About to have a ****ing heart attack. electric bill.

Scotty_g said:

Depending where your electricity comes from, the coal-fired power plant will emit more mercury out its stack to light the incandescent bulb that is contained in the CFL. I haven't done all the math, but Wisconsin gets ~65% of its electricity from coal so I'm pretty sure I'd be ahead if I smashed the CFL when it burned out...and they can be recycled to recover the mercury.

CFL's from the last few years warm up a lot faster than they did 5 or 10 years ago. I leave the lights on in the kitchen all the time so the short warmup, while irritating, is pretty minor.

Click to expand...

Mine comes from hydro electric. These bulbs will only save you money if they last as long as they say they do.

Hydro electric power ?

Someone in the lunatic fringe once told me that stereos on the west coast sound better because they got their power from clean hydro electric, and not dirty coal !

My house didnt even have running water in it when it was first built my bills are not that high. But im gas/electric. so this time of year the gas is not too bad but the electric just shot up to 200. Wait, i take that back, our gas is on budget so we pay the same year round based on last years use plus some based on speculation of higher NG prices. Our budget amount is 270........................this sucks................

But, then again we are heating and cooling 3 floors with about 1300 sq ft per floor. But............all vents are shut off in the basement as that thing stays in the 60s year round.

The thing that gets me is the base charges. I have a tankless water heater and use next to zero NG (2 ccfs) in the summer but I still pay $16 a month just to have the NG hooked up to my house.

So much for rewarding energy efficency!

Ryanh1801 said:

611 freaking dollars this month!!!!

Click to expand...

Is it possible that this was the first "real" meter reading, after a couple months of estimates? I've had that happen before, where the elec co does estimated meter readings for a month or two, misses the estimate by a lot, and then when they finally get around to a real meter reading it contains all of the make-up from their bad earlier estimates.

kappclark said:

Hydro electric power ?

Someone in the lunatic fringe once told me that stereos on the west coast sound better because they got their power from clean hydro electric, and not dirty coal !

Click to expand...

That's cause the dirty coal causes an existential harmonic distortion dude! :fro:

1920's built 2 story here. About 1500 sq ft plus the basement. All original windows, very leaky. Has a central A/C unit that hasn't worked in 10+ years, and we have 5 total window A/C units. Last year we had 4 of them installed and running to keep the house cool, and averaged about $350/mo.

This year, we only put the two big A/C units in, and are using fans to cool off the other rooms that would normally house the 2 smaller units. Just got my mid May -> mid June bill.... the April-to-May was 85 bucks... this one was $340. Not looking forward to the upcoming June-July bill.

Glad we bought the new fridge, though. The old side-by-side is reasonably efficient, and the new one is GREAT.

Now we just need to get windows replaced and new Central A/C installed. Oh and the roof is shot to hell, too. Yay for already having my next $15k planned out.

Melana said:

My electric bill has gone up 40% in the last few months... yet i am still hovering around $120/month. With the recent oil prices i cringe at the thought of another New England winter coming.

Click to expand...

Two words: pellet stove.
Bought one last November, right about the time my oil tank was filled. Have yet to use the entire tank. Paid about $800 for four tons of pellets that lasted into April. Heated a 2,000 sf house to a nice, cozy and consistent 67 degrees and only jumped electric bill about $30 a month.

I asked at a harware store abt pellet boilers (I want to replace the propane-fired one we have)

He said you can't get them since demand is so high ... and he was out of pellets ... said he has a new supplier who brings them in from California on a train, then re-packages them ..

Supplies are very tight for pellets, I understand ...

Tonedef131 said:

I average about $30 per month. I have been as low as $19 though...only as big as you need is my thinking.

Click to expand...

The electric here averages $22 a month, for a 1381 sf house built in 1978.

That's with the 1988 fridge that runs constantly 4-5 minutes on, and 8-10 minutes off.

I'm planning to convert a freezer to a fridge so the rate will be lower.

Getting jacked by Edison enough finally pushed me over the edge: Solar.
No, I'm not some Birckenstock wearing vegan. I just hate letting someone else play "how much should we charge THIS month!" Since our gub'ment doesn't have the brass ones to build nuclear which has the capacity to be a hell of lot cleaner & more efficient than any coal or gas plant, I make my own! Electricity is easy to pruduce. Paid once for the panels & get to watch the needle spin backwards!! Oh, I do pay once a year for baseline service, about $45-50/month

OK, let the dogs loose on the nuclear comment! Heh, heh.

Bruscar- How, when and where did you get your panels. I want!

I had a similar experience this month. Apparently with my "Power to Choose," I chose the most expensive company available (took the real estate agent's advice...bad mistake). I just switched to the cheapest fixed rate provider available, and I only had to sign an 8 month contract.

On a related note, deregulated electric service blows.

