If you use electricity to heat your DHW, what does it cost you/month?

My bill is only $45/month and I live in Maine, just me, the wife and our newborn son. Electric stove, oil boiler for heat (along with our wood stove), dhw off coil in boiler.

Great numbers! I'm at a tad under 300 kwh/mo, with dhw by indirect oil, electric range.
I've been trying to get it lower but can't seem to.
I think the TV/DVR are on too much.

Electricity Usage History
Read
Date Read
Type kwh
5/30/2012 NYSEG 278
4/26/2012 CUSTOMER 287
3/29/2012 NYSEG 315
2/28/2012 ESTIMATED 327
1/26/2012 NYSEG 358
12/24/2011 CUSTOMER 266
11/28/2011 NYSEG 332
10/27/2011 CUSTOMER 264
9/27/2011 NYSEG 265
8/29/2011 CUSTOMER 268
7/29/2011 NYSEG 303
6/24/2011 CUSTOMER 250
5/26/2011 ESTIMATED 252
4/27/2011 CUSTOMER 297
3/30/2011 NYSEG 343
2/24/2011 CUSTOMER 292
1/27/2011 ESTIMATED 397
12/23/2010 CUSTOMER 247
12/1/2010 NYSEG 379
10/27/2010 CUSTOMER 277
9/29/2010 NYSEG 300
8/26/2010 CUSTOMER 204
7/30/2010 NYSEG 265

What is everyone elese's electric rate? Correction, our rate is $0.1457, calculated by $23.18 / 159KWh used. Our rate and delivery charges are included in this number. Our rate has dropped to this $0.1457 from $0.16 As an electrician, I am militant about cutting power to anything (including our TV and computer) when not in use. I wire in switched recepticles that the computer plugs into for this purpose, just flip the switch and no draw, and no threat of power surges either.

We have an $8.25 minimum charge, but if you use more than 57KWh this charge is simply paying for those watts used.

I installed a Harmon PB 105 pellet boiler for a family member with an indirect water heater. He had an electric prior, and his bill dropped by $80, he says he uses a 40# bag every four days......... So I'm not convinced he should be burning all summer, but he likes it so what can I say.

Taylor

Mine works out to 13.4 per kwh.
I have to do something about my oil useage.
It looks like I'm still doing 380 gal/ year even with about 4 -5 cords burned.

My DVR from Dish runs all the time. Even when it is switched to the off position. The only way I can keep it from humming is to unplug it. Someone had told me before I installed it that it's like having another refridgerator.

Our electric costs us about $120/month but I have 2 ladies that love baths so our electric DHW tank runs a bunch! I figure 50.00 each month

Wow. I know TV's use a lot of power, and the DVR is basically a TV tuner. Something to look into.

With DirectTV, if I cut power to the DVR upon start up again it will take several minutes to locate the signal, etc. I rely too much on it's recording of different shows to do this plus the start up time is a bit of a PITA. Cutting power to the TV and the sub and dvd player in my surround sound system is something I should do though.

Computers is another one. I rely heavily on mine for work. It sometimes gets quirky after a shutdown - so I leave it on almost all the time. I think I also read that repeated off/on cycles can take their toll on components. Also, DVRs have hard drives in them - which likely contributes to the high power consumption. We here too need to be trying harder to reduce our power bill - everyone finds turning stuff like power bars off & on to be too much bother.

Cut the power or pay the price......... it's my motto.
My wife calls me the Energy Nazi
Don't know if that is good or not.


Buy or borrow a Kill-a-watt meter from someone and you'd be suprised at what it costs to run things, unfortunatly they don't make one for 240V loads like a dryer or the water heater. CFLs and LED lights do pay for themselves.

Taylor

www.ekmmetering.com has in expensive 240V meters, and some nice smart meters to view online. GEO installers around here add them to their systems to show consumption at the heat pump.

hr

Actually I have used those with great results, put them on solar PV and on a wind system.
I was talking about something that one wouldn't need an electrician to install. But seeing numbers real time makes people realize where their money is going. There are alot of people with a HUGE Kwh numbers on their bill. Just keeping stuff on that serves no benifit.

Taylor

now here's an electric bill that should "shock" you!

This has been discussed in the green room previously, but here is is again.
3 years ago I realized how much I was paying for DHW, about $100/mo ( tankless coil on oil furnace) .
I found a nice used 80 gal electric and installed it. I estimated it would cost about $25/mo to run.
When I installed the new water heater I hooked up an hour meter that runs when the water heater is on.


Over the last 3 years the water heater has run on average 20hr/month. This comes out to about $13.50/mo.
Now I do have a DIY 4x8 solar panel preheating the water into the heater, that is why the cost is on the low side.

I am still burning wood to heat the DHW. I am burning once a day now after making a few adjustments. I need to get my buffer tank insulated a little better. I don't know what it is costing me in electricity, but the wood I am burning for this time of year was real cheap! I have to run a box fan in the boiler room to throw the heat out the basement window. It is a little work each day. But I really like not using any oil.

