It’s that time of the month again – electric bill time!  It’s ok, settle down.  Try to hold on to your applause until the end, ok?  My April electric bill is the sixth since I purchased a new house last year.  I’m happy to say that it’s even lower than March’s bill ( which I was quite happy with ).  $119.58 was the total, which is about 6% less than March.  With the cost of just about everything skyrocketing, it’s refreshing to see a drop in my energy bill.  Let’s see what went right, and wrong.

Gas usage down again

I managed to use 29% less natural gas compared to last month, and that cost me 26% less.  Remember, the utility company uses some sort of funny math that mere mortals can’t comprehend.  I expect our gas usage to drop further as the summer months get closer.

Electricity usage creeping upward

The flip side to my gas usage dropping is my electric usage going up.  More A/C means more electricity.  I used 787 kWh ( kilowatt-hours ) of electricity, which is a 21% jump over March.  The electric part of my bill jumped just 10% though.  More funny math, but this time it works out in my favor.

Long term picture

This month I went all out and created a few Excel charts to show my energy usage and cost over time.  These first two charts show my Electricity usage in kWh and my gas usage in ccf.

You can kind of see the pattern – when electric is up, gas is down, and vice versa.

These two charts show the electric cost vs gas cost, and my total bill over time. 

Final Thoughts

A very good month all told.  We’ve had some hot days, with plenty more to come.  My electricity bill will be going northward, and I’ll just have to do my best to limit the damage.  That reminds me, I still need to change my A/C filters!