I’ll offer the permission for Sense to use my data if they want. My wife started working from home on Friday 3/20/2020 at least for 2 weeks. Normally it’s just me that works from home so I am looking for trends on increased energy use and/or timing. Right now she gets up around 6:45am, showers, makes some toast ,leaves for work. The heat turns on around 6:30, well pump for the bathroom,lights , Sense has detected our toaster, the garage door opens and closes. Most of the laundry is done on the weekend, we have a well for water. My prediction is the well will show the most increased usage, another person using the bathroom, more dishes in the dishwasher.
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Paul…
Please keep us updated on your outcome. My situation is very similar to yours, however - I’m not expecting any significant changes.
Since my move to a Work From Home status, I’ve joined my retired (non-working) spouse at home. My prediction is that our previous electrical footprint is only increased by the use of my laptop. Although the frequency of usage may alter, the overall total usage change will be minimal.
Are you impacted by a Time of Use (TOU) billing?
Paul and Glad2Be,
I am a new Sense user and trying to understand the same profile as both of you. My only reference has been monthly utility bills and historical daily use trends from my provider. I have been working out of my house since early 2019. As my wife works out of the house, we would typically curtail heat or cooling during their respective seasonal periods when we were gone all day. When home alone, I still keep most of the climate control in a conservative mode. What I have found out is that attemperating part of the house and using a TV in the area I work out of has directionally increased by M-F daily footprint. This includes use of a coffee maker and well pump. With Sense, I am trying to reduce that impact. I have also noticed my hot water boiler cycles during the day even though I’m not using hot water. Lots of opportunity in my world 
.
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I am not impacted by time of use billing.
The initial results are no major change, well pump usage is slightly up. There is an additional laptop, monitor and the living room light being used. Since I work from home anyways there is really no noticeable change in energy usage. However there is one device I forgot about that has had a major drop in usage- The garage door openers. The usually open and close at least 4 times a day and if we are both in and out even more. We have only left a couple times to go to the grocery store this week.
Wait until it warms up and AC usage goes up(unless you use electricity for heat).
My wife has been working from home for 15 months to take care of a family member. That means we need to use the heat and AC all day.
I’m fairly certain that my outcome is in lock-step with yours! One of us was already occupying the home, throughout the day - prior to the other joining them.
The change in the electrical-foot remains negligible. The key is maintaining the same joint-sleep cycles… Two will always live as one, if they choose to do so!
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One full week of my wife working from home. Overall usage slightly up which is expected. It’s a plus / minus situation. The well pump usage is the same but a person who normally comes and stay 2-3 days a week hasnt been here. So another person home during the day, more dishes,more flushes is offset by 3 less showers. This is why I like Sense- a real time view of what is going on. There’s going to be a whole bunch of people come the next billing cycle who will see their electric usage increase significantly and just call it “we worked from home” ,and not be able to identify the increased usage by device. Talk about boring!..lol
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Great news all around!
Negligible Impact Confirmed: Yesterday, l received April’s Sense Report - confirming consistently stable energy consumption (before & during) working from home.
This is a comforting outcome, given that my employer “Work From Home” directive has been extended from June - to the beginning of September.
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The May Electric bill arrived. The usage per day is the lowest since 2013. The bill is -$41.13 vs last year. What was “odd” is the bill is usually available the next day after the meter was read (5/8/2020) in fact I can’t remember when it wasn’t, the bill wasn’t available until today 5/13. I have this feeling while most homes are increasing usage compared to last year this house is going in the opposite direction and I ended up on some exception report for review…lol Any questions I’ll just show Eversource my Sense.
To recap I have worked from home for a couple years so adding another person isn’t a shock to the system. Over the past year with information from Sense I have identified and taken advantages of opportunities to save energy when it makes Sense to do so. i.e. turning things off, purchase LED lights.
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Paul…
Looks like you’re approaching your 1st-year anniversary as a Sense customer. You’ve worked from home, throughout the entire period and should be fully cognizant of your baseline energy-footprint.
Please share your experiences with the following:
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How well does the monthly Sense Report align with your “actual” energy consumption?
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How has Sense best benefited you, during your your time of ownership?
All of us have asked ourselves these questions and many may even share their perspectives in return!
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I keep track of a bill cycle and Sense is pretty accurate, I would say +/- 5 Kwh.
How has Sense best benefited me? I understand that devices like Sense are tools that provide information, not the magic beans of energy saving devices. I’ll liken Sense to a Nest thermostat. When you first get one you see that big savings because one thing Nest will do is stop heating /cooling your home when you aren’t there, after that you need to pay attention to what it’s doing, look at your schedules,etc
Sense is similar, when you first get install there will be some eye openers, the low hanging fruit. But after those initial savings you need to work harder with the information Sense provides. Set up alerts, check out what’s going on. You won’t get the big savings on one device but it will be lots of small victories, and then once it’s under control you need to maintain it.
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Our consumption with both of at home full time has drastically dropped.
The difference?
Both our EV’s aren’t leaving the driveways for days at a time when before they used to be using between 20 and 40kwh a day between the two. And when they do leave they don’t go far at all.
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As a an aspiring future EV owner, I was wandering what was the potential daily consumption rate, relative to recharging.
Thanks for posting!
Depends on how far you drive daily, mainly, with some variance for weather of course - more in winter, less in summer.
In normal times my wife commutes almost exactly 100km a day return and I commute about 20km a day return. In summer our daily charging is roughly 15-20kwh a day tops, in winter we can be upwards of 30-35kwh daily depending on temps and any extra driving around.
Still significantly cheaper than gas around here.
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