Need to lower my electric bill!

[Where2]

What are the shower heads now, 1.5 gpm?

Standard heads are 2.5gpm. I've got a collection of basic Moen 2.5gpm units lying around waiting to be re-purposed.

 

[DBoon]

I recently (within the last year) replaced my 20+ year old electric garage door opener, and I noticed an decrease in my monthly consumption. I've read that newer units use about 5W standby and older units used 20-30W standby. That difference can really add up in a month - 20 W/h for a month is 15 kWh per month.

 

[Ashful]

I recently (within the last year) replaced my 20+ year old electric garage door opener, and I noticed an decrease in my monthly consumption. I've read that newer units use about 5W standby and older units used 20-30W standby. That difference can really add up in a month - 20 W/h for a month is 15 kWh per month.

14.6 kWh/month minus your new usage of 3.65 kWh/month = 11 kWh/month = $1.75 / month difference in your bill. Is your electric usage really that consistent that you could see that decrease in your bill? I mean, mine goes up and down by $100 from one month to the next.

Last month, despite using a lot more than our usual resistive electric heating (we had a guest staying in our guest suite, and there's resistive baseboard heating and a separate electric water heater in that bathroom), 20 amps worth of Christmas lights running 6 hours per night for most of the month, and our usual load of lights and refrigerators, we somehow had the lowest bill ever. Both this bill and the previous were listed as "actual", not "estimated". The only thing I figure, aside from someone making a very serious mistake in reading the meter, is we finally managed to "lap" the meter past the full count in one month.

 

[semipro]

14.6 kWh/month minus your new usage of 3.65 kWh/month = 11 kWh/month = $1.75 / month difference in your bill. Is your electric usage really that consistent that you could see that decrease in your bill? I mean, mine goes up and down by $100 from one month to the next.

Last month, despite using a lot more than our usual resistive electric heating (we had a guest staying in our guest suite, and there's resistive baseboard heating and a separate electric water heater in that bathroom), 20 amps worth of Christmas lights running 6 hours per night for most of the month, and our usual load of lights and refrigerators, we somehow had the lowest bill ever. Both this bill and the previous were listed as "actual", not "estimated". The only thing I figure, aside from someone making a very serious mistake in reading the meter, is we finally managed to "lap" the meter past the full count in one month.

I've been confounded by this also, that people can measure the effects of mods based on utility bills. Given changes in weather, occupancy, household habits, etc. I can't imagine using monthly electrical usage to gauge results.

 

[Highbeam]

These days with super low wattage light bulbs, I look at a 30 watt waste as three bright light bulbs on all the time. I would be barking at the kids to shut those dang lights off when that vampire load is chewing up so much light.

My whole power bill, even this time of year with that monster hot tub, all electric house, is 100$ per month. I wouldn't notice a 15 kwh change. With each bill, the power company does provide last year's use for the same month as comparison along with outdoor temps. It is easy to see a change but probably not a tiny one like that.

 

[PapaDave]

Our use is pretty consistent month to month, but I wouldn't be too concerned about an increase of a few Kwh.
We fairly consistently use about 300-350/month. Depending on the rate, our bill runs about $70-75, and that includes a monthly charge of $12 for a dusk to dawn yard light.
Fridge, upright 14 cu ft freezer, elec. stove/oven, elec dryer, big screen LCD tv, a couple laptops, and a few lights (most still cfl, but gradually moving to LED).
The only thing we use on a regular basis that's gas is the water heater and I have no idea how old the thing is.
I read my own meter.
When we first got here, we were using almost 3 times what we use now. Bad habits carried over from our lifestyle while still working.
ETA: That use drops a bit as the days get longer. Turning lights on at 5:00pm is just weird.

 

[maple1]

These days with super low wattage light bulbs, I look at a 30 watt waste as three bright light bulbs on all the time. I would be barking at the kids to shut those dang lights off when that vampire load is chewing up so much light.

My whole power bill, even this time of year with that monster hot tub, all electric house, is 100$ per month. I wouldn't notice a 15 kwh change. With each bill, the power company does provide last year's use for the same month as comparison along with outdoor temps. It is easy to see a change but probably not a tiny one like that.

