Electric bill

[KAiNE]

What are you guys seeing as far as power bills? Mine is so high the last few years and I cant believe its my tanks causing it. Ive done the math and what i find (according to amp ratings on the equipment) is that my tanks are costing me at most about $30-$40 extra a month. I've talked to allot of people here at work who have houses 3 times larger with 3 and 4 AC units that have half the bill i do. I am wondering if something else (AC, water heater, dryer) is failing and driving my bill up or that my meter is incorrect. I have always seen fairly high bills but this is killing me.

I am probably going to get a "kill-a-watt" to watch my 110v plugin stuff and amp probe the others to see what is causing this.

This month's was $350 something......... Last March was $280

 

[Lint_Licker]

Alot of it has to do with where you live and how old of place you have.

 

[Lint_Licker]

oh yeah... I just learned on the news that our utilities are going up 10% for electric, 20% for sewer, 11% for water.

 

[KAiNE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10133678#post10133678 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lint_Licker
Alot of it has to do with where you live and how old of place you have.

I agree, but i wanted to see if everyone with larger tanks and MH's had this high of a bill.
House built in 93, lived here since.

 

[KAiNE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10133685#post10133685 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lint_Licker
oh yeah... I just learned on the news that our utilities are going up 10% for electric, 20% for sewer, 11% for water.

I dont know what county you live in but I do know that NES is raising rates again but the current $.075 a killawatt isnt too bad when compared to the rest of the country.
Davidson cty was paying more on their water bills for the Titans stuff, or so i thought.

 

[NeveSSL]

I'm worried how much mine is going to go up. Right now its usually $70-$90 (1000sq. ft. apt.)... I shouldn't pull, I'm hoping, more than $10 to $30 at the most extra... but I've not calculated it up yet...

I've heard of some people putting their hot water heaters on a timer, but they may or may not work depending on your and your families preferences.

Brandon

 

[DMBillies]

The thing that kills the electric bill in the summer, especially when you're running halides and/or a chiller that exhausts into the house, is how much harder your AC is working to cool your rooms to a reasonable temperature. With 3 tanks in the rooms that we spend the most time in and only 2 exterior walls on our place, we turned the heat on this winter maybe 2 or 3 times. Of course, now that it's 90 degrees out, we're paying for it.

That said, if you're bill is $70 more than it was last year at the same time (and you haven't changed that much around the house), it might be worth checking out. We've had a relatively warm spring (I would say anyway) but it shouldn't make that much of a difference. If the increase only seems to be during the times that your AC would also be running, it might be worth having that checked. If the AC isn't running to full efficiency but still working enough to cool the house, it could be wasting a lot of electricity and you might not notice a change in house temperature. Does it seem to be running more than usual?

My only other thought is to make sure that they aren't estimating your bill. If they don't feel like sending out a meter reader, they will sometimes estimate your usage based on your prior record and the weather outside. Sometimes, their estimates are ridiculously off. However, you wouldn't notice this as an increase over time (usually), but instead as a big jump from month to month depending on their estimate and how off it is.

 

[KAiNE]

Very true on the room heat and the AC having to deal with it. My bill is $70 more than 2 months ago, not last year. It has been in the $300 range for awhile now.

They could be estimating my bill, didnt NES used to put the meter reading on the bill?

 

[DMBillies]

Oh, and I meant to include this with my last post... a $300 electric bill :eek2:

That would kill me.

Are you growing something other than coral?

 

[KAiNE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10135362#post10135362 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DMBillies


Are you growing something other than coral?

If that were the case, I wouldn't be worried about my electric bill!!

 

[gflat65]

Ours ran $250 or so for about 8 months of the year and would drop dramatically in the winter. We replaced the AC last year and the bills dropped slightly, but not drmatically. The house was a little cooler, but with 5 halides and a chiller in the same room (furthest from the AC unit), it was still warm. My wife has grown accustomed to $200-250/mo.

 

[crumbletop]

My total power bill runs between $82 and $175. 2 months last year (July and August) were the $175. The rest of the months are less than $110. The average is around $100/month. I've only got about 110 total gallons, though. No chiller. ~10 hour lighting cycle.

