Canning Costs and Electrical Efficiency

[moolie]

What's a typical electric bill for you?

We pay our city-owned utility company, so our electric is bundled with water/sewer and garbage/recycling pickup and we are on the equal-pay plan so $150/month is what we always pay. That's on the low end for our area because our personal water and electric usage are both very low.

 

[me&thegals]

Typical has been $40-60 in the wintertime, $80-100 in summer. July was $140 this year, August $150, but they were also insanely hot and we had a walk-in cooler, 2 garage freezers and 1 garage fridge. When it gets super busy (July/Aug), we tend to use the dryer more rather than line drying. And the last month I've been using the stove more than ever before for canning. Looking forward to really low bills again come winter

For LP (our water heater), we get a fill about every 18 months. It's a 500-gallon tank and probably gets about 300-gallon fills at a time.

 

[Maschil]

this will all change when you dont have power........ you can can without power.... BUT its very hard to freeze without it.....

also dehydrating....

i think canning/dehydrating is far superior overall. Here down in Mississippi, my relatives told me they were without power for 17 days.

All the food in the freezer was done for. Canned foods/dehydrated was fine.



so i have made the decision to freeze a 1/5 to a 1/4 and can/dehydrate the rest...

 

[Hinotori]

We run about $50 in winter, and about $70 in summer. Summer is from running the AC because my hubby says he can't sleep if it's over 62, and me watering plants during the dry spell. Winter would be a bit cheaper, but we run a space heater in the bathroom to make it comfortable to use, and it keeps pipes from freezing since we keep the bathroom door closed to keep dogs out.

We're working on getting the cost down. We got a space heater with a fan last year and it helped a bunch. $10 a month difference between the two heaters. New one is smaller but keeps the room at a much better temp.

 

[me&thegals]

this will all change when you dont have power........

I do have the fortune to be married to a farmer who has access to tractor generation and a regular gas-powered generator. Fortunately, up here in WI, we rarely (if ever) have power outages of more than a few hours. It would definitely make a difference to me if I faced hurricane-style outages.

$40/month of our summer usage is the dehumidifier. It seems like we either need to run AC or the dehumidifier... sigh.

 

[moolie]

Wow, you all have cheap bills.

I don't know anyone other than us who gets away with less than $200/month equal pay for their city utility bill, so we feel that we are doing great at $150/month. And we pay $260/month equal pay for natural gas (hot water, furnace) on top of that.

 

[Hinotori]

We live in a 900 sq ft house. We only use one window AC to keep the bedroom cool, though it actually does very well keeping the whole house at about 70. We just don't get very hot here in summer normally, and AC is uncommon here. The AC doesn't actually kick on very much. I use fans as much as possible to keep it comfortable. I use natural light as much as possible, but have thermal curtains on the windows that are closed if the sun in coming in during the summer. That helps keep it cooler.

We use an efficient wood stove for heat. It only takes us about a cord and a half of wood for a year, since we like it about 60-62 in the bedroom.

We've been changing over light bulbs to LEDs slowly, and lights are kept off if not in use. So that helps on power use. The appliances we picked out are all low on power use.

It's also just the two of us, which helps keep it low. Interestingly, our power use dropped considerably when we moved here from the apartment we lived in, even though the space was same size. The apartments were build in the mid 1990s and the house is 1900. There isn't any insulation in the walls, but there is a good amount in the attic and the vinyl siding, which has a foam under insulation, was put on over the old shakes. So the places is actually well insulated.

We ran about $120 a month at the apartment.

 

[moolie]

Lol, Canada here--not much need for air conditioning!

We literally run one light bulb (CF) in our family room after dark. Couple of laptops, a couple of cell phone recharging every few days, tv isn't on most nights, sometimes the stereo or radio--that's it. At bedtime we have more lights on as everyone is in their own rooms getting ready for bed, but that's maybe half an hour tops. We have a smaller than average freezer (one size bigger than the cube size) and we hang our laundry to dry. No phantom power use, everything not in use is unplugged or on a power bar with a switch.

 

[terri9630]

I'm so jealous of y'alls electric bills. Ours has been running about $350.

 

[moolie]

Ouch.

Do you have a gas/oil bill on top of that?