Anyone else have a ridiculous electric bill?

[CanadaClinker]

Ours breaks pretty evenly between heating and cooling over the year and if I used 90 KWH in this house in one day somebody either here or at the electric company would die! I have the daily usage numbers for the last three years and heating this 2,500 sq. ft. all electric barn and two people with wood we have averaged 23 KWH per day over that three years. That's with the wife's tv and dvr running 24/7 and three fridges.

Bart... when the temp dips to -30 to -40C that's when all the stops are out and the heat is going full bore.... but my 90 is good compared to what I've see some people consume .......much more when their electric heat kicks in.... a 'large' house 5 down from me had a consistent usage during the -30 temps of 170 to 190 Kwhr/day..... but all electric heat along with a circulating hot water pump to make sure the water was hot when the tap was turned..... trouble was the hot water pipe went above the uninsulated garage... ouch! .... but I guess they didn't mind spending the $$$ for the convenince...

... not me.... I'm all florescent lights, extra insuation in the attic and walls, timers on this and that (including the van's block heater - 500W)..... but lots of glass in this house.... just replaced 2 X 72 inch square windows that came with the house with tripple pane, double low E, argon filled ($$$) to help reduce over the long haul along with improved comfort...... what we have to do to put a barrier between us and Old Man Winter!! :roll:

 

[CanadaClinker]

macman,

Get a switchable power strip for your computer/monitor/speakers etc. that way you can be certain to kill the juice. Most of those devices are ghost electricity suckers as is anything with a standby mode (TVs/some Irons etc ...) or a clock running on it. The rule I use is if it has a light you can see then it is a ghost load. He!! even those stupid GFCI with the little green leds. Oh yeah and hard wired smoke detectors and your door bell system.

Those wall warts you use for charging your cell phone, shaver, whatever, are all electricity suckers.

There are two people living here and we have a well pump, electric stove, high powered microwave, and a dishwasher and I'd totally flip out over an electrical bill that averaged 808 KWH usage for two months.

Good luck.

Thanks Smokey for the ideas. unfortunately, I already have the computer/monitor, etc on a power strip that gets turned off when not in use, smoke detectors are all battery, all chargers get removed from socket when not in use, etc. We DO use the microwave a lot, and the stove/oven are electric too.

And it's 808 for 1 month....1608 for two.

.......hey mac.... 808/30days=27 kwhr/day......that's pretty low (and good) on my scale of 20-45 Kwhr/day for non-electric heat home.....mine are in the 30/day in the summer too..... (it's the 90 in the winter that hurt - Jan. & Feb.)......cc :roll:

 

[cac4]

I guess I'm doing ok, then, by those standards....my bill breaks out the kwh/day for each month, and most months average out at 29 or 30. (coincidentally, this past month was 808kwh, too).

perhaps I don't qualify for "electron-pig" status, afterall.

I'm thinking that my electric dryer and electric hot water are the big consumers...but not so sure that switching the hot water to gas would be much benefit...if any. The prices on power-vented propane water heaters are at least twice the cost of an electric heater...plus, I might have to pay someone to install it. certainly so for the tankless kind...@4x the cost of a plain electric heater. and those might not even work, especially since running my pellet stove, it gets quite chilly down in the basement, a tankless might not be able to raise the temp of that water enough. on top of that, propane is my only gas option, and they don't give that away, either. anyway, it doesn't look like the potential energy $ savings would exceed the buy-in cost.
The dryer might make sense to switch to gas...when my electric one dies. (going on 20 years old). I understand that gas dryers only cost "a little more" than electric ones...but the cost to run is much less.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

...that's pretty low (and good) on my scale of 20-45 Kwhr/day for non-electric heat home.....mine are in the 30/day in the summer too..... (it's the 90 in the winter that hurt - Jan. & Feb.)......cc :roll:

I must be doing super well since mine runs from 13 to 17 normally.


Mac, I just remembered something else that can really chew 'tricity, a clothes dryer with a partially blocked vent. I thought of that while cleaning out ours yesterday since Monday is wash day around here and it is one of my chores.

 

[teddy1971]

..... 808kw per month?......

Yes, 808/month, 1617 total for 2 months. And that includes shutting off all computer equip. ea. night, and 90% of the bulbs in the house are CFL's.