Do I remember you doing some work last year in a similar thread trying to find where your juice was going? Sounds like you might have found it with the $100/mo current bill - what did you find back then? It wasn't the tub?

 

[Highbeam]

Do I remember you doing some work last year in a similar thread trying to find where your juice was going? Sounds like you might have found it with the $100/mo current bill - what did you find back then? It wasn't the tub?

It was the tub. The tub costs me about 2$ per day.

The 100$ per month bill is a result of our 10 cent per kwh power. I am still using 1000 kwh per month which to me is very high considering I am 100% wood heat. I found no smoking gun. The majority of my non-hottub bill is water heating.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I'm pretty flat in my usage, but I wouldn't notice 15 kwh up or down.

 

[Ashful]

Geez... our usage varies between 1600 and 2500 kWh per month, depending on who's home, house guests, and outside temperatures. I suspect our biggest users are our dehumidifiers, of which we have three. No way in hell I'm noticing a 15 kWh difference, intentional or otherwise.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

My fridge is the largest power usage that I can test with my kill-a-watt. at around 90/mo. Next year (actually this year now) it will be replaced.

 

[begreen]

Geez... our usage varies between 1600 and 2500 kWh per month, depending on who's home, house guests, and outside temperatures. I suspect our biggest users are our dehumidifiers, of which we have three. No way in hell I'm noticing a 15 kWh difference, intentional or otherwise.

With 200 bulbs, I wouldn't be surprised if lighting isn't one of your heavy loads.

 

[Ashful]

With 200 bulbs, I wouldn't be surprised if lighting isn't one of your heavy loads.

It would be interesting to figure that out, but my gut tells me it's probably only 10 - 15 kWh / day = $49 - $73 / month.

I think a single dehumidifier in a humid basement can run $100 / month, IIRC. We have a large basement (~2000 sq.ft.), and two dehumidifiers that run intermittently all winter and almost continuously in summer. We have a third dehumidifier in our 3rd floor attic, where it gets humid enough in summer to cause condensation (and thus mold) on the outside of one of our AC air handlers. I really saw the electric bill skip up a bit when we went from one to three dehumidifiers... but our basement is dry and odor free, which was not the case when we moved in.

 

[begreen]

I run a dehumifier in the greenhouse. Lousy conditions in our damp climate. But I hardly see a blip in the bill from it. Maybe $5/month? The main things I do see a change in the winter are the heat pump and much longer hours for the kitchen/lr lighting being on. The heat pump is the big one, it generally adds about $30/month average (though it can add as much as $80 with high use) and lighting maybe about $10?? But we are only talking about 12 lamps here and they are now all CFL, though I am testing a couple LED lamps too.

 

[Ashful]

The heat pump is the big one, it generally adds about $30/month average (though it can add as much as $80 with high use) and lighting...

You should try heating with wood.

 

[begreen]

Yer right, we used the heat pump a whole lot more in December 2013 than last year because a) it was much milder than normal and b) I am burning through the last of some crappy soft maple which is dirty and damp. Just got the bill today and it is up by a whopping 500KW compared to last Dec.! It's one of the highest bills we've had in several years. Ah well, fortunately we are soon going to be burning our good dry wood. Looking forward to it.

 

[DBoon]

Is your electric usage really that consistent that you could see that decrease in your bill? I mean, mine goes up and down by $100 from one month to the next.

I track a 12 month moving average of my electricity usage. It's not perfect, but it smooths out the month to month variability, and my usage is pretty consistent. In a month, I'm only using 300-350 kWh in the summer and 400-450 kWh in the winter (difference being pumps for the boiler, fan for the wood stove, and a little more hot water usage.

 

[begreen]

Lighting has to be a difference too. There are lots less daylight hours in winter.

 

[Where2]

My fridge is the largest power usage that I can test with my kill-a-watt. at around 90/mo. Next year (actually this year now) it will be replaced.

Really? $90/mo just for the fridge?? I have months when my entire bill isn't $90/mo, even when I back out my PV system. Granted, my current refrigerator is only 13 years old, which is certainly not state of the art, but it is a 26cuft side by side.

