Your last power bill

[Loco Gringo]

Im not one to ask something personal/financial, but was your power bill much higher than last month. Mine today was 185 and Ive never had one that high. And for the rrecord I run the heat pump about 2 hours when I get up in the morning till I get the fire going about 30 minutes before I leave at 6 a.m. We even dry our clothes on racks in the downstairs den where the stove is. Again Im not asking what your bill is but was it a steep jump too? Share what you want with about your bill though.

 

[Cate68]

Was that bill an actual reading or an estimate? If an estimate, some power companies might take that into consideration considering the unusual cold temps we've been having and estimate you've used more power. I believe it's been colder in NC than normal also. Your next bill will be significantly lower if it is an estimate... if it wasn't, I'm not sure. Have the utility rates in your area changed?

 

[Loco Gringo]

Yeah we got an increase this month. I used to watch the reading. Ill be taking a look tomorow and start watching it more closely I guess. Can they just do an "average" reading?

 

[Cate68]

Can they just do an "average" reading?

Well, that would make sense... so of course my answer will have to be no!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Ours was down just a tad. It was $54 and last month was $62, which is extremely high for us. Normal any more here is $50-$55 per month.

 

[wkpoor]

Ours runs right at 100.00 yr around winter or summer with or without the air on. Thats with 4 persons and an electric hot water tank and 3 fridges. However that is the only utility bill we recieve. Not to shabby all things considered, climate, size of home, persons living in the home, style of home, and so on.

 

[laynes69]

Ours is around 170.00 right now, which is ridiculous. I found the points sticking on the well pump which costs about 25-30 a month and I think there is an element going on our water heater which is an 85 gallon heater. Factor that, 3 computers, 2 security lights and a furnace blower that runs all winter long, its higher. Plus the co-op increases rates for winter, then lowers them in the spring and summer months. The lowest I have seen is about 110.00 here.

 

[ecocavalier02]

80 bucks here on average. summer mine peaks up 130 a month. air conditioners running.

 

[woodsmaster]

$140.00 last month. My cheapist in 5 years and our rates went up 11% in dec. family of 5 , electric stove and water heater, 3 girls . I put a check valve on the water heater, got a high efficency washing machine and put a time limit on showers for the girls. Soon I'll be heating water by wood and hope to take a little more off the bill. house and shop 100% wood heat
computer stays on 24 - 7 -365 and 47" LCD T.V. on most of the time.

 

[begreen]

$97 last month, running the heatpump a fair amount, but with the wood stove doing the heavy lifting. Of course we have a lot more lights running in the winter and I have a small electric heater in my office. Summer bills average in the high 50's to low 60's.

 

[JustWood]

Was electric deregulated in your state?
PA and MD I'm pretty sure were on 1-1-11.

 

[KevinACrider]

Holy $h!t! My wife and I just bought this house on November 12th. I installed the fireplace insert on January 12th. Our house is completely electric baseboard heat in every room. The first month I was unable to find the thermostat for 3 of the heaters that I noticed were set a little higher than they needed to be. Our "prorated" bill for that month was $330. I assumed that was due to the thermostats that I couldn't find and didn't think much of it. The next month was our first full bill and the total was $440. This blew my mind! I know that this does not take into account the wood stove replacing our heat source but this is not my first rodeo. I've never paid a bill that high, ever! I do run a slew of computers and have a pretty extensive home theater system but this is still beyond what I've paid before (the home theater system and computers have been in use at our previous home as well).

The stove is now our only heat source, with all thermostats set to 0 aside from our bedroom being set to 65, the room with our dogs kennels is set to 55 and the main bathroom is set to 55. I DID make the huge mistake of not closing the damper in our fireplace before the insert was installed. Being my first home with a fireplace, I'm still learning! :-X

The differences between my $440 bill and my next months bill are:
- The fireplace insert is now installed and is our main source of heat. The chimney liner is also well insulated, keeping the warm air in the house instead of heating the neighborhood. That baby keeps this house warmer than the baseboard heat did.
- I've replaced every single lightbulb with an CFL bulb. (I bought 50 19w CFL's on eBay for $40 shipped!)
- I've learned to turn off lights and I now keep all of our printers and fax machines turned off and I power down 3 local servers that I used to run 24/7.

I'll update this when my next bill comes with the difference, but I hope to god it's significant!

 

[Alan Gage]

I guess the big question is how many Kwh did you use compared to usual? Need to figure out if the price increase was because of extra usage, some fee, or just higher rates.

Since everyone is bragging/complaining about their bill I might as well jump in. My bill runs between $32-40, $29 of it being a hookup fee. I usually use about 40Kwh/month. The only things I usually have turned on are the refrigerator, a light bulb in whatever room I'm in (sometimes I splurge and turn on two) and my well pump. Oh, and some heat tape to keep the inside of the pipes liquid in winter.

It used to love it when the bill came, it was a game to get it as low as possible. It's pretty much bottomed out now so it's not quite as exciting, just another bill. Geez, I need a life.

Alan

 

[nate379]

Ok, well I don't feel too bad. Mine was $74 and I about blew my stack until I saw in little letters it said "estimate". My normal bill is around $70 in the winter, and $40-50 in the summer.

