How much is your electricity bills.

[Katchupoy]

Hey guys,

from my last post... I was doing an experiment.

Well it turned out that it went up to 440 kwh in a week..... So I have decided to mix the experiments i have done in the past and see what will happen.


Well several weeks later.... it worked. my weekly consumption now is around 360 to 380 kwh a week. That good news.... Thats from my $240ish when I started this thread down to $140 to $160 dollars. And I dont see the weather affecting it in the past month...

What did I do?
Gate valve adjusted to bare minimum.
Scheduled on and off for the water heater manually. (I still need to buy a water heater timer)
All baseboard heaters off. Just using space heaters on timer.

So summer is coming and that means it will go down further more.

BTW. My tank is using up 12KWH a day. Thats $1.20 cents a day. $36.00 a month. Seems a lot. Maybe time to go all t5 again from 2x250MH?

 

[jnarowe]

Not too bad Cesar if you ask me.

 

[danno14]

Yup... gas heat and hot water. Total bill of $345 last month.

Looking into water-loop geothermal for heat/AC. HArd to find anyone who actually knows what the heck they are talking about, aside from being HAPPY to sell me a system :}

 

[trido]

Yup... gas heat and hot water. Total bill of $345 last month.

Looking into water-loop geothermal for heat/AC. HArd to find anyone who actually knows what the heck they are talking about, aside from being HAPPY to sell me a system :}

Im all electric here. I dont even want to think of what your bill looked like last december. Mine was $720 for December January. I feel for ya.

 

[jnarowe]

Yup... gas heat and hot water. Total bill of $345 last month.

Looking into water-loop geothermal for heat/AC. HArd to find anyone who actually knows what the heck they are talking about, aside from being HAPPY to sell me a system :}

Isn't that something more suited for the South?

 

[danno14]

Isn't that something more suited for the South?

Not exactly... the fact that I have the lake precludes the need to drill deep holes to pull heat exchange with the earth. Lake loop systems are the most efficient of all heating/cooling (correct me if I am wrong), and I would LOVE to have a net zero power bill!

Now to pull it together without paying some marginally adept trog a bundle

 

[mfinn]

My electric bill last summer through fall was running $250-$265 per month for a small 3bdrm house with a 240gallon tank and a couple small tanks.
After a small confrontation with the wife, I eliminated 1 tank, bought a couple more efficent pumps for my tanks, cut the lights back a 1/2hour and setup all 3 computers in the house to hibernate at night and knocked about $35-$40 off the bill.

 

[jnarowe]

Not exactly... the fact that I have the lake precludes the need to drill deep holes to pull heat exchange with the earth. Lake loop systems are the most efficient of all heating/cooling (correct me if I am wrong), and I would LOVE to have a net zero power bill!

Now to pull it together without paying some marginally adept trog a bundle

Say what? How will you heat using the lake loop?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Say what? How will you heat using the lake loop?

Most likely hooked up to a heat pump

 

[danno14]

Jon-

http://www.reddawn.com/featart11-98.html

The intent would be for home heating/cooling, and possibly solar hot water supplementation. The price of entry is high, but I'm trying to see how it plays out. I WILL be cooling the tank using the lake by summer

 

[jnarowe]

yeah, I have plans for a ground loop to cool my reef, but so far I haven't needed it. I like the general idea though, and since I have plenty of land, I could install a ground version fairly easily.

From that info:

The ductwork is no different than that of a conventional forced-air system. The difference is found in the temperature of the air flowing from the registers in the winter. With a conventional air source heat pump, the air flow is seldom warmer than 80 degrees. But because water transfers a greater volume of heat than air, the Ground source heat pump is able to deliver warmer air, typically about 110 degrees F.

This I don't buy. I would certainly like to see that in person.

Another benefit of a ground source heat pump can be found when teamed with a desuperheater. This component skims residual warmth from the compressor to heat water. Which means that in the summer, when the system is working to get rid of heat, the desuperheater can provide practically free hot water. And since most systems are oversized, there is usually enough warmth left over for low cost hot water in the winter too.

So I had to disconnect the one I have. What was happening is when the heat pump turned on and made excess heat available to my house water system, it would dump extremely hot water into circulation and scald whomever was in the shower. The fluctuations that this created in the hot water supply were very frustrating. Although the theory sounds nice, practically speaking it was a nightmare and I had to have mine disabled.

Now I would assume that the ones being built now are better designed, but this is something you want to pay special attention to. I would also suggest installing it in your lake late at night using Ninjas.

For just 30% higher initial cost, it seems to me to be a no-brainer. I wonder how cold the lake gets during the Winter. My ground water comes in at 45F during the Winter!

 

[Reefergeorge]

Poor people. I'm in st Louis MO, and during the winter my electric bill is around $40. During summer it goes up to $100. That is with a 1400 sqft condo.

 

[jnarowe]

yeah, but you have neighbors! :lol: Can't really compare a condo to a house on a lake or large home on acreage. You probably have decent condo fees too, but in some places around the country those fees are getting jacked through the roof.

 

[danno14]

install it in your lake late at night using Ninjas.

I'll let you know when and you can bring your black jammies

For just 30% higher initial cost, it seems to me to be a no-brainer. I wonder how cold the lake gets during the Winter. My ground water comes in at 45F during the Winter!

The issue is how low they allow the lake to drop in the winter.... two years ago all that was in front of me was mud. No good! I will still have to keep my gas furnace on hand for that possibility.

I researched a fisheries study and found that the termp at 15' of depth was still in the low 60's in August. Pretty good differential for 90+ day cooling.

As for the water side of the equation, I had heard of the fluctuation issue from others experience as well. Better thermostatic control on the mixing nowadays is what I believe solves it.

 

[apollothesun]

hey katchupoy, did ya find a timer for your water heater? where at? last bill for me was 398.00 for two months. 1000sqft home.

 

[Katchupoy]

Apollo.
You can find it at any big box stores... i went to McLendon, but i found it also at Lowes or HD. around 60 to 70 bucks... Make sure that they are Heavy Duty hard wired timers... Mine is 240 volts and I ended up rewiring it myself.

Im down to 120 dollars a month for a 1000 SF home but maybe that is because its not cold and its summer... maybe in the winter it will go up...

bought a 45 watt panel from Harbor Freight and added 3 Deep Cycle batteries... 1 week of charging equals to more or less 1500 watts of energy which equals to maybe 10 loads of clothes washing.

Thats only washing and not drying... we just use clothesline for now...

also put up wind turbine but not much energy is generated from it yet. We will see

 

[jnarowe]

I'll let you know when and you can bring your black jammies

The issue is how low they allow the lake to drop in the winter.... two years ago all that was in front of me was mud. No good! I will still have to keep my gas furnace on hand for that possibility.

I researched a fisheries study and found that the termp at 15' of depth was still in the low 60's in August. Pretty good differential for 90+ day cooling.

As for the water side of the equation, I had heard of the fluctuation issue from others experience as well. Better thermostatic control on the mixing nowadays is what I believe solves it.

Sorry I missed this and I didn't want to let a snub go by! Nothing to add though since you are on top of it.

 

[Krish]

We live in a 2 bed 2 bathroom townhouse (no tank right now) and our last electricity bill was just over $500!!!! We move next week into our new house and electricity bill there last month was over $700! :shock:

 

[jnarowe]

yeah baby, dig those spurs in deep! :lol:

 

[Jan]

Krish, that is freaking-un-believable! Why on earth is it that expensive??