You think it's hard to find a 15kWh difference in a normal house, you should try to find that when you have a PV system running. 15kWh is the difference between what I collect on a really good day, and what I collect on a mostly overcast day. 15kWh is also the sort of swing I can put in my bill by just having 5 weekends worth of laundry to run through the washer/dryer instead of 4 weekends worth of laundry. (all electric house)

As for those wondering about the dehumidifier effect, I measured mine on the weekend using my Kill-A-Watt. Fan alone = 50W, Running the compressor = 725W. Pick a duty cycle to compute your average consumption.

Just got my two Ted 1001's in the mail today. Now I can start measuring ceiling fans...

 

[EatenByLimestone]

90 kwh! My average month's usage is 278kwh/mo so it's probably the big energy user at my house. I don't have a way to test the stove without buying rather pricey equipment.

 

[Ashful]

I don't have a way to test the stove without buying rather pricey equipment.

Clamp on ammeter (Amprobe) and one of those calculators you get free at the bank / cereal box. Measure usage in different modes of operation, use calculator to extrapolate. Electric stoves are almost purely resistive, so very close to volt-amps = watts.

 

[billb3]

the average electric bill has gone up 30%-40% in the last 5 years
I've gone on vacation for almost a month, turned off all the breakers but the fridge and with no one going in and out of it used 65kwh for the month.

5 years ago we could get our electric bill just under $20/mo in the Summer. Now we're doing well staying under $35.00 and we've transitioned from cfl to led lighting
shooting for under 125kwh/mo meant brassieres, stockings, underwear and panties dangling all over like spider webs from not using the drier. No thanks.

There's plenty of cost estimators around, like (broken link removed to http://www.glendalewaterandpower.com/rates/appliance_operating_costs.aspx)
fairly easy to see what a dehumidifier and water heater does to an electric bill with higher duty cycles


one item not mentioned on lots of estimators is your cable box - they get quite warm


you might want to run numbers on making ( a % of your ) water hot with a couple solar panels

 

[billb3]

The 25 watt light bulb my wife leaves on in the basement for the cats drives me nuts.

25 x2 4=600=0.6kwh x $0.21/kwh (my new electric rate ) =$0.126/day = $3.78 / month.
That's not too bad, but replace it with a LED bulb that uses 3.5 watts and that becomes 50¢/mo aroundabout a 4 month payback on the bulb if the bulb is 12 bucks
adds up fast on lights that are left on all the time
intermittant use lights - not so much

 

[maple1]

It would be interesting to figure that out, but my gut tells me it's probably only 10 - 15 kWh / day = $49 - $73 / month.

That would be over half of our monthly bill. I think I'd call that a substantial load, if it were ours at least. I guess I'm not a lighting connoisseur.

I run a dehumifier in the greenhouse. Lousy conditions in our damp climate. But I hardly see a blip in the bill from it. Maybe $5/month?

With some rough figuring, I think $5/month would only buy us about 40 hours/month of dehumidification here. I noticed a jump when I had ours running after putting in our years wood a couple falls ago - bad timing meant it had to go in damp, so I had to set up the dehumdifier for a month or two. Like, an extra $30-40/month or so.

That's the only time it gets used here, and it hasn't been used for a couple of years now. If I was in a situation where I regularly needed to dehumidify, I would have a HPWH in a heartbeat.

 

[maple1]

As WG says, it's a clamp on. You clamp on to the fat, hot, insulated wires just before they hit the main breaker in your panel. There is plenty of room right on top of the main breaker in a regular panel to put the little rings in place. The clamp on pickup rings are routed out of the panel through a skinny wire that conveniently slips into the corner cutout of your panel can and under the cover so it's very easy. On the outside of the panel can, those little wires hit a trnasmitter box that you stick on the wall or whatever and it talks to the display unit wirelessly.

You could just as easily clamp the pickups around another circuit in the panel and monitor that circuit's consumption. Really fancy monitoring systems have several clamps and allow you to log as many circuits as you want. Sheesh, start with the main. This allows you to backcheck the meter readings if you think the utility is robbing you.

Well, I Ebayed one yesterday so I'll be having another new gadget to play with. Should be interesting. Think I'll get a Kill-O-Watt type thing too, but I'd like to find one with a 20-amp receptacle to monitor just my new UPS with. Looks like there isn't such a thing - all I've seen are 15 amp? Guess I could just wire myself up a pigtail adaptor to use with it.