Power Outage - lessons learned

We lost power for 12 hours today. We learned that we need a backup plan beyond the fire place for heat and power but we also learned that on a sunny day, the temperature in our house is 54 degrees - not bad, lending credence to the strategy of south facing buildings with lots of glass on the south side. I plan to undertake a BTU/sq. ft. calculation to determine how our performs versus other houses.

More savings

Based on our most recent energy bill, our family used 36% less electricity this January over January last year. Adding the impact of our 2.8KW solar array - we generated 168KWH (this will be our lowest producing month) so our total net KWH reduction is 49% over this time last year. We also used 28% less natural gas versus January of last year. Its been cold in the house, but not freezing. One of the things I noticed was the impact of a south facing house. there were days when the heat was set at 62, but it was 65 in the dining room as the south sun provided passive heating (40 degrees outside). (think of it as something similar to getting in your car in the winter on a sunny day). the temperature outside is cold but its warmer in the car. So, finally, we are starting see some benifit of all this effort and investment.