Bruscar said:

Getting jacked by Edison enough finally pushed me over the edge: Solar.
No, I'm not some Birckenstock wearing vegan. I just hate letting someone else play "how much should we charge THIS month!" Since our gub'ment doesn't have the brass ones to build nuclear which has the capacity to be a hell of lot cleaner & more efficient than any coal or gas plant, I make my own! Electricity is easy to pruduce. Paid once for the panels & get to watch the needle spin backwards!! Oh, I do pay once a year for baseline service, about $45-50/month

OK, let the dogs loose on the nuclear comment! Heh, heh.

Click to expand...

Spin backwards on solar? How many panels did you install and how much did you pay?

BeerCanuck said:

Sound like your neighbor might be running an extension cord from your place to his growhouse when your not looking

that bill sucks
BeerCanuck

Click to expand...

That's not as far fetched as it seems.

A young single mom that worked for me in Orlando came in to work one day and started crying. I guess her water bill was about $600! She told me they were always high, but this one was even higher despite the fact that she had stopped watering her lawn and it was nearly dead. She also told me that her neighbors were always watering and they told here their bill was almost nothing. This is when a few lights went on.

In Orlando you can have 2 meters installed. One monitors total consumption, then your irrigation is split off and second one records household use. You pay you water bill on the first meter and pay you sewage on the second. (Irrigation water doesn't reach the sewer). She told me her neighbor and her had the second meter put in at the same time. I guess they mixed up the irrigation lines when they installed the meters and she was paying for her neighbors beautiful lawn.

She took the bills to her neighbor and had the meters corrected. I guess it took them almost a year to pay her back.

Paul

Ryanh1801 said:

611 freaking dollars this month!!!! Good god, so much for buying anything for a few months. Funny thing is the house i am about to move into is 3 1/2 times the size and its electric was on 300 this last month. Stupid POS house, and this is with the thermostat on 80 all day.

Click to expand...

I'm right there with you. $550 last month. And that's with it set on 78deg in the day, 75 at night. My equip is a 4 ton heat pump, 2200sw.ft. in a 7yr old house. Repeated t/s calls show no problems with equipment. Had the meter changed and then tested this time last year (another crazy bill).

And I'm on am EMC...

I don't know about anywhere else, but here in San Diego the cost of solar panels is pretty low, due to grants and credits you gain from the state for installing them. The general payback (how long it takes to make the money you spent on the panels) is under 5 years, after that, it's almost like making money for the amount you save. And when you have excess power the electric companies are required to buy power from you to feed into the grid at the same price you'd pay to get it from them. You can't actually get a negative power bill, but you can get a $0 bill from them, seen it happen a few times.

pldoolittle said:

I'm right there with you. $550 last month. And that's with it set on 78deg in the day, 75 at night. My equip is a 4 ton heat pump, 2200sw.ft. in a 7yr old house. Repeated t/s calls show no problems with equipment. Had the meter changed and then tested this time last year (another crazy bill).

And I'm on am EMC...

Click to expand...

You should turn off all your breakers and have someone monitor your meter. Begin turning things back on and see which one causes your meter to jump. You'll be able to find which circtuit is causing excessive draw. It may not be your heat pump.

Fingers said:

You should turn off all your breakers and have someone monitor your meter. Begin turning things back on and see which one causes your meter to jump. You'll be able to find which circtuit is causing excessive draw. It may not be your heat pump.

Click to expand...

That's the plan when I shed the family for a day. Oddly, it runs about 180 in the winter...

YEESH, pld, That's outrageously high. I have a largeish house, but more importantly, a very OLD house... I average 50-70 in the winters, and 200-300 in the summers with two window AC's. (When I install and run all 4 AC units, it jumps significantly. Closer to that 550 you're talking about)

+1 to doing a little investigative tinkering. Sorry to hear yr pain, man, I feel ya.

Bruscar - more info, please! I'm very interested in solar power, and I'd love to hear about it from someone who actually has panels installed.

What was the initial cost? How did the installation go?

I'd like to hear about the solar as well. I recently switched from LPG forced air furnace to a water to air geothermal system and I looked at solar shingles to get some power.

My return on investment for the shingles was going to be 35 years. And that was the salesman quote!

I'd like to do solar but I'd have to cut a few trees and it wouldn't look to hot on our 1920 Tudor style house with slate roof.
Ohio especially Northeast Ohio, is not the best place for solar any ways. Lower solar energy available and not great incentives.
A better solution for me was a wood stove in our living room. I hoping it will keep our heating costs in check this weekend. The wood is nearly free as I harvest it from my parents woods. Right now I am just using wood my brother cut down when he built his house.
I looked at pellet stoves but the fuel is not much cheaper than gas and current demand for wood byproducts will probably drive it even higher. Many of the pellet manufacturers are now buying sawdust from Canada and shipping it in in order to meet demand. Sawdust is no longer a cheap waste product but a commodity with real value.

Craig