I have been thinking about adding a electric tank water heater instead of using indirect off a cold start oil boiler. How can I figure out the summer efficiency (and in my case, winter, since I don't run it that much with the wood insert)? I've read that oil water heaters are 50-60% efficient, but that's a direct fired oil boiler, so I can see 40% as a possibility. How can this be number be firmed up a bit? My electric is .15 /kw-hr delivered and oil is around 3.90 /gal. Or, is it a total non-brainer: go with electric. (I don't know if a heat pump wh would work well for me.)

We switched from oil DHW heat (1 gall oil /day) to the Geyser HPWH. Big cost saving, from circa $110/ month in oil to $15/month in electricity (0.14/kw-hr).

We have a basement that is fully underground in Limestone bedrock and the temperature does not go below 55 deg. So we can ran the Geyser for DHW all winter too. It runs longer but still heats the water OK.

Kept the oil DHW burner + tank intact and just added the Geyser in parallel. Use the oil DHW syatem as backup if we get a full house.

I am currently monitoring my oil burner for run time to supply my indirect hot water after reading this thread. So far, with 2 people showering once daily, it looks like the oil burner runs ~.3 hours/day. That is with a 1.25 gph nozzle. 3/8 gallon/day. We will see if the dishwasher makes a difference soon.

ac

I have no idea what im using as far as cost. But i do know it went up a lot since i boosted the temp up a bit. Have to get some sort of meter to let me know how much im using. Anyone have a source for them?

I had been thinking about that. Just because you know how much oil you use to heat your hot water you don't know what the efficiency is. You'd have to know how much of those BTU's actually got to the Boilermate indirect tank. I kinda think the Boilermate could use a little more insulation as well since it does feel a little warm, to keep the standby losses on par with an efficient electric resistance tank heater.

PS: 3/8 so far seems a lot less than some in other threads who use 1 gal/day.
More quiet and no use of oil from a philosophical sense are pluses for me, but it'd have to be close economically for me to do it.

Well, I just went down to the basement and measured the top of the boilermate and the exterior of the outlet piping where it seemed warm. It the tank was 86*F and the outlet was 96. Perhaps the first thing to do is insulate. Maybe also something for siphoning, not sure.

My basement is noticeably WARM from the oil burner being at 120+ all the time. I assume they don't insulate boilers much since the idea is that they are providing HEAT in their primary use so the extra "spillage" into the area isn't a terrible thing in the winter.

I think the average boilermate is rated at <1F/hour standby loss. So in 10 hours it will call for heat if there is no hot water use, assuming their internal aquastat is set for 10F differential.

The overall efficiency of the system is quite good when you are running the boiler for heat anyways. Efficiency drops a bit when you go to "standby" for just the summer.

Honestly, at 3/8 gallon per day I am looking at ~$50/month during the non-heating months for DHW. An electric would probably pay for itself in ~10 months, or 2 years assuming $20/month operating cost.

ac

hello i have used a longwood forced air wood burner for 20yrs i built a cabin in woods last yr i put 6 300ft zones of 5/8 pex i heated this cabin with 80 gal elect hot water heater i bought another longwood want to convert the heat chamber to heat 50ft of copper coil then go to HWH was wondering if your kuuma is used to heat water for radiant heat in concrete slab thanks for any information

Ok, I've caught up on this thread brought back from the DEAD! Since we have no idea how many gallons/day we use for hot water there is no real way to know how many BTUs from oil made it to the water. All we can do is fill the tank in the spring AFTER the heating season is over and again in the fall BEFORE we start heating. Now we can divide the days and gallons to find a /day number. without knowing gallons of hot water used we can estimate time in the shower by say 2.5gpm, well that number of hot water is say 2gpm hot and .5 cold mixed. A dishwasher load is in the neighborhood of 7 gallons depending on if you use to pots&pans setting. If we can get a total cost per day for oil. I still maintain 70-80 cents per day per person for electric average (asuming a 12-14 cent/ Kw cost), and I've installed quite a few and follow up on bill increaces. Electric resistence ~ $400 equiptment cost vs. electric heatpump ~$1200. The HPWH does de-humidify the space it's in, so there is a consideration as well if you run a de-humidifier well now you won't have to. Also if you put your wood in the basement with a HPWH it seems like it would help it dry to some degree as a fringe benifit, not shore to what extent though.

HOWEVER I"ve seen oil boilers not do so well turned off in a humid basement all summer. They scale up something awful, I know of one persom who has a coal/oil combo unit and he runs the oil at 110F all summer just to keep the condensation off the boiler. He said he shut it down one summer (and ran a direct fired oil water heater) and the combustion chaimber was so rusted that fall he'd pay to keep it warm all summer..... Doing nothing... Ouch

Conclusion:
Some expierementation needs to be done to determine if your oil boiler will surrvive a cold summer. Another reason why I don't care for basements, some are good some not so much.
My $.06

TS

So, Taylor, in your experience, a lot of people in Maine are switching over to electric to heat their water?