The Great Electricity Experiment

My last post was lamenting our super high electricity bill (p.s. thanks everyone for your good input on this!).  Since we got the bill we decided to do a little experiment.  Every day we write down the electric meter reading in the morning when we leave and in the evening when we return.  We are making notes on what electric appliances we use each day and we are also experimenting with the use of these appliances. 
On the 21st, the reading was 1842 in the morning and 1843 in the evening.  It looks like the condo uses one kwh (kilowatt hour) while we are gone for the day.  That evening I baked some cornbread in the regular oven and did one load of laundry.  The next morning (the 22nd) the morning reading was 1863 (a total of 20 kwh used mostly, I think, by the dryer and the oven).  That afternoon (on the 22nd) the reading was 1864 so again, the condo only used 1 kwh while we were gone.  On the evening of the 22nd, we decided to use the central heating/heatpump system to heat the place instead of the space heaters.  This morning (the 23rd) the meter read 1881 (a total of 17 kwh) used since yesterday.  We shut the central heat off this morning when we left and tonight when we get home I won't do laundry but we will use the space heaters to see if they use more electricity then the central heating system does.
An interesting way to approach the problem but I really want to see why our electric bill was so high.  Judging by the amount of electricity used on the first day, and thinking back to how many loads of laundry we did when we first moved in (a lot--all of our sheets, towels, clothes, etc that were in storage) I am pretty sure the bill was correct and we just used a ton of electricity with the dryer and by washing all of the laundry in warm water. Eeekkk
...This must be why EVERYONE in Japan hangs their clothes to dry--even the very wealthy.  Electricity costs A LOT!