4Real Forums: Update on my electric bill

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Topic: Update on my electric bill

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Molly Smith
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Joined: Feb 08 2005
Location: Virginia
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Posted: Nov 06 2008 at 7:31am \| IP Logged

I just wanted to update on our electric bill since buying the meter I talked about in this thread. Our first bill was the same as the same period last year, but the next bill was 20% less. You'd have to understand how outrageous our electric bill is to appreciate a 20% reduction, but we're pleased. I was so bummed though when that first bill came back the same that I went back to my old non-energy saving ways

, so the next bill (a month away still) will be the real test of the meter.

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Molly Smith in VA
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chrisv664
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Joined: Feb 22 2005
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Posted: Nov 06 2008 at 8:39am \| IP Logged

Good job, Molly. I have been making a concentrated effort to lower our bill here, as well. We were on a 12 month budget plan, which I think makes it more difficult to monitor because I tend to look at the dollar amounts and not the usage. They adjusted the payment upward at the nine-month point because the budget payment was too low... and now our payment for the next 12 months came in a bit lower than last year at the same time, so I think that would indicate our usage actually did decrease, which is what I've been striving for. I plan on doing a side-by-side comparison of our bill for the last two years to get a better handle on it and see if we really are using less.

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Chris
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DianaC
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Posted: Nov 06 2008 at 9:34am \| IP Logged

We are also conscious of our utility usage. Our local power company offers a couple of plans that have been helpful. The first is the "time of use" plan. When you sign on to this, they put a new meter on your current one that tracks when you use electricity. There are peak times and off-peak times when the elec. rates are lower. We try not to run anything non-essential during peak time. To make sure the hot water heaters don't constantly run, we put timers on them so that they'll only be able to come on during off-peak times. Our home is totally electric with two hvac systems, two hot water heaters and two refrigerators and my husband's home office full of computer-related electronics and our monthly elec. bill averaged over 12 months is $171. We're pretty pleased with this, but are always on the lookout for ways to cut more.

I've been considering checking into installing solar panels to provide electricity but my husband thinks that they are too costly to install and wouldn't pay back in a reasonable amount of time. Does anyone have any recent experience with these?

juststartn
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Joined: Jan 17 2007
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Posted: Nov 06 2008 at 10:26am \| IP Logged

Diana, we're out in the country, and so we've been seriously considering installing a couple of smaller panels, one for the wellpump, and one for the septic system (its aerobic and needs a pump to work properly). Mostly for the "when the power goes out" factor, as opposed to an energy savings (cause the initial investment is pretty high, relatively speaking).

We just got our bill for the last month of usage---it has gone from over 320+ in August, to 245 in September, to 161 in October. Yeahhhhh. Comes from running the a/c in August, shutting it off completely for a part of September, and having it off all the time in October. We did end up using the heat pump for two days in October, though, when the cold just got to be too much. But its propane/electric, so its not as bad as it *could* be...

I try to wait and run my appliances (d/w, w/d), at off-peak times, but its hard when you've got so much laundry to do. LOL

DH is planning to get a meter to measure our usage, so he can actually see where our power is going.

Rachel

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