Being that I don’t have air conditioning at home, rarely turn the heat up above 50 or 55 degrees in the winter, usually use task lighting and keep my apartment dark, and aren’t home much, I usually have one of the most efficient homes in my neighborhood per the home energy reports that the power company sends out under a state mandate, much of my neighborhood which consists of many apartments. I am sure my electricity use would be even much less if I didn’t have an energy-hogging electric hot water heater, and aged refrigerator which has upwards of 25 years on it’s life at this point.

I honestly don’t get all this appeal of high technology. Sure I like my laptop, but I get the wireless internet at the library or park, so it’s saves on power there. I do have big monitor that I sometimes use, but often it sits turned off for weeks at an end. I do most of my connecting to the world using my inexpensive Wally-world smartphone, because I don’t want or need my laptop connected to the internet when I’m home. And I keep that phone turned off much of the time when I’m home.

I still make my coffee every morning using my trusty peculator pot, granted on an electric stove. I don’t have a fancy coffee maker. I do own a microwave and a waffle maker, but honestly they save power over the conventional electric oven. The waffle maker is a big savings over buying frozen waffles. But when I own my own house, I will probably use propane for most heating purposes, instead saving the solar power for more important purposes.

Lately I’ve been building more different little projects with Arduino 8-bit microcontrollers. While those projects are high-tech in the sense that I use a computer and libraries to develop the code for the microprocessor, the reality is the final projects are simple, and use little electricity. The micro-controller itself when fully operating rarely draws more then 20 mA of current at 5 VDC, and the displays I’ve built for the wall use no more then 700 mA at 5 VDC. They are easily powered by a normal cellphone charger. The LED color lighting I built uses more power, maybe 20-50 watts but only when it’s on.

Honestly I could probably do with less. I could have a lot smaller truck, not all the camping gear. But I’m kind of glad that my apartment is simple and that I spend as little time at home that I do.