Insert blower cost to run??? Power company breaking the bank!

[Sons924]

I just got my power bill and it's higher then it is in the summer with the A/C on. I've been burning my Montpelier just about every night and all day and night on the weekends. The blower is always on low to medium. I know I am saving oil, but is the blower costing me just as much in power to run?

 

[Dakotas Dad]

How much power does the motor pull? Simple enough to multiply that times your elec. rate per kwh.. If your insert plugs in, rather than is hardwired behind, plug it into a kill-a-watt, and know for sure. But I seriously doubt the fan pulls more power by itself than the distribution fan in your central heating system..

 

[smokedragon]

Just for fun, I looked up a dayton 134 CFM blower (which would be probably bigger than what you are using on your insert).

Full load is 0.74 amps.

This translates into 88.8 W-hrs, which is 0.0888 kW-hrs.

So if you ran this for 24 hours, it would be 2.13 kW-hrs.

At a rate of $0.20 per kW-hr (which is high for me, but I don't know where you live) that would be $0.43 per day, roughly $13 per month.

My rate is about $0.12 kW-hr, so it would be cheaper than that for me.

Often times your power bill in the winter will be higher because there are less daylight hours (a lot more lights on). You also spend more time indoors on the TV/computer.

Do you have an electric hot water heater? That contributes to a higher power bill for me (cause it's in the attic, which is quite cold this time of year).

Give me more information, and I will try to help you more.

Chris

 

[begreen]

What is your electrical rate? What is the motor rating?
If for instance the motor is drawing ~250 watts, *24 = 6000w/day, then it comes to 180Kw/month. If your electric costs $0.15/Kwh, then it costs about $27/month to run.

Remember that in winter lights stay on a lot longer and the hot water heater has to warm up water from a colder temperature.

 

[Jags]

To get specific - you would need to look at the blower motor specs (often on the motor itself) for the power draw. In generalities, these are not powerful motors. I didn't find specs for your specific stove for power draw, but did find that it was a 150cfm blower. These would be in the neighborhood of .75 amp at 115V.

(I evidently don't type fast enough.)

 

[mellow]

Most fans are in the 75-250 watt range, shouldn't be costing you much to run it. As mentioned get a kill-a-watt or hook up a multimeter to it and see what it is pulling.

 

[KB007]

There would also be a small "premium if you're running it on a high speed v/s low speed. You say low to medium speed, does that mean it's a variable speed fan with a pot for sped control rather than a simple hi low switch?

 

[Grisu]

I just got my power bill and it's higher then it is in the summer with the A/C on. I've been burning my Montpelier just about every night and all day and night on the weekends. The blower is always on low to medium. I know I am saving oil, but is the blower costing me just as much in power to run?

More than your A/C? I highly doubt it. Look for something that uses electricity to produce heat like hot water heater, hot tub, electric baseboard/space heater, kitchen range etc. Those draw power in the 1000+ watt range. Btw. Is your insert sitting in an interior fireplace or is it at an exterior wall? If it is an interior wall like mine, you can try to turn the blower off after the peak stages of the fire. The heat that does not come out right away will warm the bricks which will radiate it into the room eventually. You won't lose heat by not using the blower; it will just take a bit longer to get it into the house. However, that should not matter much if you burn 24/7.

 

[BrotherBart]

Sounds like you are a Con Ed customer. They raised rates through the roof this winter.

 

[begreen]

"A Con Ed customer with a billing period from Dec. 30 to Jan. 30 paid an average supply charge for the month of 23.1 cents per kilowatt hour — a shocking 83 percent boost over the 12.6-cent charge during the same period last year."

http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/power-price-spike-for-nysers-on-con-ed-bills-in-middle-of-winter/

 

[Dakotas Dad]

"A Con Ed customer with a billing period from Dec. 30 to Jan. 30 paid an average supply charge for the month of 23.1 cents per kilowatt hour — a shocking 83 percent boost over the 12.6-cent charge during the same period last year."

http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/power-price-spike-for-nysers-on-con-ed-bills-in-middle-of-winter/

HOLY CARP! We run about $.10 out the door here..

 

[Slow1]

I just got my power bill and it's higher then it is in the summer with the A/C on. I've been burning my Montpelier just about every night and all day and night on the weekends. The blower is always on low to medium. I know I am saving oil, but is the blower costing me just as much in power to run?

As others suggested - first question to answer is whether you are talking about "Cost" going up ($'s billed/month) or actual Kwh usage (how much power you are using). For the sake of the question at hand I'd be more interested in your Kwh/month comparison as we can derive much more from that tahn the cost which tends to have some variability.

So - assuming you saw a spike in Kwh/month, knowing the actual numbers will help, but culprits could be many things besides that blower. A refrigerator that is sitting in the stove room could be running more due to higher ambient heat. If you have central air, are you trying to use that system to move heat around the house? If you are then that could be eating up a lot of power. And of course - hot water heating (if electric) is sure to have spiked with colder input water and standby losses if in a cold area (like basement or garage).

To answer the question on the blower the best way to know objectively is to plug in a meter (killawatt or whatever) and then run as normal for a few days and check your average usage during that time to extrapolate how much of your billed usage is from that source. Based on what was said above, I am doubting this will make a huge difference in your bill... unless that $25-30/mo increase qualifies as a "huge" increase for you. (We were running about $80-100/mo before solar so I would have considered that a significant but not huge increase here...)

