Need to reduce electricity

[dfchelbay]

Just got another electricity bill...nearly $200.00 for one month. How can just two people, not running the air conditioner, and not home during the day consume so much? How much SHOULD my electric bill be anyway? I know about the phantom load from plugged in electronics...but come on $200.

I have natural gas heat, central air (rarely run it). Any suggestions on how to reduce electricity consumption? I've already begun avoiding opening the garage door, if I don't absolutely have to because it uses electricity. I've unplugged things in unoccupied rooms, etc. This is really bugging me because every dollar paid, is one less dollar saved for WDW trips.

Any suggestions would be appreciated...thanks.

 

[Belle5]

$200 sounds really reasonable but different areas of the country have different costs on these things...

Insulate--we have cut our electric from $1000 a month in the summers to $500-600 by doing some major insulating.

Cut out clothes dryer use. That is supposed to be a big one. I still use my dryer but I have heard that it is a big consumer.

Good luck!

 

[Bren's Mom]

One thing to look at is the energy charge. Ours is a .1025 here in CT right now, and that's multiplied by the # of kwh (killowatt hours) we used. If you look at older bills is the charge more or less? Is the # of kwh used more or less?

Also check major appliances. Are they older? If they're not energy efficient they may sap alot of power. Have you gotten new cable or satellite systems? Or anything else new that might be draining power?

And are you in a multi-family home? Be sure you're not hooked into anyone else.

Remember that you can look at your meter turning if you have access. Turn everything off and it should slow considerably. If it doesn't, you've missed something. Trial and error should help you narrow down the problem.

I agree that $200 seems high. At the height of summer with central AC running, for a 2000 sf house, plus a pool pump running 8-16 hours per day, our bill has never gotten over $350. In winter it's considerably less than $200. (We have gas heat also.) Good luck!

 

[SnowWtch]

I'm trying to figure out the same thing here. We do have to run the AC but we're in Florida so it would be difficult not too. However, we're in a 1BR apartment and our bill has been around $130 for the past 2 months. It's getting hard to pay it with DH out of work. We don't have a washer/dryer so I know that's not it. I just don't know what to do.

 

[Kies99]

Call your electric company. A lot of them now have free energy check-ups. Someone will come to your home and look over your whole house and help you find ways to cut back on the energy usage.

 

[dfchelbay]

$200 sounds really reasonable but different areas of the country have different costs on these things...

Insulate--we have cut our electric from $1000 a month in the summers to $500-600 by doing some major insulating.

Cut out clothes dryer use. That is supposed to be a big one. I still use my dryer but I have heard that it is a big consumer.

Good luck!

We did the insulation addition last year, so I can't look to save there.

I did forget to mention our dishwasher. To wash one load, it runs for an hour, WITHOUT the drying cycle. Is that a normal amount of time? To me, it seems like a long amount of time to just wash and rinse the dishes. I guess that would be my other question, how long should a dishwasher run to wash one load, without using the drying cycle?

I will be reducing the dryer time too. Thanks and keep the ideas coming.

 

[hipchickie]

I am on a huge electricity reduction challenge with myself.

Somethings I did:

Get all Tvs/VCR's/etc on power strips, and turn them off when not using.

Make sure we unplug all chargers (phone, camera, etc) after use.

DH put up a clothes line for me, now I dry the clothes 20 minutes and hang. This keeps the clothes soft (my families big complaint about line dried clothes) and removes lint and pet hair. By doing it this way, I use the drier on average about 1hr40min a week, as opposed to 6hr40min before

I have gotten back into the pre-spotting habit, and wash only on cold. I also only used to use the Heavy cycle (which was longer), now I use normal. Things were not coming out as clean, but the pre-spotting made all the difference.

Turn off all lights when you leave a room, even if you think you are coming right back. My husband is an electrical engineer, and he says it is a fallacy that there is a surge when you turn them back on that ends up costing more. You can diminish the life of you florescent bulbs slightly though. More often than not I find I don't get right back, and I would rather have to habit to turn them off than worry too much about bulb life.

 

[hipchickie]

Call your electric company. A lot of them now have free energy check-ups. Someone will come to your home and look over your whole house and help you find ways to cut back on the energy usage.

That is a great idea - at our old house they came and put insulation on our hot water pipes and hot water heater for free, and gave us some free florescent light bulbs

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

Is your stove electric? Do you have an electric hot water heater? How about your dryer, is it electric or gas?

Do you shut down your computers when they're not in use? Unplug cell phone and iPod chargers when not in use? The toaster? Coffeemaker? Laptop charger? Cable box on when TV isn't?

