r/HomeImprovement

So I was on vacation and watching my Enphase system. It is racking up a lot of solar credits which is great but what I noticed is that the house is burning 7KwH a day with NOBODY home. It’s got gas heat but the temp is set very low and barely turning on. The blower ran for 3 hours one day so that would only account for tops 1800wh but other days it was much less.

I did have some LED lights cycle on and off at different times but only for a few hours each day and frankly even if all of them ran the entire day that would be max 3kwh.

Heat and water are gas, not electric, and the water is tankless so it doesn’t run while we are gone. I guess there’s the fridge? But it’s fairly new. It’s so strange.

Does 7kwh idle usage sound right?

We hired a landscape contractor to redo the backyard including putting up a new fence. Our contract called for redwood but the contractor put up cedar. We only realized this when the contractor asked us about stains and none of the samples looked like what we expected and we inquired further into the wood type.

What should I do now?

1. Can cedar be stained to look more like redwood (deeper color, less knotty)? If not, then should I ask him to take the cedar down and redo the fence per contract?

2. If we keep the cedar, should we ask for a partial refund? The contract called for redwood con heart rough, and what we have now is cedar s4s.

3. Anything else I should ask the contractor about or make sure he does/doesn’t do?

Hey 👋🏻 I grew up in a house without very much of these habits, but my grandparents were always super conservative with power use. They were depression-era, and I’m sure we could all use some of those habits nowadays. But they took it to the extreme, you’d get scolded for leaving a light bulb on if you left a room, even if you were gonna go back into that room in 10min. My husband was raised like that, but I told him I think lights don’t really matter, not like appliances do.

We have crazy electric bill. (Already capping the AC use as possible by setting at 73/74) 3-4 fans, 2 air purifiers, 3 computers, 3 cell phones, dishwasher, 1 large tv, running a pool pump. And on, lol. We have a chest freezer in the garage, and now my husband wants a second one, will that make much impact?

Which of peoples common household uses- or appliances- tend to use the most?

Someone gave me a nice mini fridge for free, and I was gonna use it in the basement for drinks, but my husband said I’m only adding to power usage and we don’t need it. I dunno, Is a mini fridge maybe 5-8 years old, much power?