I gotta get/borrow a Kill A Watt and check my frig, though. It's 10+ years old (probably closer to 14).

Yeah you really have to swap out your frig. You'll be surprised how much you save with that. We have 5 people in our house (3 Kids) and they have a problem turning lights off. My oldest is always on his PS3 or computer (electricity suckers). I used 800 kwH last month in comparison to 1200KwH same month last year. I truly see the benefit of renewable energy. Especially for a computer geek like me who has alot of gadgets I don't need in the house (i.e., computers, dvrs, plasmas, etc.)

 

[tjnamtiw]

I wish I never started reading this thread I am absolutely sick to my stomach reading about your low monthly usages............ I use about 2500 kwh per month down here in Georgia with two heat pumps (14 SEER) and a swimming pool with 1 1/2 hp motors. Another reason I got pellet stoves. Now I have to concentrate on solar power for the summer but I'm too old to see a payback.

 

[CanadaClinker]

I wish I never started reading this thread I am absolutely sick to my stomach reading about your low monthly usages............ I use about 2500 kwh per month down here in Georgia with two heat pumps (14 SEER) and a swimming pool with 1 1/2 hp motors. Another reason I got pellet stoves. Now I have to concentrate on solar power for the summer but I'm too old to see a payback.

tjnamtiw......ur ahead of me at 2500Kwhr/30days=.....83 Kwhr/day (on average)...... I have just the one ground source heat pump and took a reading last night at 6pm and again tonight at 6pm and the difference is exactly 45 Kwhr for one day's usage.

Yes ur looking like you have some 'additional' load on at 83 .... I usually don't top out at 93 till end of Dec. to end of Feb. I'm not sure what your efficency rating of your 2 heat pumps is but I know with mine (in ground/water) is 300%. Pretty hard for my pellet stove to compete with that...... love the stove though for its 'ambiance' which I'll never get from the heat pump..... :lol:

 

[CanadaClinker]

...that's pretty low (and good) on my scale of 20-45 Kwhr/day for non-electric heat home.....mine are in the 30/day in the summer too..... (it's the 90 in the winter that hurt - Jan. & Feb.)......cc :roll:

I must be doing super well since mine runs from 13 to 17 normally.


Mac, I just remembered something else that can really chew 'tricity, a clothes dryer with a partially blocked vent. I thought of that while cleaning out ours yesterday since Monday is wash day around here and it is one of my chores.

Hey Smokey..... yes I wish I had your 13 to 17 per day. guess I will have to move out of this cold to a warmer place... :lol:

About Driers.... I think of a drier as a 'contradiction of terms' It has a 'little' white button on the front to turn it on or off but most driers are 5 Kw or (get this) like 50 x 100W light bulbs. So every time you push the little button to start it, go look at ur meter....it will really jump....... if there's any way to hang clothes to dry them (on a rack or line) then that will be a great savings.

Also washing with cold water with the cold water detergents out there gives your 3000W Hot Water Tank (mine is 4500W) element a rest (and your meter!) (we won't get into talking about 10 min showers yet.... :lol: )

One more.... my dish washer has the water temp booster turned off along with my dry cycle. My water temp from the HW tank is already 140 deg which is hot enough to do the job...... also, I open the dish washer to let them air dry over night rather than pumping more heat ($ ) at them...... :cheese:

 

[BrotherBart]

I wish I never started reading this thread I am absolutely sick to my stomach reading about your low monthly usages............ I use about 2500 kwh per month down here in Georgia with two heat pumps (14 SEER) and a swimming pool with 1 1/2 hp motors. Another reason I got pellet stoves. Now I have to concentrate on solar power for the summer but I'm too old to see a payback.

OMG. That is as much power as my brother-in-law's auto body shop uses in the summer. And that is in Texas! Air conditioned.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

...that's pretty low (and good) on my scale of 20-45 Kwhr/day for non-electric heat home.....mine are in the 30/day in the summer too..... (it's the 90 in the winter that hurt - Jan. & Feb.)......cc :roll:

I must be doing super well since mine runs from 13 to 17 normally.


Mac, I just remembered something else that can really chew 'tricity, a clothes dryer with a partially blocked vent. I thought of that while cleaning out ours yesterday since Monday is wash day around here and it is one of my chores.