My dishwasher doesn't have a dry cycle, it uses radiant heat to dry the dishes. It takes 90 minutes to do a regular wash, 30 minutes for a light wash. If I start the dishwasher, it's always a light cycle. If DH starts it, well...let's just say that I appreciate that he does it even if it does run for 3x what it needs.

$200 seems like an awful high amount for 2 people. Ours is about twice that but I have all electric appliances, run the a/c all summer (allergies) and have 2 teenagers. I think that the suggestion of an energy audit by your electric company is a good idea.

 

[edandcolleen1995]

How much SHOULD my electric bill be anyway? I know about the phantom load from plugged in electronics...but come on $200.
.

We live in New York about hour north of NYC. No clue how our rates are vs other areas because we just bought our first house this June.

Our bill came and it was for 10 weeks. (from when we moved in till end of Aug) and was $171. That is about $68 per month

Now we did spend the money on new front load washer/dryer. We use oil for heat (not issue now) and propane to cook with. We replaced ALL of our lights and put in the new LED ones. We did not use the huge A/C until, but did run fans in all 3 bedrooms all night.

Seems very good to me. I was thinking $150 a month so happy to see what we did pay

 

[crisi]

Computers can be a huge drain. Leaving a computer on all the time can be $10+ per month. If you have more than one computer, it adds up quickly. We had really big electricity bills here last year - and it was the stupid stuff - not turning out lights, teaching the kids not to hang there with the fridge open, four computers on 24x7.

 

[jaminmd]

Are you on a time of use meter? We were but rates have nearly doubled in Maryland (due to deregulation), as did my electric bill. Ever since I got rid of the TOU meter, my electric bill has been much more manageable.

 

[eyor44]

Computers can be a huge drain. Leaving a computer on all the time can be $10+ per month. If you have more than one computer, it adds up quickly.

I fight my family about this all of the time. Oldest DS says the usage when in sleep mode is minimal, but I say when he moves out and is paying the bill, he can run it "minimal" all he wants.

 

[PixiePlanner]

Do you have ceiling fans? Many years ago I used to just leave mine running 24/7. Someone told me to turn it off when I wasn't home: the furniture didn't care... Cut my bill about 25%!

 

[JamesMom]

The various rates of electricity throughout the country shocks me.

I live in North Texas where we run the AC to cool our 2000 sq foot, 7yr old house to 76-78 all summer long. I use the washer/dryer at least 8 times a week (not front load), dishwasher 3-4x a week. Big fridge, computers left on, cable boxes, etc.

Our highest bill for Aug was....$230. Gas for hot water (only $20 a month) and heat ($82 last Feb).

I am thankful to live where I do!

 

[crisi]

I fight my family about this all of the time. Oldest DS says the usage when in sleep mode is minimal, but I say when he moves out and is paying the bill, he can run it "minimal" all he wants.

Sleep is fairly minimal - but its not nothing.

This guy's site is good (he seems a little odd, but his information seems decent)

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

 

[3boymthr]

Your bill seems awful high to me. Our average bill is $140/mo. We have an 1200 sf ranch house with a full walkout basement. There are 5 of us.

Switch to CFLs the difference in energy usage is huge. My average bill has held steady for the last year since we switched.

Another thing to do is check to see if there has been a "meter adjustment" For a while our electric company was only reading our meter once a quarter. Every third month for about 9 months my bill saw a dramatic increase. Then it averaged out again when they started checking the meter more frequently.

Also check your basement and attic to see if there is anything plugged in or running constantly that you don't know about. A fan on your vent or heater that's running, running, running or say a dehumidifier; ours ran non-stop for 3 weeks until DH realized and fixed it - I'm expecting a bigger bill this month.

Another thing to note - do you have a transformer in front of your house? These little (okay huge) gadgets that hang on the pole can be responsible for energy surges to your house and an increase to your bill.

 

[CLR4321]

