Electric Bill

[stubbornhillfarm]

This is a question many people often wonder, and although some appliances use energy when plugged in but not in use, the majority do not. Take a look at the dbskeptic website where you will find a break down of what appliances use what electricity.

Denim Deb- Your bill is really good. To increase it further however have you thought about investing an energy saving technology? There are now some great products on the market that will guarantee energy savings, perhaps the most popular one being PV solar panels, though these can be somewhat expensive if purchased privately. Another cost effective way to tackle electricity consumption and also reduce your carbon emissions is through voltage optimisation. A unique device that lowers the incoming voltage to your property to more accordingly match the electrical start up of your appliances. Is this something youve heard of before?

Thanks for that info. I will check out the web site. Until then, we will just all try and be extra careful. Thanks again!

 

[Denim Deb]

This is a question many people often wonder, and although some appliances use energy when plugged in but not in use, the majority do not. Take a look at the dbskeptic website where you will find a break down of what appliances use what electricity.

Denim Deb- Your bill is really good. To increase it further however have you thought about investing an energy saving technology? There are now some great products on the market that will guarantee energy savings, perhaps the most popular one being PV solar panels, though these can be somewhat expensive if purchased privately. Another cost effective way to tackle electricity consumption and also reduce your carbon emissions is through voltage optimisation. A unique device that lowers the incoming voltage to your property to more accordingly match the electrical start up of your appliances. Is this something youve heard of before?

I've heard of it, but anything like that is my hubby's department. I've done what I can to lower the bill. I'm hoping we can stay around this low as an average. Next month will probably be a bit higher since I've had to use the dryer to get all the clothes done B4 my operation, but once I'm up and around again, I'll try and have it as low as I can.

 

[synodbio]

Renewable energy from photovoltaics, wind turbines and small hydro plants is highly suitable for off-grid electricity supply and has been successfully introduced in countless cases in developing countries.

 

[Joel_BC]

A way of saving more electricity-bill money... I think LED room and space lighting is rapidly moving into position as something affordable and practical. I'm considering it carefully for my shop, and would eventually go for it in the house.

You can get LED bulbs in full-spectrum so the light isn't overly blue and garish. 400 lumen (like a 40w incandescent) and 800 lumen (like 60w) are commonly available, and a local lighting retailer of many years told me the other day that 100w equivalents are on their way. A lot of LED models are made to fit the standard "Edison-style" home light fixture. People generally like the quality of light better than with CFLs, and the LEDs use half the energy that CFLs do (and generally about 1/5 of what incandescents do).

And prices are coming down, so that even bulbs with a solid 5-year warranty are moving into the $15 range. A lot of companies are manufacturing them and have been competing in terms of quality-for-the-price. Some bulb-life estimates run as high as 100,000 hours. Even if you ran your bulb for 11 hours a day, that would be 25 years, at 365 days per year! Well, we shall see...

LED bulbs will always be more expensive to buy than the common Edison-style incandescent, but longer lasting as well as mucho energy saving.

 

[hqueen13]

I feel kind of bad even asking this because apparently, comparred to some, our electric bill is pretty good. However, our bill did double this month! A couple of obvious reasons; 1. Our youngest daughter is home from the Coast Guard living with us temporarily as she is at a temp station near by. So another person using electricity. 2. We added a heated stock tank so that we are not chipping ice, dumping, dragging hoses, cows have fresh water all day, etc and a heated waterer for the chickens so that they can have water all day. All of these are great reasons and worth a little extra. And normally, my husband and I are at about $70.00 per month in the winter.

So...my question; All of the things like microwave, CD Player, TV, night light...do they really take up a noticable amount of electiricity when they are plugged in but not on? In other words, if I unplug all those things that we really don't use and just plug them in when I need them, will I see a difference?

Thanks so much! Staci

Staci - for your stock tank you might want to search on the site for the thread about building solar insulators for the stock tanks. There are plans on here somewhere that are really detailed that were originally posted by another gentleman in Canada, and he was able to not use the tank heater until the temps dipped below 0! That's a really awesome savings because tank heaters suck energy like crazy!!

