Hey, Who's Up For Some Higher Electric Bills?

[patandchickens]

But do you really think that "electric bills not going up a lot" was ever one of the OPTIONS?? I sure don't. We were all born in (albeit at slightly different moments in) a probably never-to-be-repeated "bubble" of super cheap energy prices, oil/gas/electric/whatever. I do not see any possibility whatsoever of it staying that way ANYhow. (WZ, if you don't want gov't telling citizens or businesses what they can or can't or must or mustn't do, then presumably you're fine with utility companies gittin' whatever they can by means of rate hikes?)

So IMO "who's up for some higher electric bills" is not relevant -- it's going to happen. The only slightly-negotiable thing is WHEN, and what additional things happen too.

(And frankly, with the current atmosphere of it being considered completely reasonable for big corporations to do whatever they can to maximize their profit, I do not think there's even much of any flexibility on "when".)

The question is what do you do. Personally I think it would be possible for gov't to play a constructive role in expediting changeover to whatever comes next (just "possible", not "a foregone conclusion", of course) but in large part people, as in we the people, need to decide what we WANT to come next.

Personally I think it ought to involve massively less energy consumption (including home energy consumption, but in particular I mean "commercial" energy consumption, for manufacturing/shipping/discarding billions of tons of faddish disposable crappily made unnecessary Stuff). It certainly has room for legitimate difference of opinion and I have no problem with that, it's just that I think this is just as legitimate and workable as the other sorts of solutions that get tossed around that all involve keeping usage at current levels and either continue using existing fairly-dirty technology (and indeed building more of it) or switching to alternative technologies.

Pat

 

[FarmerChick]

in general for me, my power bill is reasonable.

for what people get out of power, most bills are reasonable I would think.

I average $116 per month. ($1400 per year/2,100 sq ft home)

heck I spend more than that on a million other things LOL


plus truly, AC and heat are the biggest users of electricity in your home, so tackling those are the biggest ways to cut your bill.

now that won't help the fact that 'rates will increase' a bit if demand is lowered, but your bill per month will be lower than if ya did nothing! So yes you would save tho.



it would and will be a monsterous job to control demand for electricity and change the existing system. (gee, kinda like healthcare huh?)

 

[k0xxx]

...plus truly, AC and heat are the biggest users of electricity in your home, so tackling those are the biggest ways to cut your bill...

I agree 100%. The thing that screws a very large part of the population is that most homes built after the 1950's, were built only to be cooled by AC only. Older homes had lots of windows that extended from near the floor, up to near the ceiling. These windows could be opened at the top or bottom, so as to create an airflow that brought in cooler air and expel hotter air. Some homes could be retrofitted with larger windows, but the costs would be prohibitive for a lot of people. Most people in apartments are likewise screwed.

Thankfully our home has the larger windows in at least part of the house. Not as many as I would like, but enough that they do make a difference.

 

[JRmom]

I agree 100%. The thing that screws a very large part of the population is that most homes built after the 1950's, were built only to be cooled by AC only. Older homes had lots of windows that extended from near the floor, up to near the ceiling. These windows could be opened at the top or bottom, so as to create an airflow that brought in cooler air and expel hotter air. Some homes could be retrofitted with larger windows, but the costs would be prohibitive for a lot of people. Most people in apartments are likewise screwed.

Thankfully our home has the larger windows in at least part of the house. Not as many as I would like, but enough that they do make a difference.

So true. Here in Florida, before A/C, all the houses were built up off the ground for air flow. Also, all the old Cracker and Victorian houses have a deep wrap-around porch for shade and air flow. An attic fan to pull the hot air up and out is sufficient to keep the house comfortable. I also love the old idea of a summer kitchen. Keeps all the hot air out of the main house while you are canning preserving.

The house we live in here in town was built in the 60s. It sits right on the ground, has tiny windows (and very few of those!). Most years we go straight from heat to A/C. Thankfully this year we had a longer than normal spring and I was able to go 3 months without running the heat or A/C. Loved those electric bills! If I ever build a new home, it will be the old style, up off the ground, deep porch, big windows, and an attic fan.

 

[Leta]

ITA, Pat. Completely.

Despite all the work, I am really glad that we bought this house, and very grateful that I had the knowledge I did when I picked it out. My dad is a professional builder, thus I knew about proper layout for passive solar gain and airflow.

Our house is 150 years old, and the people who built it knew what they were doing. The house's long sides are S and N facing- the N side has 4 windows, two of which are very small, and the S side has 10 windows, 9 of which are the size of a door (it was 10 of 10, but we replaced one with a smaller version to accommodate standard height counters in the kitchen). We replaced the ancient wooden windows with vinyl double hungs. The doors are on the E and W sides of the house, along with 5 more windows.

There are 9' ceilings upstairs and 10' ceilings downstairs. When everything is open and the ceiling fans are on, air moves through quickly, cycling the hot air up to the ceiling and out the top window opening, and new, cool air comes in through the bottom window opening and, as it gets heated, it moves to the ceiling where the fan pushes it back out the top window opening. The only energy we use to keep cool is a bit of electricity for the fans. It's a very effective method- we have to close the windows once the sun sets, it gets so cool in our house. And yes, it gets quite warm here, it's 80-90 throughout most of the summer (during the day, obvs). Our neighborhood is old, so most houses don't have central air, we see a ton of those window units. I love not having to rely on those hogs.

The roof is 10-10 pitch with 18" overhangs, so in the summer when the sun is at a higher angle, the overhang shades the windows and keeps us cool (no curtains needed), but in the winter, when the sun is at a lower angle, those big south-facing windows soak up tons of sun and do a bang up job of warming the floors. They are made from maple tailings (we ripped up the carpet) and stay warm well into the evening hours.

Next step is the solar heating panels. The hope is that between those and the pellet stove, we can ditch our boiler/radiators altogether.

The thing is, our house was built right to begin with- it would be difficult/impossible to retrofit a house to give it proper solar orientation.

 

[framing fowl]

We used our windows and air flow to control our cooling in the summer... until we were broken into in the middle of the night while we were sleeping.

We could put bars on the windows but haven't yet. We've just used the ac and gotten used to warmer temps.