I lived in a 2 bedroom house (about 950 sq ft), just my son and I for 2 years. We lived in Oregon, so it got pretty hot during summer and reasonably cold (freezing every night for about 2 months and occasional ice and snow) during winter My average bill in the summer was $90 and average in winter was about the same. My first December I was there, it got pretty cold. I freaked out when I got a $150 power bill. That is when I realized my wall heaters were not a good choice for heat. Spring and fall ran about $50-60 a month. I had a swamp cooler instead of central air which saved some money in the summer, and ran space heaters in the winter as opposed to my energy guzzling wall heaters. I would close off the bedrooms and the bathroom and only heat the living room and kitchen during the day, and heat my son's room with a small space heater at night. I would take my space heater from the living room and take it in my room at night, which kept it really toasty. My house was well insulated with good double pane windows. I ran my dish washer about every 3 days and usually did 3 loads of laundry per week. I work from home, so I had my computer running an average of 16 hours per day. I would leave it running from when I got up in the morning till I was going to bed at night. The TV would be on usually for about 2 hrs per day. Lights were only on if someone was in the room. I did not use lights during the day at all unless it was a dark day. Look around your house. Do you have any constantly running electric equipment? Last fall I decided to plug in this 40 year old freezer to store some extra frozen goods I had bought. I left it plugged in, and my power bill went up about $30 a month. After 2 months I realized the raise in my power bill could be due to the freezer. I unplugged it, and my bill went down $30! It was costing me $1 a day just to have that dinosaur plugged in. Needless to say, I filled up my regular freezer with my frozen food and kept that thing unplugged. Other ways to save energy are energy saver light bulbs and lamps. Also, many people do not realize how much energy is being used unnecessarily. Keep lights and other devices such as TV's OFF when you are not in the room using them. Open shades and curtains during the day to use natural light instead of electricity. Watch TV in the dark. Unplug electronic devices that you do not use. Use a small lamp for things like reading or using the computer rather than an overhead ceiling light. Turn off the dry cycle on your dishwasher. If it is an option, line dry your laundry. Most people do not realize how much all these little things really add up. Just make a deal with whoever you live with. Start at the begining of your billing cycle, from the day the meter is read. Do your best to use as little energy as possible, really make an effort. At the end of your billing cycle, or when your meter is read, compare it to your previous bills. I guarantee you you will be shocked to see how much it really costs and how much you can save when energy is conserved. Good luck!

 

[Blue.Fairy2]

Change all your light bulbs to compact fluorescents, costly at first but well worth it. They last longer and burn much less energy.

By the way your gas appliances still use electricity to run, at least that is what our electrician told us.

If you are in Miami it gets really hot there and if you are turning on your air at night when you get home it will take more electricity to cool down your home than if you left it on say 76-78 during the day and then turned it down at night.

Run ceiling fans at night to circulate the cool air.

Clean your condenser coil

The condenser coil (the unit outside your house) should be kept clean to ensure efficient operation. Often, the condenser coil becomes restricted by dirt, lint, paper, grass clippings, leaves, or other debris. Plant trees or shrubs to shade air conditioning units but no to block airflow. A unit operating in the shade uses as much as 10% less electricity that the same one operating in the sun. Keep vents and grill unobstructed Arrange your furniture and drapes so that all output vents and intake grills are free from obstruction. This will reduce the cooling and heating load on your system for more economical operation. Keep doors and windows properly sealed Annually check the weather strip around the door and make sure the windows fit tightly. This will reduce the heating load in the winter and cooling load in the summer. Your system will operate more economically as a result.

Clean the coils under your fridge also they get really dusty and cause it to run more to keep cool.

Change you air filters regularly, we change ours at least once a month sometimes twice.


here is a good website shows you what each thing uses:

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

 

[hipchickie]

If you are in Miami it gets really hot there and if you are turning on your air at night when you get home it will take more electricity to cool down your home than if you left it on say 76-78 during the day and then turned it down at night.

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooling.html

It's a myth that leaving the AC on while you're away at work uses less energy than turning it on when you get home. Here's why:

Heat goes to where it's not. That's why heat from outside goes into your cooler home. With the AC off, at some point your house will be so hot it can't absorb any more heat. When you come home and turn the AC on, the AC removes all that heat.

But if the AC is on when you're gone, then you've turned your house into a heat magnet. But keeping it artificially cool, there's no limit to the amount of heat it can absorb. It can always absorb more heat. And your AC has to remove that heat constantly. Your AC kicks in and removes some of that heat, then the house is cooler so it sucks in more heat from outside, so your AC kicks in again and removes that heat, and so on.

This means that throughout the day, your house has absorbed way more than one houseful of heat. And your AC had to remove it all. By contrast, with the AC off all day, then it has to remove just one houseful of heat when you come home and turn it on.

Let's say you leave the AC off, and your house absorbs 20k BTU's of heat and then stops, because that's all it can absorb.

Now let's say that you have the AC running instead. The house absorbs 5k BTU's of heat, so the AC kicks in and removes it. Then it absorbs another 5k BTU's, and your AC kicks in and removes that. Repeat that process several times during the day.

The actual numbers will vary, and I haven't tested this to see exactly how much the penalty for leaving the AC on during the day is, but there is zero question that running the AC all the time uses more energy than turning it on when you get home. This is not a gray area, it's simple physics, and no person with any knowledge of this subject disputes it. Running the AC when you're not home wastes energy, period.