Well, despite all of my efforts to lower my carbon footprint, I seem to have a problem in one area, electricity.  When I moved onto the farm, I was very focused on reducing the amount of energy I consumed so I found it easy to adjust to living without a few of the luxuries I enjoyed when living in the big city. I do not have cable, I enjoy 3 channels of peasant vision, thanks to an old antennae on the side of the trailer. I dont have internet hooked up so Im not running a computer. I have a wash machine but no dryer, so I hang dry all my clothes, and only wash 2 small loads a week. I dont use my oven at all, nor a deep freeze. Because I live by myself and work at least 4 nites a week, my household consumes very little energy in the evenings. When I am home, the furnace is off and the fire is my source of heat. I dont leave things plugged in unnecessary and am very conscious of not having alot of lights turned on. However, my electricity bill has been thru the roof. Of course I have taken into account that these past two months have been bitter cold, but Iv compared my bill to some neighbours and mine is alot more, especially considering its just for one person. So, after speaking with my energy supplier, I arranged for a line inspection. Unfortunately, they could find no faults in the lines or meter. So, I decided to do my own investigation. It took abit of time because I had to walk back and forth from my house to the meter box up the driveway, but basically I shut off all the breakers then turned one on at a time to see what was draining the energy the most. When I turned off the main breaker, the meter completely stopped, so at least I knew energy was not being drained from anywhere other then from my household. My two suspects were either the water pump in the well or the hot water tank. Both have not been serviced in god knows how long so either one could be malfunctioning and draining excess energy. Turns out its the hot water heater, but the exact problem, I do not know yet. Could be something as simple as replacing the element, but for that, I will  have to have someone come in and have a look at it. Its disappointing for two reasons. I really didnt want to spend more money on the trailer until I have it inspected in the spring to determine the extent of the moisture damage. Also, Iv been trying so hard since I moved here to be as energy efficient as possible and Im being sabotaged by my friggin hot water tank....uuugggg.