Electric Bill $500!!!

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Originally Posted by gathermewool
I don't understand how a blown water heater element would cause an increase in consumption DUE TO the other element having to work harder.

A water heater wants to maintain a temperature and, if one element is gone, should use less energy, if one element couldn't or will barely keep up, right?

That is, unless the failure mode is a short in the heater element near the outside of the tank, so that consumption remains high, though little of that heat is input into the tank.


A typical water heater will have two heating elements, one bottom and one on top. If the bottom element burns out, the top one works harder heating the water. As the bottom element heats the water, the top one will shut off after a while. Hot water rises.
So if the bottom one quits, it would take who knows how long, for the top element to heat the whole tank......if it ever did. That's why it works harder.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL

If we run the math on yours including Distribution we get:
739kWh flat rate: $38.21
Delivery: $38.99
Total: $77.20

Effective rate: $0.10/kWh

If we factor in all of the "extra" costs you end up at $0.13/kWh.

However, if Stevie was using power during the day, his effective rate would go up significantly, yours would remain the same. Also, his distribution cost is loosely attached to consumption, so the more power he uses, the more distribution he pays. Yours appears to be a flat rate. So, say for example you used 1,300kWh, your effective rate would drop, whilst his would not.


The delivery component tracks with useage. it was $31 in a 567kwh month.
Yes we have funky charges.

I really want to go all gas.. right now I am paying ~~$350 in connection charges to have natural gas.. but only consuming ~~$125 in gas yearly.

I'd love a nice gas range with a wok burner 20k btu or so, 50gal power vent gas hot water tank, I had a gas dryer fire once.. so I'd probably skip that.
 
Ahh, OK. The .99 cents on the end of it made me think it was flat-rate, lol

But at least you can see how a rural Ontarian can pay roughly 2x what you pay for electricity. It's a gong show brought to you by the proponents of "inexpensive" VRE
smirk.gif
So inexpensive it got massive subsidies....
 
One more thought. Our basement and garage are unheated. Between the floor joists the previous owner installed bats of fiberglass insulation. Foam (or any other kind of) sealant was not used and the bats are all loose-fitting; some are falling down where they're not secured very well.

I'm wondering if getting rid of the fiberglass to add closed-cell (blue) foam and spray foam will be of any benefit. I could stack the fiberglass beneath the foam afterward to add even more benefit, too.

Originally Posted by StevieC
The minute our rates went up I converted all the stuff I could to gas. So much for "Clean Energy"
lol.gif



I wish they offered gas here. The condo we moved from, with it's 60's gas furnace, was super cheap to run.
 
Yeah that has to suck... Gas is a really good price here and even in the middle of the winter when the furnace is on all the time because we have no insulation in the walls of this 1942's house my bill is only $100 / month ($60ish USD) and that is with a gas stove, dryer, hot water tank and furnace. It would cost me a fortune if I was on Electric heat. When we had an oil furnace originally it was inane the cost of fuel for one season.

Depending on the current "R" value of the insulation you have spray foam may or may not help and/or be worth the expense to change it over. More insulation is generally a good thing but it may not make much of an impact if the rest of the space is poorly insulated.
 
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I checked my water heater elements and received the following indications on my Fluke 117:

Terminal Boards (Power On): 240VAC present, as expected.

Heater Elements (Power Off):

Upper:
Resistance (terminal-to-terminal): 13.2 ohms
Resistance (to heater/element nut): OL

Lower:
Resistance (terminal-to-terminal): 12.2 ohms
Resistance (to heater/element nut): OL
 
Originally Posted by StevieC
Depending on the current "R" value of the insulation you have spray foam may or may not help and/or be worth the expense to change it over. More insulation is generally a good thing but it may not make much of an impact if the rest of the space is poorly insulated.


Attic: No matter what, I'm definitely adding more insulation to the attic space (it's a crawl-space only, not usable for storage or anything else).

Walls: Likely not worth the cost to blow-in insulation, but I'm still doing research there.

Floors: I'm more concerned with air leakage from the basement, though there are no obvious drafts. I guess a much cheaper option would be to pull the fiberglass and caulk all seams and joints. Also, the floors aren't cold. However, based on the insulation that is very loose, I was able to look up to a subfloor that looked like it's seen better days. We added wood flooring to our master when we moved in and you can see stained wood from the basement.

Windows: I'll pull the trim eventually and ensure each is sealed well. I don't know how to do that without damaging the trim, but I guess I'll have to figure it out; shouldn't be too hard, I wouldn't think.
 
When we gutted the kitchen and bathroom (shared common wall in between as well) we insulated the outside facing walls with spray foam and it made a huge difference in those areas compared to other outside walls that have 0 insulation between the brick and the interior wall.
 
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For S&G's I bought an insulating blanket for the hot water heater, not expecting much. After fifteen minutes, I noted the following, using a meat thermometer:

Between HW heater and insulation, inserted ~3": 62.0F

Ambient: 49.7F

The wrap was smaller than I expected. Wrapped around, it left a 6" circumferential gap, a 12" circular gap on top of the tank, and an 18" gap from the bottom.
I guess this is definitely better than nothing, and I'm wondering if it makes sense to buy another one, cut it up and add it to the currently-uncovered areas.

