California man’s gas and electric bill is around $90 a month. Here’s how he does it

There are the people who turn the light off every time they leave a room and try to run appliances at off-peak times to save energy.

And then there’s Soo Hom, a 59-year-old systems administrator who works for UC San Diego. He has run the air conditioner in his 930-square-foot townhome for 24 hours.

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Not in the past day. In the past year.

“Just a few times,” Hom said, “for just one to two hours a day.”

Hom doesn’t like his home toasty. He doesn’t love humidity. But he has hacked his space to make climate control using gas or electricity (almost) irrelevant.

“It all started out when I was a kid,” he said. “My parents are from China. And they didn’t have much money, so they’re used to living frugally, with no A/C and hardly any heat.”

The Homs ran a Chinese laundry down