Electric bill is killing me

Mr Sandman on Garage 1217 thread has a tier electricity PDF he sent it to me put I am having an Apple thing and it won't let me see it.
 
stick a watt meter on each and every thing in your house that has a plug to find out what is doing it. For example even though the tv is off it is still using electricity.
 
Kahuna Tuna said:
I cant make sense out of this bill but we just paid over $1,162 bucks for 68 days of service. Our rates just went up 1-1-11, and we just paid $220 more than we would have this time last year. It says my current usage is 4,381 KWH avg/day which makes no sense. Looks like they are getting $ .29 KWH right now. Yes I am on the tier system and our local provider (Billy Bob's electric) is just a middle man.

The TV's don't get much use here, the tanks and the spa are the biggest offenders. The lights rarely get left on since my daughter left for college. The spa isn't an option, that belongs to the missus. I know I'm just throwing money away on the tank right now and need to rectify that with some appropriate lighting and some insulation. Thanks so much for the help.
Click to expand...

That's probably about 43 kwh/day, which sounds about right. Don't forget the fridge, and even a gas furnace has an electric blower that may consume 250-500 watts when the heat is running.

If you're like the rest of California, your marginal rate is probably about $0.40. Sounds roughly like your tank might be consuming about 900 watts continuously, so about 22 kwh/day by itself, or about $250/month.
 
Look for an internal pump that is only around 1000gph, that will save you a little right there. Make up for the flow with your powerheads which are way cheaper to run. Then your lighting and insulation like everyone said.
 
The internal pump efficiency is somewhat misleading. In this case, he needs the extra heat anyway. So downsizing the pump wattage only shifts the energy usage to the heater. In other words, running a larger return pump has no downside in this case, as a Watt is a Watt and the submerged pump imparts all of its energy into the water :)
 
Any way to install all of the filtration stuff under the tank? You could use a much smaller pump & also keep everything inside the house where I am sure the temp stays more constant???

I use a velocity T4 on my 210g which as many claim does put heat into the tank & gives me 800-1000 or so GPH at 6ft head. It's around 140w & is silent

& like someone else mentioned depending on what you keep in there you might not need any of the other lighting. Good reflectors for the MH's is very important & if it's not a reef tank that's all you need.

When we added our hot tub my bill went up $20-40 a month

MY last bill here in Ohio was just shy of $500 however I do not have gas & it's been really really cold. I pay under $.10 a kwh... forget the exact number.....
 
I just put a Kill-A-Watt on my FAU and the fan alone was 400 watts. Kill-A-Watt is a must get the new one it has more options for figuring out your usage. PS the heater is a 55,000 BTU gas fired.
 
Spas are energy hogs as well.

I switched from 3x175 watt MH+2x40 watt actinics to 125 watts of LED. The summer will be a time to notice it more due to less A/C usage in the basement where the tank is. My heater(300 watt) runs a little more in winter now, but that was expected. I already show that I am ahead by a few hundred $ on my usage, just since mid November. I will know my real savings in August when my balanced budget is readjusted. I pay $256 a month on balanced budget. I have also replaced many of my bulbs around the house with 8 watt LED bulbs. IME they are brighter than the 60 watt incandesents and 18 watt CFLs they replaced. I also plan on replacing some A/C units around the house this summer.
 
BeanAnimal said:
The internal pump efficiency is somewhat misleading. In this case, he needs the extra heat anyway. So downsizing the pump wattage only shifts the energy usage to the heater. In other words, running a larger return pump has no downside in this case, as a Watt is a Watt and the submerged pump imparts all of its energy into the water :)
Click to expand...

He is running an external iwaki from what I gather and with his rating of around 1500gph I assume it is an MD-70RLT which is not submersible so not much heat is being directed in the tank. And also, A watt is most definitely not a watt when it comes to heat transfer. Massive variables to account for when it comes to heat transfer into the water of a tank. I can put a 250W heater inside an insulated container, within the sump and a 100w heater will be a lot more efficient for example. Going to a pump that is more efficient and submerged will help keep heat in the tank better than an external.

On the note of that pump, if it is the one he is running, it is rated at 2.8A @ 115V which equals around 322W. At that draw and the OP's stated .29 cents a kwh, he is paying $818.09 a year or almost $70 a month to run the iwaki. If he went to an internal, it would help put heat into the tank and he could run my personal fav efficient return pump the wb5000 which I have tested to draw 58W / rated at 60W and has 1300gph of flow. For example, at 60w this pump would only cost him $152.42 to run per year if he does not mind sacrificing a few GPH.

Also the more he cuts, the more it will help to get him to the next lower tier so his overall bill will lower.

On another note, some ideas... Not sure what you keep your tank temp at, but I have never had a problem with corals at 75F. You could use your heaters on a ranco set for 75F. Set the spread for 1 degree which means the heaters will kick off at 76F. If you get the balance right and the heaters only have to maintain the temp around 75F you will save quite a bit of cash on heating. Worked wonders for me. I did an efficiency writeup on this awhile back, I had an issue which caused me to be heating my tank to 82-83F. In short, the difference between keeping the tank at 82 and 75 was SIGNIFICANT money wise. After getting it back down over time to 75, the savings were impressive. Do not have time to dig up the data after all of my blabbing but the post is located here...

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1809131
 
Been playing with numbers and it looks like for a minimum investment in equiptment and insulation I can save some serious cash and repay that investment quickly. The tank is an energy hog as is but there is definately room for improvement. The spa is another matter and I'm afraid we are going to have to look at the possibility of shutting it down and draining it next winter. Thanks again everone for your help.
 
Yeah.. reality kinda sucks sometimes. Look at it this way. If the SPA costs $500 a month to run and she uses it 10 times each month, that is $50 per relaxing dip.... She could visit a local SPA and relax in a spa and have her mud mask for that!
 
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