The first year of electricity bills at Jenny's family home

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The electricity consumption over the first year in our all-electric house was equivalent to that of a one-person household (noting that many of these comparison households also use gas for heating, hot water and cooking).

We're pretty happy with that but as we don't have any heating apart from a 600W far-infrared panel on the ceiling of each bathroom, and no active cooling apart from ceiling fans, how did we fair in terms of thermal comfort?

Were we miserable, freezing and sick all winter? Were we roasting and irritable during the summer heat waves? No, we were not. Read more about winter here and summer here.

NB. For those of you in existing houses with less than ideal orientation: don't give up hope! There are some simple and cost-effective ways to reduce your energy bills - see a great article with 22 tips here and check out the Light House science and retrofit advisory services here.

We are first-round investors in Canberra's Community Solar Farm and our 2.6kW portion should pretty much offset our consumption. Once I train the boys to have shorter showers (or the teenagers leave home) then we should do it easily!