I also built my system to minimize watts. Tunze powerheads for flow (seios before that), 21 Watt skimmer, 38 Watt return pump, T5 lights that stagger on and off so the power consumption is for an 8 hour photoperiod with 10 hours total photoperiod for the tank. My guess is my tank costs between $20 and $30/month to operate (water + electricity).

 

[Freed]

My electric bill was -$159 last month and will be the same next month as well. Forgot to add that I only pay $0.019 per KWH for all my lighting for my tanks!!!

That's a credit that you see up above for last month. I still have a credit in the same amount for next month as well.

 

[NeveSSL]

Holy Cow! That is REALLY cheap. Ours (Murfreesboro) is around $0.0719 or so... which still isn't horrible. According to the tank calc, my tank should only raise our electricity about $10 a month.

Brandon

 

[Angela Short]

Our house runs about $70 more than my neighbor same size same builder. But he is single and we are a family of 5 so I know that has alot to do with it especially when kids think they were raised in a barn! I run 4 250 halides and then have to run a dehumidifier 24/7 to take out all the water the tank evaporates. So I have a double expense. With the tank being in the basement den if the dehu is off for some reason (like I forgot to empty the bucket ) you can tell the minute you open the door, Peeyeew whats that muggy fish smell?

I think solaris has a great selling point if its costing me say $30-$60 a month for the halides and dehu (total guess I have No clue) Then it would pay for itself pretty fast especially not having to replace bulbs at about $320 a year added in for 4 $80 bulbs.....Hmmm, Maybe I should get them now that I just wrote that! That sounds like the way to go!! :lol:

FWIW my electric ran $205 April and $215 May for 1,987 SF up and 1,000 SF downstairs with its own unit. We keep the temp at 74 in both and the kids leave the doors open ALOT. We also use a ton of hot water for laundry and full bathtubbs which runs it up so yours does sound kinda high IMO.

 

[NeveSSL]

I keep telling myself the same thing about an ACIII over an ACJr.... I keep saying "Brandon... if you want email messaging of problems, you're gonna have to keep a computer on 24/7... you'd just as well get the ACIII which does more and doesn't need a computer to message you!"

hehe

Brandon

 

[Mikeyjer]

Talking about electric bill, I'm not looking forward into getting mine this month. We were running AC here and at the Condo for the fish tanks so they wouldn't fry.....We did that for over two weeks before we got to move the tanks and opening the doors to move stuffs in and out in and out.......I'm afraid to see the electric bill............. :eek2:

 

[KAiNE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10139259#post10139259 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Angela Short
FWIW my electric ran $205 April and $215 May for 1,987 SF up and 1,000 SF downstairs with its own unit. We keep the temp at 74 in both and the kids leave the doors open ALOT. We also use a ton of hot water for laundry and full bathtubbs which runs it up so yours does sound kinda high IMO.

If yours is that low, than I know I have to have a problem somewhere. I do have 3 kids and its bird breeding time so we are going through at least 3 loads of laundry a day. My dehumidifier doesnt during the summer since the a/c keeps the humidity down. We keep the thermostat on 75.

Here are my last few bills -

May - 363.52 (due now)
April - 339.36
March - 283.16
Feb - 362.19

 

[KAiNE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10136918#post10136918 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by crumbletop
I also built my system to minimize watts. Tunze powerheads for flow (seios before that), 21 Watt skimmer, 38 Watt return pump, T5 lights that stagger on and off so the power consumption is for an 8 hour photoperiod with 10 hours total photoperiod for the tank. My guess is my tank costs between $20 and $30/month to operate (water + electricity).

I cant say I did that (built to minimize) but i dont have a chiller. My MH's run 8hrs and my VHO's run 12hrs. I do have 5 external pumps and 2 are pushing injector type skimmers.

This weekend I plan on measuring power consumption on most everything in the house. I'll post what i find here.

 

[Freed]

Yours could be that low too. You just have to call your power company and get the time of day meter.