Hey Smokey..... yes I wish I had your 13 to 17 per day. guess I will have to move out of this cold to a warmer place... :lol:

About Driers.... I think of a drier as a 'contradiction of terms' It has a 'little' white button on the front to turn it on or off but most driers are 5 Kw or (get this) like 50 x 100W light bulbs. So every time you push the little button to start it, go look at ur meter....it will really jump....... if there's any way to hang clothes to dry them (on a rack or line) then that will be a great savings.

Also washing with cold water with the cold water detergents out there gives your 3000W Hot Water Tank (mine is 4500W) element a rest (and your meter!) (we won't get into talking about 10 min showers yet.... :lol: )

One more.... my dish washer has the water temp booster turned off along with my dry cycle. My water temp from the HW tank is already 140 deg which is hot enough to do the job...... also, I open the dish washer to let them air dry over night rather than pumping more heat ($ ) at them...... :cheese:

CanadaClinker,

I always use the cold/cold setting on the washer, and as for the dryer I believe most folks use the auto dry feature which I believe senses the humidity in the dryer. If the venting system is blocked it will run longer than it normally would. Yeah, I've watched what happens at the meter when things like the dryer, stove, and well pump are doing their thing.

We use the unheated dry on the dishwasher unless we are canning in which case all stops get pulled and the jars are very clean and very hot, have to use tongs to get them out or get burned.

I hope that macman is getting a large list of things to check for. What really frosts me is all of the stupid devices with the led or lcd clocks or remote controls. All are ghost loads, some far more than you think. Having a number of portable phones, clock radios, etc .... it can add up fast.

 

[chrisasst]

wow...and I thought I had it bad...



Read Date & Days Read Type TotalkWh Utility Charges Supplier Charges Total Charges
10/30/2009
29 days Actual 752 $64.88 $53.97 $118.85




I have set my dishwasher to turn on at about 1:00 am which as helped me some...

 

[BrotherBart]

I turn on the dishwasher at the same time I turn on the coffee pot. When it finishes I open the door and pull the racks out and that blast of steam and heat heats the kitchen up in a heartbeat.

 

[CanadaClinker]

wow...and I thought I had it bad...



Read Date & Days Read Type TotalkWh Utility Charges Supplier Charges Total Charges
10/30/2009
29 days Actual 752 $64.88 $53.97 $118.85




I have set my dishwasher to turn on at about 1:00 am which as helped me some...

....for the 29 days, you average 26 per day..... that's pretty good.... do you have what they call 'time of use' rates..... we are going to that next in 2011 and I will be doing the same as you with your dishwasher......wife was going to replace racks in dishwasher and I think we will upgrade to one with a timer like our clothes washer.... cc

 

[CanadaClinker]

...that's pretty low (and good) on my scale of 20-45 Kwhr/day for non-electric heat home.....mine are in the 30/day in the summer too..... (it's the 90 in the winter that hurt - Jan. & Feb.)......cc :roll:

I must be doing super well since mine runs from 13 to 17 normally.


Mac, I just remembered something else that can really chew 'tricity, a clothes dryer with a partially blocked vent. I thought of that while cleaning out ours yesterday since Monday is wash day around here and it is one of my chores.

Hey Smokey..... yes I wish I had your 13 to 17 per day. guess I will have to move out of this cold to a warmer place... :lol:

About Driers.... I think of a drier as a 'contradiction of terms' It has a 'little' white button on the front to turn it on or off but most driers are 5 Kw or (get this) like 50 x 100W light bulbs. So every time you push the little button to start it, go look at ur meter....it will really jump....... if there's any way to hang clothes to dry them (on a rack or line) then that will be a great savings.

Also washing with cold water with the cold water detergents out there gives your 3000W Hot Water Tank (mine is 4500W) element a rest (and your meter!) (we won't get into talking about 10 min showers yet.... :lol: )

One more.... my dish washer has the water temp booster turned off along with my dry cycle. My water temp from the HW tank is already 140 deg which is hot enough to do the job...... also, I open the dish washer to let them air dry over night rather than pumping more heat ($ ) at them...... :cheese:

CanadaClinker,

I always us the cold/cold setting on the washer, and as for the dryer I believe most folks use the auto dry feature which I believe senses the humidity in the dryer. If the venting system is blocked it will run longer than it normally would. Yeah, I've watched what happens at the meter when things like the dryer, stove, and well pump are doing their thing.

