We have electric air conditioning (a term which really means "cooling" here, as there's not a lot of need for heating) and we keep the thermostat at 79 degrees F when at home.  We have one 32" screen tv.  We added insulation to the "attic" (not much attic in our house, just a bare crawlspace).  There's a ceiling fan in every room. Almost every light bulb in the house is a compact fluorescent, and we turn the lights out when not in use.  

Our house is 1600 square feet, but the guest bedroom is closed off from the cooling when not in use.  We have a large freezer that helps preserve all the things we grow in our garden, and things we get at a good price at farmers' markets.  It supposedly uses 670 KwH per year, according to the label.  There are just two of us living here, though we get lots of visitors and the grandchildren are here a lot.

The usage is lower in "winter" when the cooling is not  as necessary as during the rest of the year, and we heat and cook with natural gas, though we probably don't turn the heat on more than 10 days during the whole winter.

Though not a mechanic by trade, my husband loves to work on autos and motorcycles and to build things and is the guy everyone turns to when they have car/mc trouble, and many of his tools are powered... maybe that accounts for some of the consumption?  And the windows on our little 1950's house are not double-glazed, but we can't afford to replace them just now, so that might be where we lose cooling.  

I'll be keeping an eye on suggestions in all the diaries, though, and other sites, for ways to bring the usage down.  Thanks for the flow of information!

Karen in Austin

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

hi nomad, thanks for this great diary.

are the pix fixed? still not coming through, is it a dialup thang?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty