me&thegals
A Major Squash & Pumpkin Lover
Our friend with pellet heat loves it. It's beautiful and incredibly hot!
Good point about line drying. If you end up looking at wood or pellet heat, especially in your basement, you can line dry year round regardless of your weather. That saves us about 12 hours of dryer time every week.
Can you make sure your dishwasher is set to air dry rather than heat dry and that you get hot water running in your kitchen before starting the dishwasher? Otherwise, it has to heat up cold water to hot for the entire load.
I'd check out the hot water heater, too. Set it as low as you can go and insulate it. Check into insulating any hot water pipes that go through unheated areas of your house--like your basement.
Also, stoves and irons use a ton of electricity. I mostly buy clothes that don't need ironing. Hanging wrinkly clothes in a steamy bathroom helps take out some wrinkles. As far as cooking, when the oven is going I try to cram in as much as possible to make use of that energy. Crockpots are very low energy users. One crockpot running 1 day can make enough food for a family of 4 to eat quite a few meals.
Can you adjust the thermostat down? In our old LP-heated house, we had it set at 60, 62 when the kids were born. It's cold, but hey--it's winter
I always had hot drinks and 2-3 layers of clothes on, and turned it up when we had friends and family staying with us.
Same goes with air conditioning. We're all in and out all the time anyway, so we don't use our air conditioning unless people are visiting or we are in a seriously long hot spell and my husband is getting cranky.
Check insulation again. We recently had some mold develop in my son's bedroom ceiling. After a visit to the attic, it turned out there was no insulation at that spot, hence condensation. Insulation has a way of sagging and falling. Might be worth a check.
We've also found leaky spots in toilet-paper dispensers on outer walls and fan/light switches on outer walls, literally with a tiny breeze coming through them. Might be worth checking and caulking.
Electric tea kettles use way less electricity than the stove. I drink so much tea all day long that I bet I'm saving a ton that way. In fact, when we boil anything on the stove, we get the water boiling in minutes in the kettle, then dump it in our cookpot on the stove to continue its boiling.
So, good luck! Here's a link to a basic checklist, but I think you're already beyond this one. Might be a place to start, though.
http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/checklist.htm
Good point about line drying. If you end up looking at wood or pellet heat, especially in your basement, you can line dry year round regardless of your weather. That saves us about 12 hours of dryer time every week.
Can you make sure your dishwasher is set to air dry rather than heat dry and that you get hot water running in your kitchen before starting the dishwasher? Otherwise, it has to heat up cold water to hot for the entire load.
I'd check out the hot water heater, too. Set it as low as you can go and insulate it. Check into insulating any hot water pipes that go through unheated areas of your house--like your basement.
Also, stoves and irons use a ton of electricity. I mostly buy clothes that don't need ironing. Hanging wrinkly clothes in a steamy bathroom helps take out some wrinkles. As far as cooking, when the oven is going I try to cram in as much as possible to make use of that energy. Crockpots are very low energy users. One crockpot running 1 day can make enough food for a family of 4 to eat quite a few meals.
Can you adjust the thermostat down? In our old LP-heated house, we had it set at 60, 62 when the kids were born. It's cold, but hey--it's winter
I always had hot drinks and 2-3 layers of clothes on, and turned it up when we had friends and family staying with us. Same goes with air conditioning. We're all in and out all the time anyway, so we don't use our air conditioning unless people are visiting or we are in a seriously long hot spell and my husband is getting cranky.
Check insulation again. We recently had some mold develop in my son's bedroom ceiling. After a visit to the attic, it turned out there was no insulation at that spot, hence condensation. Insulation has a way of sagging and falling. Might be worth a check.
We've also found leaky spots in toilet-paper dispensers on outer walls and fan/light switches on outer walls, literally with a tiny breeze coming through them. Might be worth checking and caulking.
Electric tea kettles use way less electricity than the stove. I drink so much tea all day long that I bet I'm saving a ton that way. In fact, when we boil anything on the stove, we get the water boiling in minutes in the kettle, then dump it in our cookpot on the stove to continue its boiling.
So, good luck! Here's a link to a basic checklist, but I think you're already beyond this one. Might be a place to start, though.
http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/checklist.htm
) leave the north side drapes drawn all day, probably the E and W side ones too, but open all the S side window coverings so that you get maximal solar heating. Remember to close again at night. If you have just gauzy curtains or miniblinds or etc, replace with proper drapes that do a better job of limiting heat exchange and air movement. 