 

[Fins59]

I too was concerned about electric cost of my blower so I bought a Kilowatt EZ ($28 @ Menards).

My Johnson Energy stove/furnace has a pretty big blower on it compared to an insert.
My Kilowatt EZ says it is costing me .05 cents an hour to operate. We pay .13 cents per KWH. If the .05 cent figure is correct I feel that is reasonable. Fan is on steady about 18 hours a day.
My blower fan is rated at 7.3 amps/1/4 hp.

 

[Fod01]

I bought my parents one of those 1500w, duraflame looks-like-a-woodstove heaters for Christmas. My mom called, flipping out about the high electric bill she received...until she discovered that the bill was 'estimated'. Actual reading was more in line with expectations. Maybe that's your culprit as well.

Gabe

 

[Sons924]

thank you for all of the replies. I do have electric hot water and electric oven. No electric heaters. I was just shocked when PSEG told me that I used more this feb then last. I just got the insert installed this past September. It seems you all agree that the blower shouldn't make a huge difference. They did up their charges when they took over our old electric company. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Kosmik]

They should track your kWh usage. Regardless of price changes, your kWh usage history will tell. Sometimes they track therms too (if your hooked up to gas). Power companies usually keep good records on all their customers on exactly how much they are using, have used. Some are better than others at letting you access that info. My power coop lets me access all that stuff online. Everytime I login there is a nice bar graph by month showing my power usage in kWh. When I was on Xcel they compared every month to same month last year on your bill with avg temp for both months. Was real helpful.

 

[smokedragon]

"A Con Ed customer with a billing period from Dec. 30 to Jan. 30 paid an average supply charge for the month of 23.1 cents per kilowatt hour — a shocking 83 percent boost over the 12.6-cent charge during the same period last year."

WOW........just WOW

 

[Highbeam]

I too was concerned about electric cost of my blower so I bought a Kilowatt EZ ($28 @ Menards).

My Johnson Energy stove/furnace has a pretty big blower on it compared to an insert.
My Kilowatt EZ says it is costing me .05 cents an hour to operate. We pay .13 cents per KWH. If the .05 cent figure is correct I feel that is reasonable. Fan is on steady about 18 hours a day.
My blower fan is rated at 7.3 amps/1/4 hp.

Your numbers are wrong. Most important is that you do not pay .13 cents per kwh, you probably meant to say 13 cents per kwh?

Also your 7.3 amps is almost 900 watts. This ought to cost you almost 12 cents per hour?

But your point is good, buy a killawatt meter and the cost to run that insert can be known.

 

[smokedragon]

Give him a break on his numbers, you know what he means and he makes a valid point.

Blowers don't cost that much to run.

 

[Kosmik]

Just make sure your 13c kWh is the rate you get when you take you bill and divide by your usage, not your 'posted kWh' rate. Usually almost half of my bill is: fees, adjustments, ect...(just ways to bury the fact that they are raising rates faster than they are allowed to here).

So even though my posted rate is around 8cents, it usually comes out to 12-14 cents for me.

 

[Soundchasm]

According to my Killawatt, my old unit's fan runs around 70-80 watts, and by golly, the fan on the new unit runs right in the same range. Replace 2-3 incandescent bulbs with CFLs and you're in the black. Was there any construction, saws, sanders, etc? If any outside hoses get left on it's electric to run our well. There's also the possibility of a simple mistake of a door left ajar or oven left on or something.

I've been tracking electric for 10 years and conclude heat is more expensive than AC, at least using a heat pump for both.

 

[TradEddie]

According to my Killawatt, my old unit's fan runs around 70-80 watts, and by golly, the fan on the new unit runs right in the same range. .
I've been tracking electric for 10 years and conclude heat is more expensive than AC, at least using a heat pump for both.

Similar numbers for my blower, but someone upthread suggested a "slight" premium when running at full speed vs. running slower, my blower draws much less at low speeds. Taking only the namepleate rating will give you the maximum draw, but mine on slow is less than a quarter of the max. 50W IIRC.

A/C will likely be less expensive with a heat pump, in summer it's doing less work. In summer you're cooling down from say 100F to 70F, which is only a 30F difference. That's the same as heating to 70F from 40F. There are other more complex factors too, but you get the idea.

TE

 

[smokedragon]

I've been tracking electric for 10 years and conclude heat is more expensive than AC, at least using a heat pump for both.

This is true not because heat is more expensive, but because T is more in the winter.

Summer: A really hot day gets to 98, and we set the thermostat on 76, T = 22

Winter: A really cold day gets down into the single digits, but lets say 10, we set thermostat on 68, T = 58

The efficiency is the same, but in winter it must run much harder. Also, because heat pumps are not sized to heat or cool that great of a T, your strip heat (or auxillary heat, or whatever you want to call it) must run to aid the unit in it's cycle. This is the equivalent of the old resistance baseboard heaters, which are WILDLY expensive to run.

Either way though, heat is expensive.

 

[Dakotas Dad]

Yep, and heat pumps do have a max delta range, and it's an exponential equation the farther you get from the mean.

 

[weatherguy]

I run my blower and two ceiling fans all winter and all cost me maybe $25-30 a month, tough to get an exact figure unless you measure it with that device these guys are talking about but what I spend on my blower and fans I save on my furnace fan not running. In the overall scheme of things its minimal, be nice to be off the grid and get free power from the wind or sun.