twelve months of usage):
Yes, I'm plotting dollars and heating degree days on the same axis... and yes, I feel guilty about it. But the point is that I had to write a check for $529 last February, and I don't want to do that again. I honestly wasn't anticipating such high bills last winter, and it's not like we were comfortably warm, either. For those of you who pay for energy, does your gas bill (or whatever you use for heat) go up by a factor of 10 in the winter?
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