180! DAMN!!! My house is 4k sq ft. with 2 air handlers (heat at 68, A/C at 78), I have CCFL bulbs everwhere, 2 refrigerators, and 3 other people living here and the bill was like 130 bucks!!! In the summer the highest the bill got was around 235 dollars. I'd seriously check out some power meters to see where most of you energy is going

Different power rates in different parts of the country.

Also, Home Depot accepts burned out and broken CFL bulbs, usually in a bin near the returns counter (at the store near my house)

Well, the meter reading does look reasonable - and on track for a repeat of last month.

I still don't know how it got this bad. Got most lights changed over, but there is one HUGE bulb in the garage that could be a significant power user (still not 180 worth). I will look at power meters to track down the main culprit(s).

FWIW, the usage was around 750kWh. Can't remember exactly, but that should give a better national comparison than cost.

^^ How often do you run the clothes dryer, dishwasher, & your heater?

I assume your heater is gas w/ elec. blower fan.

We did use the clothes dryer quite a bit last month, but not that much since. But it is brand new and dries clothes fairly quickly, so the cycles are short (~30 mins average).

Okay, I just checked the specs on the dryer... ready for this??


5300W!!

Looks like I need to invest in a solar drying system (i.e. a clothes line)

For reference...

We (my g/f and I) used 454Kwh of energy on my last bill (12/8/09 - 12/31/09)

- 1400 sq. ft. house
- Gas furnace
- Brand new fridge (2009 model), 1 fridge total
- Gas dryer (~4 loads of laundry a week...typically done on weekends)
- Gas water heater
- Electric stove (was a 16 year old GE, used ~5 times a week)
- New dishwasher, ran maybe 3 times week at most.

I had 9 strands of LED Christmas lights that were on from roughly 5 PM until 7 AM almost every day in December...but I don't think they're very significant as they only used roughly 60 watts of power combined.

Something somewhat significant...I have a Dell PowerEdge 830 running 24x7x365. I believe its power supply is rated at ~500 watts...but I couldn't tell you what it's actual power consumption is.

Are you PG&E or Southern California Edison?

Yikes!

Gas dryer FTW!

I'm going to attribute most of the usage to the dryer. We washed a lot of clothes, including from our house guests and some clothes that were just moved from the condo, in addition to regular laundry.

Like I said before, I wish a gas dryer was an option, but it most definitely is not, at this time.

Now you found the culprit.

Rule of thumb: Electric clothes dryers are the last resort. Gas is always the best option for clothes dryers...cost next to nothing to run.

Depending on where your laundry is located, T-off from the nearest gas line to the laundry location is pretty inexpensive.

You can always ghetto dry your clothes:wink:

I would definitely have preferred gas. But let me put this in a format you will be able to appreciate.

Detached garage + concrete between (house & garage) + brand new electric dryer + 3 morgages = no (new gas line + new gas dryer)

And I may seriously consider the solar drying option.

Ah ha! I didn't know your hosue had a detached garage.
Yowza!

Start saving up some coin for the summer months!

How old is the meter? It might make sense to call the utility company to have the meter checked to make sure it didn't go bad.

Panel and meter look fairly new (less than 5 years old). While we will be watching our usage more carefully, we are going to treat the last month as an anomaly until we see our next bill. There were just too many non-normal things going on last month that could have affected the bill.

I also checked the usage and found it was actually ~850kW hours for the month. I will be reading the meter every few days to track usage for the next month or two.

We've switched a few lights in our house to CFL bulbs. Been using them for a couple years now and I still hate them. The light they give off is just and very often, they aren't bright enough. Plus they don't dim. Just annoying all around.

^ They make dimmable CFLs now

http://www.google.com/products?q=dimmable+CFL

If a CFL isn't bright enough, can't you buy the next wattage up?

Also, CFL's come in various color temps. You can find cool, medium, and warm CFLs at Home Depot and other places. I'm still playing around with which I like best.

The only thing I don't like is that the cheaper CFLs take a few minutes to "warm up" and reach their full brightness. Though, that's just me being cheap.

The newer bulbs are much whiter than the old ones, and whiter than most incadecents. Yes, they do take ~20 seconds to get to full brightness and aren't really suited for quick on/off cylces, but they are much better than before.

Also, they have started making dimmable CFLs. So far, we have only found 65W equivalents (spiral and flood). There are two negatives - they do not get as dim as incandecents and they are $$$. Every few months, the local electrical company (SCE) has instant, in-store rebates on CFLs every few months, which make them much more reasonable.

They now make "instant-on" CFLs, but just like the dimmable ones they're more expensive.

Might look into those later one. I can deal with the delay when Costco sells 6-packs for ~$3 when the rebates are in affect.

^ Same here. I bought a bunch of 6-packs at Home Depot when they were on sale for something like $1.89...lol.

I decided to watch the meter with and without the dryer running. I basically watched the disk which spins under the numbered dials to see how long it took for one revolution. Results below:

Without dryer - 1 rev = 15-20 secs (roughly 3-4 RPM)

With dryer - 1 rev = ~3 secs (roughly 20 RPM - more than 5x faster/more usage than normal)

As expected, the dryer is definitely the main culprit.