We use the unheated dry on the dishwasher unless we are canning in which case all stops get pulled and the jars are very clean and very hot, have to use tongs to get them out or get burned.

I hope that macman is getting a large list of things to check for. What really frosts me is all of the stupid devices with the led or lcd clocks or remote controls. All are ghost loads, some far more than you think. Having a number of portable phones, clock radios, etc .... it can add up fast.

....yes smokey........ the nature of the Kwhr has wattage and time in it...... you could have a large load like the dryer on for a short period of time.......or........ a bunch of small loads (leds, wall warts etc.) which hit the time part heavy ie. 24/7 and your meter gets to the same place ($$) ..... what ever happened to using candles and the telegraph...... :lol:

 

[CanadaClinker]

I guess I'm doing ok, then, by those standards....my bill breaks out the kwh/day for each month, and most months average out at 29 or 30. (coincidentally, this past month was 808kwh, too).

perhaps I don't qualify for "electron-pig" status, afterall.

I'm thinking that my electric dryer and electric hot water are the big consumers...but not so sure that switching the hot water to gas would be much benefit...if any. The prices on power-vented propane water heaters are at least twice the cost of an electric heater...plus, I might have to pay someone to install it. certainly so for the tankless kind...@4x the cost of a plain electric heater. and those might not even work, especially since running my pellet stove, it gets quite chilly down in the basement, a tankless might not be able to raise the temp of that water enough. on top of that, propane is my only gas option, and they don't give that away, either. anyway, it doesn't look like the potential energy $ savings would exceed the buy-in cost.
The dryer might make sense to switch to gas...when my electric one dies. (going on 20 years old). I understand that gas dryers only cost "a little more" than electric ones...but the cost to run is much less.

.....cac4.....my experience for years was that 'natural' gas was the cheapest energy, then ground/water source heat pumps, then oil, then electric, then finally propane. Its been hard for me to keep on top of it as we have seen natural gas and oil bouncing around..... I still think propane is still on the top ($$$ bottom :-S ) with it being very pricey. My brother went from propane heat a few years back to 'natural' gas heat and cut his heating costs by 2/3. But, some don't have any choice what fuel we have access to..... I cant get natural gas where i live or I would have gone that way rather than spend $16K today for a heatpump...... even when I put that in in 1989, it cost me $9K...... I calculated a payback of 8 years so I think I got ahead of that one at least......

 

[cac4]

well..I was just talking about the cheapest way to heat water, or dry clothes. (short of line-drying ;-)

nat-gas isn't available for me...don't think you can dry clothes w/ oil. :cheese: or pellets, for that matter! so that leaves propane and electricity.

9 years? geez. even my pellet stove will pay back quicker than that!

 

[CanadaClinker]

..... 808kw per month?......

Yes, 808/month, 1617 total for 2 months. And that includes shutting off all computer equip. ea. night, and 90% of the bulbs in the house are CFL's.

I gotta get/borrow a Kill A Watt and check my frig, though. It's 10+ years old (probably closer to 14).

Yeah you really have to swap out your frig. You'll be surprised how much you save with that. We have 5 people in our house (3 Kids) and they have a problem turning lights off. My oldest is always on his PS3 or computer (electricity suckers). I used 800 kwH last month in comparison to 1200KwH same month last year. I truly see the benefit of renewable energy. Especially for a computer geek like me who has alot of gadgets I don't need in the house (i.e., computers, dvrs, plasmas, etc.)

.....Teddy.......that second beer fridge that everyone has (including myself) is a load on 24/7 x 356 days. When our kids went to University in September, I yanked the plug on that baby but quick. They even had a program in our province that if you wanted to get rid of the old beast in the basement, they would come and get it 'free' ..... I'm still in transition with the kids returning home for Christmas and the summer so will hang on to mine..... and will have to plug it back in then.......

 

[CanadaClinker]

well..I was just talking about the cheapest way to heat water, or dry clothes. (short of line-drying ;-)

nat-gas isn't available for me...don't think you can dry clothes w/ oil. :cheese: or pellets, for that matter! so that leaves propane and electricity.

......you could try putt'n them on wet and standing in front of the pellet stove till you dry off..... ....that's 'thrifty' ..... :lol:

 

[chrisasst]

this thread has had me look closely at my bill..

this is november bill 09'

Delivery =0.036784
Electricity Supply = 0.069
752 kWh

so I add these together to get what I am actually paying per kwh correct?


just to compare last year..

