So I just got the DTE bill for February.

Average temperatures for this billing period were 23 degrees colder than last billing period.

(Trust me, I noticed)

As a result, your appliances may be working harder to make you feel more comfortable.

Indeed, our average daily gas use was up 54% from the previous month. (ps, I appreciate that DTE provides this information right on the monthly statement.) Our average daily electricity usage, however, was down by 41%. I asked the ladies, "Have you been doing anything different? All I can think of is that we're not running the dehumidifier in the basement 24/7 because the ground is frozen, so the crawlspace isn't pumping wet into the basement."

My intuition can be so right, and yet so wrong. The dehumidifier, energy star certified though it may be, is rated at 630 Watts. (Recall that those evil incandescent light bulbs that we're supposed to be replacing with compact flourescents, to save the world, at 60-100W a pop.) Assume (moderately pessimistically) the dehumidifier has been running 20-24 hours a day for the rest of the year - that is, continuously but for needing to be emptied - and you get 12.6-15.1 kWh/day to operate the thing.

Our average daily electricity usage this past month was 13.7 kWh.

This means that, for most of the year, we're burning as much electricity to keep the basement air-conditioned-without-cooling as we did this past month for everything - call it $50/month. Two conclusions can be drawn from this:

1. Dear lord, I'm glad we don't try to air-condition-including-cooling the entire house! If it costs $50/month just to keep everything in the basement from smelling like mold, I don't want to know what whole-house a/c would cost.

2. This suggests some pretty clear priorities for the coming year's working-on-the-house season. (Which aligns pretty closely with road construction season - which, if I recall correctly, started today?) Fortunately, I was already planning on doing much of the doable stuff - but now I don't have to wonder whether it's worth it.

(p.s. natural experiments rock.)