[Moorf]

Are electric blankets known for sucking up electricity? Our bill has doubled for the last 2 months to $390/$350 - that's with the wetback now firing our hot water and only 1 oil rad on timer in bedroom... the main difference is we have the elec blankets (it's dual) on for 2 hrs at night.... surely that can't be making all the difference?

AND.. I've been turning off all our lights and tv etc etc in attempt to save energy.. :uhoh

The elec readings are all actual readings as we recently got a new meter thingy that relays the readings back to wherever....

[benandclare]

We have ours on for just half an hour and do the cuddling thing, well we are newly weds, just :p

Expect leccy bill to escalate due to imminent arrival of Sam for good and Mother in law for 3 months:exit

[Karen]

OMG.....:eek:......$390/350 is that a month or over 2 months? I thought ours had gone up but $109 for the past month seems pretty cheap now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tanya]

Helen, I think they are only 3-4 cents an hour to use so it cant be that!

I think your new meter is spinning 2x faster than it should be!!:yes

Tanya

[Moorf]

Our winter bills can get to $300 (have you SEEN the height of our ceilings :D ) but having done the energy saving exercises and as the house and water is heated by coal and wood.. i can't fathom it!!

[zardell]

I'd ask them to test the meter - that can't be right.

Or maybe do a 'self test' meter reading over a couple of 24 hour periods - you know what I mean......LOL!

Julie

xx

[Tanya]

Our winter bills can get to $300

:laugh:laugh Over winter we would be thrilled to have our bills near $300
:yes

Tanya

[Moorf]

Really Tanya - are yours more than mine a month?

[IanW99]

:laugh:laugh Over winter we would be thrilled to have our bills near $300
:yes

Tanya

Ours were never that high and that's electric and gas combined - no wood burner.

If you want to see how much electricity things are costing you then you may consider one of these Elto Power Meter (http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/485b559501024536273fc0a87f3b0631/Product/View/M7319), you set it up and then plug in whatever appliance you want into it and it will tell you the cost (Last time I checked this product was cheaper at the warehouse).

Ian

[Tanya]

Really Tanya - are yours more than mine a month?


Well I have just gone through the bills spreadsheet that Richard has on his computer.;)

Our worst one was $552(gulp) but the previous month had only been $200 estimate so over the 2 months it wasnt so bad.:(

This months was $317 - with the 10% discount. Bear in mind I am home all day, 3 oil heaters on for a couple of hours each night and morning for bedrooms, large oven on most nights and a heat pump, often 4 computers and 4 tvs going all at the same time too:no


TBH - now we have double glazing and have insulated the underfloor its not so bad now but I would certainly be checking your meter!

Out of interest what do you get charged on your bills as the price per kilowatt hour?

Tanya

[nippa&pippa]

Helen, our is $142 last month even we had two heater on all night for children (you know where they sleep;)) BUT before my MIL went home the bill was shocking $180 a month per month!!! Wondering where she used lots of electricity??? I know she has been using wall heater in bathroom every day for shower over summer, even on hotter days :confused:

My questions to you, where do your water come from? where the waste water goes? as major of our electricity go to water pump to collect water from bore well as well as getting rid of water...

[Leccy-Lee]

The average electric blanket would only be in the 120-250w range and thats on maximum heat setting and therefore usually less than 100w for "warm" setting. So i would have said its nowt to do with your blankets!

Could it be the last bills were lower due to estimating and now the cost has caught up, as we had that (one month was 2-3 times higher as the actually read it!)?

Else i would call them telling them, same as you said here and get them to check it..

[Moorf]

Cheers all... Lee, we're on the new meters (installed last year) that relay the actual readings... what are oil rads like for leccy?

[Moorf]

Sophia - we're on mains water and septic tank, and our water is currently (since May) heated via the wetback off the coal stove... I'll check what our cost/kw is Tanya...

We do have our towel rail on 24/7 but that's the case all year round so it can't be the cause of the hike, we do run a wall mounted fan heater in the bathroom when we're showering but that's a MAX of an hour a day with bath/shower...

I have used my tumble drier this past month but again, only for 2 or 3 loads that I did late in an evening ... not every week by any means... :confused:

[M-Squared]

We used to be on a "high usage" plan with Genesis, but now we're actually on a plan where they only charge us for what we really use. Our bill dropped about 30% when we did that! :D :nice1

[nippa&pippa]

OH said have you been using your hot tub? :roll

[BigRod]

Cheers all... Lee, we're on the new meters (installed last year) that relay the actual readings... what are oil rads like for leccy?The oil rad will have a plate on it that gives it power rating. Some of the oil rads I've seen will draw 10A and munch on 2.3 kW of power, others half that.

.... check the plate on the rad?

Rod

[cappuccino]

The oil rad will have a plate on it that gives it power rating. Some of the oil rads I've seen will draw 10A and munch on 2.3 kW of power, others half that.