Originally Posted by StevieC
When we gutted the kitchen and bathroom (shared common wall in between as well) we insulated the outside facing walls with spray foam and it made a huge difference in those areas compared to other outside walls that have 0 insulation between the brick and the interior wall.


Good to know. I'll keep this in mind for the next time we do any renovations.
 
What an insane situation.

Baseboard heat in New England.

My father in Law has a similar house in upstate NY.

It had baseboard heat one in each bedroom.

He converted to natural gas in short order and saved a ton of money.

Would you consider a wood burner or pellet stove? Although more work, it would save a ton of money.

There are some efficient pellet stoves, that would pay for itself in very short time.

17 cents per KWH seems high also. We have an all electric place in San Antonio, just looked at my bill it is always between 5.5 and 6 cents..

So your electricity costs three times as mine does.
 
Originally Posted by JustinH
What an insane situation.

Baseboard heat in New England.

My father in Law has a similar house in upstate NY.

It had baseboard heat one in each bedroom.

He converted to natural gas in short order and saved a ton of money.

Would you consider a wood burner or pellet stove? Although more work, it would save a ton of money.

There are some efficient pellet stoves, that would pay for itself in very short time.

17 cents per KWH seems high also. We have an all electric place in San Antonio, just looked at my bill it is always between 5.5 and 6 cents..

So your electricity costs three times as mine does.


There's a wood stove in our basement, just beneath the dining room/kitchen. The previous owners had a couch and TV down there and likely spent most of their colder evenings down there. If it was in the living room, it'd be perfect!

Regardless, I do plan to scavenge more free wood this upcoming year, but it doesn't make economic sense to pay for it by the cord.

Wood Stove Poor Positioning:
The heat travels up through one cast iron grate in the dining room, directly adjacent to the living room. The heat would expand into the living room (and whole upstairs), but it wouldn't be very efficient, since a lot of heat would remain in the basement.

The heat is also way too far away from the bedroom to make any difference there.
 
Your $432 bill would be more than $700 using the rates I pay here in So Cal.

There's some silver-color "bubble wrap" that reflects IR quite well.
If you don't mind the look, you can put some up to reflect the heat in your house, to keep the heat in the house.
(I use it seasonally on a few of the single-pane windows, though it blocks light).
Brand is Reflectix Double Reflective Insulation Roll, sold at The Home Depot here.

If you want to feel it in action, try firing up something that has a lot of IR heat (electric stove) and use a square of
this as a 45 degree mirror, to try to reflect the IR to your face.
 
Originally Posted by spackard
If you want to feel it in action, try firing up something that has a lot of IR heat (electric stove) and use a square of
this as a 45 degree mirror, to try to reflect the IR to your face.


Just tried this and you're right! The good news, is that I don't have to shave this week!
 
Originally Posted by Jarlaxle
What about a small fan to circulate the heat?


We have ceiling fans in the living room and each room (helps IMMENSELY in the summer).
Unfortunately, the fans aren't reversible, so we don't run them often in the winter.

We also sleep with a filter on for white noise, which helps circulate the air, too.
 
Originally Posted by gathermewool
Originally Posted by CT8
It has been cold.


We've had literally only a couple of cold days here in CT. The remainder of days have been hovering right around freezing, with daytime temps averaging in the 40s, more days than not.

Our gut-check, moving from a small condo to a normal house, came after a month of heating our entire living/dining room to 65-70F for an entire month, resulting in a bill of ~ $575. We've cut back since then, so to see a bill this high is really very disconcerting!


Do you have varying electricity rates (peak and off peak)? Do you leave stuff on such as coffee makers, cable boxes, cell phone chargers etc sucking phantom power? Try to put all of those things on power bars and shut them off at night.

I'm sure those baseboard heaters suck a lot of power. Was that bill estimated? I know the gas company estimates one month a reads the second month. They probably estimated based on temps and customer demand, so you are are getting hit with a large bill.
 
Originally Posted by JC1
Originally Posted by gathermewool
Originally Posted by CT8
It has been cold.


We've had literally only a couple of cold days here in CT. The remainder of days have been hovering right around freezing, with daytime temps averaging in the 40s, more days than not.

Our gut-check, moving from a small condo to a normal house, came after a month of heating our entire living/dining room to 65-70F for an entire month, resulting in a bill of ~ $575. We've cut back since then, so to see a bill this high is really very disconcerting!


Do you have varying electricity rates (peak and off peak)? Do you leave stuff on such as coffee makers, cable boxes, cell phone chargers etc sucking phantom power? Try to put all of those things on power bars and shut them off at night.

I'm sure those baseboard heaters suck a lot of power. Was that bill estimated? I know the gas company estimates one month a reads the second month. They probably estimated based on temps and customer demand, so you are are getting hit with a large bill.



I think I'm way beyond chasing down phantom draws. We do have some smart-home features, but they burn a cumulative of less than 50W while on standby. This includes the modem and router.
 
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