Riot updates on Water and Heating Oil

Riot for Austerity first with Thermometer

  • Update on WATER

I found the water meter reading from when we bought the place at the beginning of May. We only moved in at the end of June, but we’ve had house guests – sometimes 1, mostly 2, and sometimes 3 – for most of the time since then, so I will let those even out and count the numbers for just the 3 of us for those 6 months.

Turns out we consumed 1418 cubic meters in 6 months = 1768 gallons for the 3 of us per month = 589.3 gallons per person per month = 20% of the US national average.

That’s not bad but we should be able to reduce that.

Hey, my estimate of 20 gallons a person a day wasn’t too far off!

  • Update on HEATING OIL

DH explained to me the workings of our boiler and I went down there to take a reading.

Since its installation on 24 July, the boiler has run 66 hours. Each hour it runs it consumes 0.85 gallons of oil. So in 3 months we have consumed 56.1 gallons. That is 30% of the US national average and pretty bad news considering the coldest months are still ahead of us.

I wonder how to bring that down? We’re already Freezing our Buns. Can we save on hot water, which is heated with the same boiler/oil? We usually do our laundry and dishes with cold water and use little water as it is, hot or cold. Also, in times of cold weather our water is heated, as it were, for free: the boiler is running anyway, so it might as well heat the water too. We did int he beginning have some trouble closing off “the Annex”,  the part of the house we don’t use and so don’t heat (turns out the thermstat was broken), so we may already be saving there. And let’s see how well our new insulation serves us…

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1 Comment

  1. Welcome to Riot. Living in an all electric house, we have our own battle with the electricity. Good luck with the boiler. As I think of ideas, I’ll share them.

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