.... check the plate on the rad?

Rod

Indeed :laugh

[Leccy-Lee]

Oil rads seem to range from about 1kw to 3kw, so use the thermostats on them! The device Ian mentioned is very handy indeed!

[jubjub]

Moorf, our bill has just come in at an estimate of $200... I checked the meter and it was $100 out, so should have been $300. We get our meter read alternate months, so we are never far out...

I am blaming the new telly and Al on the PS3.....

[Moorf]

OH said have you been using your hot tub? :roll

Yes, as an ice rink... :laugh (but seriously, not recently/last month, no)...

[Familyofmonkeys]

Our last bill was about $250....that is with 2 halogen heaters on all night for kids, washing machine and tumble dryer on for either one or two loads every day, bread machine and oven on every day, dehumidifier on almost 24/7 too. When you compare that....your bills sounds huge if you don't have loads of heaters on. Are you using dehumidifer....they can be energy suckers?

[Moorf]

Hmm Sal, so perhaps our bill isn't that out of whack as we thought - plus I do work from home all day every day, so always a lappy on - perhaps the big telly would be a culprit (although we had that last year.... )... at least we're not still on our oil central heating as in Scotland considering what those prices are now!

[Jo Jo]

What type of meter do you have? Is it one that measures off peak/ peak usage separately? When I lived in London, my electricity bills were HUGE compared to everyone I knew (and I mean really huge - about 4 times as high, which considering I lived in a well-insulated 1-bedroom flat with flats above and below me, only 2 windows which were both double-glazed, and had only one outside wall, was ridiculous). After four years the electricity company FINALLY agreed to check my meter, and found out that it was wired incorrectly, so my peak usage was being read on the off-peak meter, and vice versa. When they fixed it, I got a rebate of about three thousand pounds. (I will refrain from talking about how much I was patronised in the four years before I finally got them to agree to check all the wiring... the number of times I said, "Yes, I do have a basic understanding of electricity, thank you: I have an A-level in physics....No, there IS no Mr Jo Jo you can talk to....")

Anyway, if you have got a peak/ off peak meter, and that is the only significant change, get it checked.

[jubjub]

Now looking at my bill compared to FOM, something is not right in our house!

I have the laptop on all day, but mostly closed and on suspend mode.

TV on for hour in morn, then on at 4ish for rest of day pretty much, either for disney channel, news, corro or PS3

Oil rad in AJ room overnight, and dehummy run about 4 hrs a day on average unless its a wet yukky day...

Where the heck is all our power going....

We already have a mission to tackle the hot water tank.... i couldnt find a thermostat on ours.....

[Moorf]

What about outdoor lights... we have about 8 out front, one on deck, one at back door and one on back patio... now, with it being darker earlier I wonder if these movement sensor lights are packing an energy punch?

[Leccy-Lee]

Depends what type of Lamps they are?

-If they are Compacts (Energy Saving) they will be about 10-26w each, so not too bad.
-If they are GLS (Normal Light Bulbs) they could be from 60-100w each, getting expensive!
-If they are PAR's (Big Round Spotlights) they will be 75-150w each, even more expensive!
-If they are Halogens (Floodlights with the Linear Lamps) they are likely to be anywhere from 150w-500w each! VERY Expensive

You mention 11 lights i think?
As a rough guess (very rough without looking, used most common Wattages) with all lights on..........

Compacts = 165w
GLS = 660w
PAR's = 1.3kw
Halogens = 3.3kw !!!

As most heaters are about 1-2kw you could see that 10-11 Halogens could almost use double what any heaters will..
Even "Normal Light Bulbs" (which is most likely you have?) would be the power of a small heater if you have them all on. The reason being these lights create far more heat than they do light, and are very inefficient, do we want to be spending our money attempting to "heat" the outside world? lol

Hoping this helps?
If you havent already, i would put Energy-Saving lamps in the outside lights where its practical too. I am actually still not a fan of Energy-Saving lights usually, but for Outside-Lights they are a very good idea, unless you need to floodlight a large area then they wont help.

PS: The above is a professional hunch or "guess", so dont hold me too it

[richard]

FWIW, I borrowed a Centameter from here last year

http://www.cea.co.nz/

to try and work out why our bills were so high.

The sensor clamps on to a wire on the electricity meter then there is a wireless programmable display for indoors. If you input your cost per KW/H from your electricity bill it tells you what the cost is of the electricity currently being consumed.

We then turned everything off in the house and turned each appliance on one at a time. The following is a list for our house. The cost is cents per hour to run each appliance:

64c Cooker
41c Hot water cylinder
40c Heat pump - max heating
37c Skope bathroom heater
36c 11 column oil heater - setting 3
35c Kettle
35c Toaster - 4 slices
30c Heat pump - max cooling
21c Toaster - 2 slices
19c 11 column Oil heater - setting 2
16c 11 column oil heater - setting 1
9c Microwave
9c 6x100W indoor lights
3.1c 4xhalogen lights
1.7c Mid size freezer
1.6c Desktop computer
1.3c Full size fridge freezer
0.9c Electric blanket
0.9c Large TV (CRT)
0.7c Under bench fridge

Towel rail - too low to be detectable

[Familyofmonkeys]

Now looking at my bill compared to FOM, something is not right in our house!

