thinbrit

Wow. You guys have small electric bills.

This past couple of months we have been running close to a $1,000 electric bill at home (we are all electric here in the boonies, and have a cooperative electricity company, so no real competition). The house is well insulated, but I like it cool. I also cool my, insulated, 3,000 sq ft workshop at the weekends which certainly adds to the bill. The workshop has three 3 tonne AC units and two small 1,200 BTU units. The house has two 3 tonne units. I swapped out every incandescent for CFLs a few years back, and I'll look at LEDs as the CFLs age and fail. I like it cool, and I pay for that I know.
My business is 1,800 sq ft and that bill was a little over $1,000 this month. The business is evenings and weekends animal hospital, so we have lights running every night, an outdoor sign, and I'm guessing the x-ray table eats a nice chunk, along with all the coolers, and medical devices that run all the time.

So, I'm spending around $2,000 a month in the summer on electricity.

Hotscot

You win...even here in the high desert with 110 during the summer, but dry, it's $500 max.

scrubbedexpat091

Mine is $27 this month. I don't know how people can afford these electric bills in the hundreds.


The last hotel I worked at, 87 rooms the bill was 3,000 to 6,000 a month depending on our occupancy.

But I thank California for buying power from us so we can have lower rates....

HumphreyC

Holy crap - that's about the same as my mortgage payment. I guess the way to look at it is that air con costs in the south during the summer are equivilent to heating costs in the winter in the north east.

Hotscot

That's exactly it.
I spend far more cooling the house than heating it.
But Thinbrits cost is wow...

Bob

The one I got from Ocean State was a 60W equivalent and it's blindingly bright...not bad for $3

robin1234

We recently bought a new fridge, as our old one, which was probably 25 years old, was gradually giving up the ghost. Our electricity bill immediately went down from about $100 a month to about $70. Other major ongoing user is the water heater (I suspect most users in the UK have energy efficient on demand gas water heaters, whereas over here the huge immersion heater type are common and they are expensive to run.). We don't have AC, so that's not an issue.

Steve_

We had this thread at length before, what is your price per kWh? The average price in the UK is 14p if you want to look at your current bill. At the moment here in Calgary it's 7.7 cents per kWh so massively less although you end up using a bit more because of the weather, etc.

Hotscot

That doesn't sound bad...but I don't know if I can get those here anywhere...

Pulaski

Me neither, at least not the multi-hundred ones.

We have natural gas heating and water heater, and AC and the usual electric appliances, including an induction stove. For six months of the year our gas bill is around $25-30, for heating our water, then rises in November, usually peaking in January and February at around $180-$220ish, December and March are about $120-$150ish, and November and April are probably around $70-$100.

Our electric bill is the mirror of that, around $60 during the winter months, then peaks at around $200-$220 in July and August.

We usually manage to have most of April and October without using either heat or AC, or at least that is our goal, and occasionally it can be as long as six weeks. I think we have only turned on the heat in October in one year since we moved here 11 years ago. Unless the cooling trend continues, and we need to turn on the heat early or the heat comes back and we need the AC, we could get six weeks this fall with negligible AC and no heating.

quiltman

when we left UK last year our bills were £60 per month for gas and £80 for electricity. sometimes we got a little back at year end but usually owed something.all the usual - Central heating, electric cooking, water heat, dishwasher, washer, dryer etc. etc.All low energy lights.

Latest cost from Npower - one of the many utility suppliers in UK, converted at $1.60/£ are'

Daily charge 46c
Unit charge, daytime, 21.63c
Unit charge, night , 11.34c

We had a couple of storage heaters that used the night rate. If we had got rid of the night rate the standard charge is about 18c per Kwh .

so 11.5c ain't bad! something is gobbling up your power. Use it as excuse to replace old appliances with more energy efficient ones! Enjoy shopping!

scrubbedexpat091

We peak usually in Jan/Feb as those tend to be our coldest months, but it really varies considerably winter to winter as sometimes we get cold spells earlier, and sometimes we have a warm winter. Summer we have less then 20 days of a/c weather, we just have a small unit for the bedroom to help us sleep but we only turn it on if its over 27C, anything below that and a fan is sufficient.

We have base board heaters, but they don't see to add a ton to the bill, it doesn't fluctuate a ton in winter, a few dollars.

I am pretty sure the water heater and fridge are the 2 biggest consumers of power as when I have had similar size older apartments that don't have water heaters in each unit, the bill is considerably lower even with older appliances in those apartments.

robin1234

I suspect the big difference is whether people have gas or not. Living out in the country, we do not have gas available. We could have chosen to install propane for water heating and possibly the kitchen stove, but there is an initial setup cost to take into account. With hindsight, having been in the house for 17 years, we would have saved long term from installing propane, but as it is we've paid a lot on a monthly basis for electric water heating.

RICH

FWIW I was away for 2 weeks in July (half of August billing cycle) and turned off everything except the fridge and set the a/c low
July bill 1066 kwh $134.56
August 810 kwh $103.19
September 1072 kwh $135.42

thinbrit

You all got me second guessing myself. I went online and checked. I was confusing my business bill with my home bill. The business was $1,004.13 this month and the house (which has two meters on the property) was $291.43 and $353.02 which is $644.45 combined.
So I overstated my home electric bill by an extra 50%

It is expensive, but we don't have gas or water bills.