Delivery = 0.029413
Electricity Supply = 0.0791
926 kWh

 

[tjnamtiw]

this thread has had me look closely at my bill..

this is november bill 09'

Delivery =0.036784
Electricity Supply = 0.069
752 kWh

so I add these together to get what I am actually paying per kwh correct?


just to compare last year..

Delivery = 0.029413
Electricity Supply = 0.0791
926 kWh

Total bill that you send to them divided by 752 = dollars per kwh.

 

[tjnamtiw]

Yes ur looking like you have some 'additional' load on at 83 .... I usually don't top out at 93 till end of Dec. to end of Feb. I'm not sure what your efficency rating of your 2 heat pumps is but I know with mine (in ground/water) is 300%. Pretty hard for my pellet stove to compete with that...... love the stove though for its 'ambiance' which I'll never get from the heat pump..... :lol:

The heat pumps are variable speed 14 SEER but I could kick myself for not getting the geothermal heat pumps, especially for the winter. What I spent on two pellet stoves plus installation up two chimneys would have paid for the difference. You did good. Now to convince the wife that the swimming pool has to go now that we hardly ever use it any more. I was hoping that my son would bring some good girl friends home to go swimming when he was in high school...... if you get my drift. ) While that worked quite a bit, it still doesn't justify running those damn pumps and feeding chlorine and algecide all summer.

 

[CanadaClinker]

Yes ur looking like you have some 'additional' load on at 83 .... I usually don't top out at 93 till end of Dec. to end of Feb. I'm not sure what your efficency rating of your 2 heat pumps is but I know with mine (in ground/water) is 300%. Pretty hard for my pellet stove to compete with that...... love the stove though for its 'ambiance' which I'll never get from the heat pump..... :lol:

The heat pumps are variable speed 14 SEER but I could kick myself for not getting the geothermal heat pumps, especially for the winter. What I spent on two pellet stoves plus installation up two chimneys would have paid for the difference. You did good. Now to convince the wife that the swimming pool has to go now that we hardly ever use it any more. I was hoping that my son would bring some good girl friends home to go swimming when he was in high school...... if you get my drift. ) While that worked quite a bit, it still doesn't justify running those damn pumps and feeding chlorine and algecide all summer.

......well maybe now you have to have a regular 'block party' to get the use of the pool.... ha......pools and hot tubs gobble up the Kwhr for sure......... yes glad i put my heat pump in because was on a 20Kw electric furnace and the winter bills were brutal..... I helped to dig in the lines for the heat pump down to the lake (about 70 ft away) and it took me a week on a banjo (shovel) to dig a 4 ft deep trench 2 ft wide down a 45 degree slope to the shore.... ministry wouldn't allow mechanical equipment, just hand tools. That and some other work cut the cost of the 3.5 ton unit down to $9K back in 89. Nice to know it gets 2/3 of its heat from the ground/water and only the other 1/3 from the hydro .....

 

[fataugie]

this thread has had me look closely at my bill..

this is november bill 09'

Delivery =0.036784
Electricity Supply = 0.069
752 kWh

so I add these together to get what I am actually paying per kwh correct?


just to compare last year..

Delivery = 0.029413
Electricity Supply = 0.0791
926 kWh

Total bill that you send to them divided by 752 = dollars per kwh.

That's true, but I like keeping the taxes and electricity costs seperate so I know who to be pissed off at.
Also, a trick the electric companies use when they can't get a cost increase through for the cost of generating the electric, is to boost the delivery charges, since they don't need approval for that part (from what I understand).

 

[save$]

Bought one of those meters to test some of our usage. tested one of 3 DVRs and found it cost $54 per year just to have it plugged in. It is one of three in this house. Have two large fish tanks. One cost $97 per year. Still have a lot of other testing to do. Don't know how to test the water pump because that one is hard wired and is 220.
Wife goes into some wounded duck act when I try to discuss limiting the power to the DVRs. Looking at the cost of running things is a real eye opener. Those little things sure add up to a lot when you look at them as a whole. Lights are mostly CFU and the seasonal lighting will be LEDs. Glad my stove is not on a thermostat.

 

[imacman]

....Glad my stove is not on a thermostat.

I was wondering.....why?