I have the laptop on all day, but mostly closed and on suspend mode.

TV on for hour in morn, then on at 4ish for rest of day pretty much, either for disney channel, news, corro or PS3

Oil rad in AJ room overnight, and dehummy run about 4 hrs a day on average unless its a wet yukky day...

Where the heck is all our power going....

We already have a mission to tackle the hot water tank.... i couldnt find a thermostat on ours.....

Just occured to me that one thing we don't have is electric hot water...ours is gas hot water that is 'on demand'.....guessing that must save us a bit. Our gas is included within our electric bill, but is practically nothing. Also, we don't have the TV on much and ours is an older style one anyway....I am told by OH that the big flat screen plasma ones are a huge drain on power (especially if it is on for several hours each evening). Same as you though...laptop on all day.....usually downloading something or other.

[Debbie]

I've just sat and read this thread and wonder what I'm doing so wrong.

Our bills have always been about $350 a month for electricity. We pay 17.74 cents per KWh. We get the discount for prompt payment and we have our gas combined for some discount or other but still the electricity part is $350 ish each month. I've used one of those check your power supplier web pages and apparently we are on the most economical for our usage. I just need to get our usage down.

We have one shower that runs off electric, (2 showers a day) and we can't find a thermostat on the boiler which is a real bug bear as the water is to hot out of the taps and not safe for the kids.
We have a pool which has a pump going, we turn the spa off in the winter so we can use that saved power to run 2 oil rads on thermostats a max of 2 hrs per night on the coldest days.
1 computer running 24hrs and 1 15 hrs a day but no printer.
An old T.v on between 3 & 5 hrs a day.
Kids monitors, night lights and alarm clocks on 24/7
Microwave, dishwasher & washing machine.

I think I need to get one of those home meter things. Any recommendations for a really easy to use one? And anyone any ideas on finding the stat on an electric water tank? Can anyone else with a pool share what their bill is?

Thanks Debbie

[nippa&pippa]

Moorf, just realise other things as you also live rural locations, do you also pay for electricity on your "road" like charges for street lights?? We got just 1 street light, about few km up the road and we had to paid $1.37 along with all neighbours for last month toward our final bill of $144.23.

[richard]

...
And anyone any ideas on finding the stat on an electric water tank?
...


A thermostat is basically used as a switch to control power to the heater element so should be wired to it. Our thermostat is a long rod that goes inside a cavity in the tank. It is hiding behind a cover on the side of the tank. With the cover off you can see the end of the thermostat and there is a small black rotary control that adjust the temperature setting.

If yours is like ours I would recommend turning the power off to the tank before fiddling because there are live wires under the cover.

[Debbie]

Thanks for that Richard. I job for hubby tomorrow.
Debbie

[Moorf]

Hey Lee - thanks so much for that info - I think we may have the culprit, in part - the outside lighting! Will be replacing them asap as they are all, except 2, big round spotlights and a few are halogens!! :eek: Cheers for the detailed info :clap

Argh, can't rep you, given you too much already!! :o

[gotourvisa]

Do you have sceptic tank? We have and when the chap came to check it I asked if he could explain how it works to me. To cut a long story short there is an electric pump that works 24 hours a day in it. I put that down to the most costs of our bill!

[Nienke]

Our power/gas bill is so low, even in winter, that everyone just gapes at me when I say how much.
We are a family of three, have gas from street that heats our water and cooks our food. I run a computer couple of hours a day, television in the morning and from 3.30 pm onwards, heatpump couple of hours, washing machine and dryer for about 4 to 5 times a week.
Our bill in winter is appr. 115 dollars a month, in summer it goes down to about 85 dollars a month.
We have either a very energy efficient house and appliances or something is wrong with our meter....whichever it is, it suits me just fine :D
It will be interesting to see what our energy bill will look like in our next house (we're selling), as we probably won't have gas from street.

[nippa&pippa]

Do you have sceptic tank? We have and when the chap came to check it I asked if he could explain how it works to me. To cut a long story short there is an electric pump that works 24 hours a day in it. I put that down to the most costs of our bill!

same as well as we also got water pump too that works 24 hours a day, lovely.

[Moorf]

Even if our septic is on electricity, which it isn't, it's a double chamber soakaway, that wouldn't explain the hikes during winter..... we're pretty sure it's the lighting inside and out and the oil fin heater.... it's the only difference to the rest of the year. I'm home all day, usually 1 or 2 pc's on all day and perhaps a light if it's dark... Woz has started replacing all our lights with the energy saving ones....