No one was home for 2 weeks in that billing cycle and not to mention I didn't even have power for ~5 days combined so no way I used that much juice.

Electric here is $0.16 Kw/hr

 

[velvetfoot]

In the warmer months I'm under 300 kw-hrs, now, more like 370.

 

[PapaDave]

From Dec. 10th-Jan. 10th, our gas use was 12 ccf, and elec. was 434 kWh. We usually use about 10-11 ccf, and the elec. can vary from 375- close to 500.
Winter is always higher for electric, since the minimal lights we do use are on much longer, and so are the laptops. My wife likes to keep the Christmas lights lit 24/7 from well before the 25th until about a week ago. If I run the furnace in the shop, and the lights, and the tools, both go up a little.

 

[nate379]

Wow that's really low on the gas. I use around 50ccf in the summer even, that is to run the boiler for domestic hot water (indirect fired water heater) and the cook stove.

 

[steam man]

These post make me chuckle. I'd say my electric bill runs typically from 140-180 on average. That's with about 900-1000 KW useage at maybe 19.5 cents/kwh. The month of December my bill was $265 at about 1465 KWH. I nearly fell over. My wife put up a Christmas tree with so many lights the power company has to put another generator on line. I have a large place with a number of electrcial items. I was traveling for work the last 2 months but when I got home I shutdown most of that crap. I am not a popular guy around here. LOL

 

[BrotherBart]

Lost power in the snow storm last night about six o'clock. Fired up one of the generators and strung the extension cords. After everything was up and running I popped a beer and fired up my computer. Logged onto the power company site to find a message that it would be a multi-day outage. A few minutes later I received an email telling me my January bill was ready on-line. :lol:

 

[BrowningBAR]

Lost power in the snow storm last night about six o'clock. Fired up one of the generators and strung the extension cords. After everything was up and running I popped a beer and fired up my computer. Logged onto the power company site to find a message that it would be a multi-day outage. A few minutes later I received an email telling me my January bill was ready on-line. :lol:

Respond to the email stating that the power company will be experiencing a multi-day delay on the payment of the current bill.

 

[smokinj]

Im not one to ask something personal/financial, but was your power bill much higher than last month. Mine today was 185 and Ive never had one that high. And for the rrecord I run the heat pump about 2 hours when I get up in the morning till I get the fire going about 30 minutes before I leave at 6 a.m. We even dry our clothes on racks in the downstairs den where the stove is. Again Im not asking what your bill is but was it a steep jump too? Share what you want with about your bill though.

175.00 was my last one just about Puke it up! Cloths going back on the line...

 

[henkmeuzelaar]

The power bill for the very cold December month was approx. $300. This is not bad at all when considering that our 2400 sq ft loghome (not counting the unfinished, unheated walk-out basement) is electrically heated and that we live in a fairly cold part of Idaho at 5800 ft altitude. Right now the daily use is only 6-7 kWh, so I expect to see monthly bills around $ 200.

Although electricity is the ONLY utility provided to our fairly remote location we are fortunate that the very low kWh price (just under 5 cent per kWh) allows us to generate roughly the same number of BTUs available from 1 cord of wood at the local price (approx. $ 170) for a split, delivered and split stack.

I love modern energy conversion technologies and had been planning to put an efficient, low-emission indoors wood gasifier in the basement and/or install some of the newer heat pumps, but at these low hydroelectric power prices (the Palisades dam is less than 2 miles away) nothing else but simple, distributed electric heating makes much sense economically.

Of course, I can always hope that I made a mistake in my calculations (if so, please do let me know!!) or that electricity prices will go up far enough so I can convince my wife that we need some high-tech solutions!

Absent that, I am starting to check into geothermal heat sources (there is a lot of travertine-like rock in the ground under our house) while perfecting the home's insulation (e.g. chinkin the log walls both inside and outside).

Henk

 

[PapaDave]

These post make me chuckle. I'd say my electric bill runs typically from 140-180 on average. That's with about 900-1000 KW useage at maybe 19.5 cents/kwh. The month of December my bill was $265 at about 1465 KWH. I nearly fell over. My wife put up a Christmas tree with so many lights the power company has to put another generator on line. I have a large place with a number of electrcial items. I was traveling for work the last 2 months but when I got home I shutdown most of that crap. I am not a popular guy around here. LOL

Tell them to pay the bill. :lol:
My oldest daughter used to turn up the thermostat so she could walk around the house in t-shirts and shorts.
She still hasn't learned, but is married and gone now.

Nate, that gas bill is to heat our water. Everything else is electric, and of course, we heat with wood 100%.
It's just the wife and I in a small ranch.

 

[pring7]

$219 last month, but the Avg Temp was 37 F. This is the lowest temp since we moved to Eastern NC and the heat pump ran nonstop at night. Next year the plan is to have a new woodstove to cut the electric costs.

 

[Mrs. Krabappel]

Do you have Duke? I'm in h-ville. My bill went from 6.2 cents KW/H to 9.9 cents KW/H this past month. My bill generally runs 35-50 bucks/mo. That includes everything except oil furnace. I don't run a dryer.