I wouldn't do that. You have an older style mechanical meter. Those work on induction and magnets. Basically, the more current drawn, the more of a magnetic field is created. The stronger the magnetic field, the faster the meter turns. As meters age the internal magnets become weaker and the disc turns slower, thus lower bill. This is a big reason why most utilities are going to solid state meters. That, and they're much harder to tamper with.

And, in case the name didn't clue you in, I do work for a power company.

When PG&E gets around to installing their smart meters in my neighborhood, can I decline?

In all seriousness, both of the houses my parents own now have smart meters and they haven't had any issues with their bills...but one house was built in '96 and the other in the late 80's. So, all things considered, their original meters weren't that old.

My dad is starting to get into CFL's. We replaced some of our main lights to CFL. They do take about a minute to warm up but it does not bother me much. His main reason for switching is because my brother and I tend to hang out in our finished basement most of the time when we are home and our basement uses 6 flood lights. I did the math and 6 15 watt CFL floods uses about the same amount of energy as 1.5 65 watt incandescent floods. The CFL floods do take about 5 min to reach full brightness but since they are in the basement it doesn't bother us.

F-in A. What am I doing wrong. I need to check our dryer. It's electric. Have 2 refrigerators.

Pretty big OPEN floorplan house (you can see from the 2nd story into the basement, lots of railings/open areas), on baseboard radiant hot water heating. Bought the home recently, about 5,000 sq ft.

Last bill was $189 for 1,802 kWh. The bill was for 34 days.

How old are the refrigerators? How often do you dry clothes? What sort of electric things do you have? Do you and others living with you practice efficient energy use? You know...if you leave a room (and don't plan to immediately come back) turn the light off...etc.

I'm very anal about lights, and had all the bulbs switched to CFL's for the most part. Very anal about leaving the computer on, or the TV's on, etc. Can't say the same for the g/f but she's learning slowly.

The fridge in the upstairs (main kitchen) is a brand new Samsung, basement fridge is probably 20 years old (though looks like one of the top of the line Kitchen Aid back then, if that makes a difference).

The Dryer is also a brand new Samsung.

Outside we have 2 cans over the garage but have been replaced to CFL. I think my biggest lightbulb usage comes from the front door light fixtures. Those have 3 "candle light/flame" looking type bulbs inside of each (2 fixtures). They were far to bright, so I took 1 out of each. Maybe its time to take another one out of each since those are on all night. I guess I should also look into how small and what style of CFL's they make to see if they have some that would fit that socket, but I don't think I've seen them.

What fuels your heat source?

Where do you live? My bill was about the same as yours, but for FAR less energy usage (850kWh). Your usage is WAY high, but your rates seem VERY low.

They do make candleabra CFLs.

As was the case with me, the CFL replacement will help, but there has to be something(s) else causing the majority of the power consumption. The old fridge will be one big drain. The dryer is definitely a major one, as I found out.

Any electric heat? Pool or jacuzzi pump? Probably not much AC running this time of year, but still worth checking.

You can see from the 2nd floor into the basement? Sounds like an interesting setup but that will def. KILL you when you go to AC that. Your old fridge will prolly kill you along with the dryer

Welcome to Kalifornia! Thanks to the inept former governor Davis, Kalifornia elec. rates are among the highest in the nation. He did some fantastic negotiations during the "energy crisis" a few years back.

Kalifornia pays about 15.16 kw/hr
National average is around 10.30 kw/hr

And there are still notices in about every other bill about proposed rate increases?

BTW, polishPete's rates (~$0.105/kWh) ended up being roughly half of mine (~$0.205/kWh). Tier 4 usage FTMFL!

...just wait until you see your first water bill for 2010.

You might want to sit down for that one.

Say hello to 30% increase.
....but hey, somebody has got to pay for out of control metroploitan water district employee pensions, and insurance benefits.

I was at HD last weekend or so and the light bulb guy saw me picking up a few different types of CFL bulbs.

He asks me: "Do you know the secret to these things having the right color and lasting for many years?"

I said: "No"

So he tells me he is a retired engineer for the local power company (APS) and during the roll out of CFL, one of the major manufacturers had an manufacturing/engineering team out to APS to teach the APS people how to use/describe/handle the bulbs. HD guy says that the lightbulb engineer told them all that to get long life out of the bulb and accurate color temp, when you install the bulb turn it on and leave it on for a full hour the FIRST time you power it on. Then use normally.

HD guy said he asked the engineer why this little gem was not printed in GIANT letters on the packaging since no one was actually getting 300 years of use out of the bulbs... Light bulb engineer said "Hey, I work for the lightbulb company! We want to sell more of these, not less!"...

Thanks for the tip!

So when is the official date when we can no longer buy incandescent light bulbs in the US? GE just shut down a bulb factory out here due to the upcoming ban. 400 people out of work. I'm not completely in the loop on this.

I thought this was a joke at first, but after a quick search...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-o...nt_light_bulbs



Never heard of this before. You'd have thought more would've been made of this little fact. Guess it doesn't matter for another two years. LEDs better become cheap by then.

Who knew there was still an incad. bulb mfg. plant in the U.S. ?

Did it work for you? Do they come on faster this way?

Haven't has a new one to try with yet.

I will try this next time I buy bulbs. I've been frustrated with the CFL bulbs lately in not lasting the full 7 years. I'm not going to waste time and energy in returning a bulb to the manufacturer.