Our house is pretty low. We have propane for the stove and heat, but everything else is electric (including the dryer) I think the lowest its been in the past less than a year we've been paying was $42.00. The most its been was $93.00. I try to avoid running the dryer as much as possible, and we try to keep things off as much as is practical. We also have thermal drapes that we keep closed most of the winter to keep the warm air in. We'll see what happens in the heat of summer when the a/c is pumping air all over the poorly insulated house.

 

[Hinotori]

I need to put in a clothes line. I should be able to get a month or two of use out of it in a year, which would still pay for itself fairly quickly because I wouldn't have to pay to use a huge dryer at the laundromat to dry some of the big bedding.

I wish there was some way to dry clothes outside in the rain since we get a lot of that. I'm looking at putting a stringer line across the living room near wood stove. I've used the floor standing racks. Nothing seems to dry quite as well inside, except in the bathroom, ironically. We have a small little space heater with a good fan in there that can dry even the wettest heaviest towels in a few hours just heating the room to 70. That is a good sign for us since we don't have a bathroom fan in this old house.

I am going to buy a deep cycle battery and an inverter to give the chickens some extra light this coming winter. I bought a panel and minder on sale that should do just fine powering the low lumen LEDs I'm going to use. I used a cord to run a 40 watt bulb this last year. I don't want to do that again. The birds will be split between a few smaller coops this year, so I won't need as bright of lights in the smaller space.

I'm trying to get my hubby to change out the light fixtures in the bathroom and laundry room from fluorescent tube to regular fixtures so I can put in some LED bulbs. That would help us quite a bit since the laundry room light is usually on during the day so we don't walk into anything going to the bathroom or the back door.

 

[Marianne]

When our oldest son came to visit (he lives in India), he asked if he could run a clothes line in front of our wood burning stove. He put small hooks on the side of the window trim on two walls, then tied loops on the para cord (thinner than clothesline rope) and hooked the loops on the hooks. His laundry went on the line in the evening. Small items he just draped over the basket. Most of the time the laundry was dry in the morning.
It was easy to put the cord up when we used it. Most of the time, I just put both loops on one hook and let the cord stay there. It was hardly visible.

 

[me&thegals]

We have a clothes line in our basement. It runs in a square over across the wood stove, back to one wall, across the back of the room and back up to the wood stove. Does an excellent job all winter and adds wanted moisture to our winter air. I love it since I have plenty of time in winter to be hanging clothes, and save a ton of electric.

 

[indaylovey]

well, what I did was I only turned on my electric fan at night. then use tv when I only home. So i save a lot of electricity

 

[Britesea]

I need to put in a clothes line. I should be able to get a month or two of use out of it in a year, which would still pay for itself fairly quickly because I wouldn't have to pay to use a huge dryer at the laundromat to dry some of the big bedding.

I wish there was some way to dry clothes outside in the rain since we get a lot of that. I'm looking at putting a stringer line across the living room near wood stove. I've used the floor standing racks. Nothing seems to dry quite as well inside, except in the bathroom, ironically. We have a small little space heater with a good fan in there that can dry even the wettest heaviest towels in a few hours just heating the room to 70. That is a good sign for us since we don't have a bathroom fan in this old house.

I've heard that using a chain instead of line for indoors works well-- you hang the clothes themselves on wire hangers and those go onto separate links of the chain. The links keep everything well spaced and the chain doesn't stretch and droop like rope or twine does.

I have a long narrow utility room which was added to the house later. The kitchen window opens onto it so I attached one of those small fans that can fit in the corner of a doorway. there's room for three lines in there, and the fan does double duty by ensuring dry warm house air to go into the utility room, where it picks up some humidity and returns to the rest of the house via the doorway. I use it all winter long. It takes a little longer to dry on the coldest days, and sheets are a pain if you need to get to something in the room, but I haven't used a dry in 3 years now. Last fall I removed it from the house and it is sitting in the shed waiting to be re-purposed.