Cool Tool: BC Hydro Site

When we lived in our apartment, we had our hydro set up to take out payments based on the average usage over the year. So, each month the payment was about the same. It was the only option for our address because I was a new customer and because of the general neighbourhood. Now that we're in the townhouse, we switched over to paying for our actual usage at the actual time that we use it. Needless to say, the bill we just received for the coldest months of the year, was considerably higher than our previous ones were.

So, we've started thinking about energy consumption lately. Also, due to the recent vandalism of our mailboxes that resulted in our mail being held at the sorting station, we've been switching a lot of things over to Canada Post's epost system or Scotiabanks paperless bills option. Of course, BC Hydro had a separate system so I also signed up for their paperless bills option and found that registering online some other benefits.

One of the extra features that they have is an 'analyze my home' feature where you can analyze how you use your electricity and give you tips to save energy. It's fairly in depth (do you know the wattage of all the lightbulbs in your house?) and you can save the report and edit details as you make changes. It's kinda cool.

And just FYI, for the people who like to keep track of things on paper, you don't have to go to an online bill in order to register. I'd recommend everyone go and check it out and see how your energy usage stacks up.