Has the new furnace lived up to its billing

Posted on February 21st, 2008 in energy savings, furnace, green, home improvement by homeimprovement

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I purchased a new furnace back in November. Let’s do a quick and dirty comparison of last year to this year on gas bills.

Nov 06 - 39 Ccf - Nov 07 - 14 Ccf

Dec 06 - 45 Ccf E - Dec 07 - 57 Ccf Estimated

Jan 07 - 56 Ccf - Jan 08 111 Ccf

Feb 07 - 53 Ccf Estimate - Feb 08 - 89 Ccf Estimated

March 07 - 128 Ccf - March 08 - 127 Ccf

April 07 - 35 Ccf - April 08 - 78 Ccf Estimated

Well it appears we’ve been using quite a bit more natural gas this winter. We have been keeping the thermostat at around 70 and one of us is generally home all day. Last year, we kept the thermostat at around 65 or so. Let’s look at some other factors as well.

Here’s electric usage for last year and this year

Nov 06 806 KWH - Nov 07 800 KWH

Dec 06 1200 KWH - Dec 07 1152 KWH

Jan 07 1258 KWH - Jan 08 1164 KWH

Feb 07 1677 KWH - Feb 08 1311 KWH

Mar 07 - 1322 KWH - Mar 08 1716 KWH took a beating in March!

Apr 07 1027 KWH - April 08 ???

So while natural gas consumption has gone up, electricity usage has dropped way down. Notice the huge drop in February. Also, I believe the date of the bill actually reflects usage for the previous month.

Why the change? Last year, we kept the old furnace at around 65 and relied upon portable electric heaters to heat the rooms we mainly used. This year, our reliance on electric heaters has dropped significantly (at least in the house). On top of that, I converted my garage into a full time office and despite heating that solely with electric heaters, my electric bill has fallen. Perhaps my garage was not as tough to heat as I previously thought.

I also imagine the furnace’s blower uses a lot less electricity than my old furnace’s blower. I’ve recently replaced several incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs so will see if that has a further impact on the electricity bill.

Stay tuned for my new water saving shower head report. This shower head saves water, delivers a full spray and doesn’t cool the hot water as it delivers it to you.

Comments are closed.