Diagnosing a 30% cost increase with historic data

This week we received our electricity bill and it was about 30% higher than last year.

At first I thought our new ductless heaters were to blame. Maybe they weren't as efficient as I thought.

After looking into the data and putting some thought into it, I realized I was jumping to the wrong conclusion.

Our previous house had central heat via natural gas. Same for this house.

But the ductless replaced that with electric. So more electric usage, lower gas usage.

Combining those two bills, we're actually about 10% lower in costs.

Also January 2020 it was just the two of us at home working while the kid was in school. January 2021 the kid is here and she's on her computer for hours every day for school. There's probably another 5-10% usage for heating and misc usage.

That's why having a solid set of data is important. Knowing our total utility usage and the occupancy of our house changed what felt like a high bill into lower than normal bill with an exception (stay-at-home order).

This is why Repeat Customer Insights can analyze all of your store's historical data if you want it to. There are some trends and patterns that only show up when you look at everything at once.

Eric Davis