Using Calca to Investigate my Energy Bill

2020-01-11

I just got a really high electric bill and I was wondering if the water-heater was to blame. I started doing the cost-per-tank on a piece of paper, but the calculations are kinda tedious and calculators are hard to use for multi-step operations.

So I brought in my favorite little math puzzle tool: Calca. It lets you solve math word-problems “out loud” without having to do the calculations in a separate application or worry that one mistake early on will mess up the rest of your calculations. You define variables and can manipulate them like text or use => to see their values. You can add commentary to help you think through the problem. It’s like a spreadsheet + programming language but really simple.

This isn’t earth-shattering, but I wanted to share a tool that I really wish had existed when I was in high-school or college. It also has built-in plotting and even some symbolic calculus stuff, but that’s beyond my usual needs of it.

TLDR: it costs $2.24 in NJ to heat a 45-gallon water-tank from 40 to 225 fahrenheit.