Electric challenge

Our power bills have been a source of anger and confusion for a few years now. Our power bill each quarter averages .... wait for it ..... $1000. That's more than $4000 every year just in power. We've had many theories about why our bills are so high and we systematically removed any possible culprits (excluding the kids.) However nothing has worked. So I called in the big guns to try to figure it out.

The assessor thoroughly went over our bills and our home. His verdict 'I have no idea why your bills are so high.'  

However all was not lost as we are now the proud owners of a wireless power monitor which tells us at any given moment just how much power our house is actually using. It's such a handy little gadget and I've worked out that it costs one extra cent per hour each time we open the fridge. I've also worked out that boiling water is a huge power waster as are our bathroom heat lamps. But the piece de resistance has been working out that our air-conditioner sucks .65c/hour which means that if we ran it all day it would cost $15.60 per day. This is terrible given that:
a. we actually have two air conditioners, and
b. we have been known to run both for very long periods per day in Summer

So the nasty power sucking lights and air conditioners are on strike for the time being and I've been having fun switching things on and off to gauge their usage. For those interested an average house on standby uses around 4 or 5 cents per hour. Have a look what I managed to get our house down to for a short period yesterday. (Cost directly under the kw usage which is 43 in the photo.)