Huge Power Bill Maybe OT

Sorry maybe off topic here, but we recently moved into a townhouse, and got our second Electricity Bill, and it was a whopper. The first quarter was $220, this one was $365. There was a huge increase in my consuption.

I think its strange to be billed so much. I wanted to know does a Air Conditioner 3.5 KW use heaps of power ? And how about a PC running most of the day. These are my 2 concerns, the rest is just lights, and hot water system. But its just 2 of us living here, why so high. I know my wife had the Aircon going most of the day when it was cold a few months ago, could this be the reason ?

Anyway before I call Energex or Origin on Monday to question this, I thought I would ask you guys first.

Cheers,

Reply to
Zach
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Do you know how to work out the power consumption of appliances?

Reply to
Dorfus Dippintush

"Zach"

** They are perfectly ordinary electricity bills.
** Time to get real.

** Yes - but less than a resistive heater when used in reverse cycle.
** The HWS will use a fair bit - and the fridge.
** They are perfectly ordinary electricity bills.
** No special reason is needed.

** Folk who have low electricity bills ( under $150 per quarter) are folk who have live in well insulated houses, in warm climates, with gas stoves and a gas HWS.

PLUS they spend week days away from the house and most weekends too.

IOW running up other people's power bills.

........ Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

Maybe, maybe not. It's possible that your first bill did not include the full billing period. Wait for the next one to compare it with.

Why? Doesn't sound too far off an ordinary bill for someone who isn't careful with their consumption.

Yes, it does. Only use it when necessary.

Yep, plenty there too. So those overnight bittorrent downloads ain't exactly "free". Notebooks use less power than desktops.

Light can use a lot too. Depends on how many, the type, and how long you leave them on. Electric hot water systems use a LOT.

Fridges use a lot too.

It's not all that high. I know 2 person houses who use more.

If you don't like it, there are many ways to reduce your consumption.

Part of it, get out of that habit.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

$365 for a quarter is about $4 a day. Depending on where you are, about 50c of that is the daily supply charge, plus about $0.15/kWh. So that's an average daily consumption of 23kWh.

To put kW hours into perspective, leaving your PC on 24/7, at about 250W (this figure is *highly* variable) is 6kWh a day, or 90c.

If you want to reduce consumption, turn off your PC, set your aircon to run a degree cooler or warmer depending on the season, turn your fridge down a bit (stick a thermometer in there to make sure it's still cold enough) & turn your water heater's temp down a bit.

Reply to
Poxy

Find out what your electricity cost per kW/hr (kilowatt hour) is. At my location it is $0.08 Cdn kW/hr.

For a 3.5 kW unit, that is working at a 50% average duty cycle, this means that it would be equivalent to 1.75 kW/hr based on 24 hours. I would believe that the unit would normally cycle according to its requirement for cooling. This means that the average should be $0.14 per hour. This would be $3.36 per day. For 30 days it would cost $100.90 to run.

I would believe that with the above calculation, and when considering lighting, refrigeration, cooking, watching TV, and whatever else that is used in the home, I can see bills of more than $200 per month!

Turn off the air conditioning and sweat it out!!!

--
Jerry G.


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Reply to
Jerry G.

If its an all electric house with electric cooking, water heating and air con then your bill of $365 is pretty average. Most of the consumption will be the hot water heater and then the AC if you use it a lot. Leaving computers on all day is also a good way to soak up more electricity.

Reply to
Mauried

No, its just the way we live in these times

I have a 2kw unit in the workshop, Its only run in summer For that billing cycle an increase in power consumption of about $1 a day is clearly noticeable. Depending on how hot it gets, how big an area, how well sealed/insulated the room(s) are it could be double that or more.

As someone else has noted here, this would pull the same power (about $1 a day), and as computers advance (and have seen PC power supplies up to 1kw come on the market!!) this will only get worse !

It wouldn't be much less if one person was there. 2 people in the same room only need one light on, one TV on etc. to cook meal for 2 doesnt use much more electricity (cooking) than one. Air con wouldnt use much more power to cool for one extra person, and should use the same (or less) to heat. The one thing that wouldn't change is the cost of the hot water needed for the extra person's shower.

Aircon would definitely make a difference if run all day.

Hot water system (if its on off-peak) shouldn't be too bad, but if its on regular tariff it would be a disaster ! (depends on how much hot water you use, and how long you have showers). If its off-peak it should be shown as a separate charge on your bill, so check it carefully.

2 people in 2 separate houses/flats would have to use nearly double the power of one couple in 1 house/flat.

Reply to
kreed

**Not necessarily. Computer power supplies are rarely called upon to provide a fraction of their rated power. It's more about marketing to morons. In fact, my Core 2 Duo runs significantly cooler (ie: Consumes less power) than my old P4/3Ghz. Hard drives run cooler and fewer are required. Unless you are a gamer, or running Vista, a cool running video card is all you need. In fact, by far the best type of computer is a laptop. They're optimised for low power consumption.

Trevor Wilson

Reply to
Trevor Wilson

Prob too late. I've been away at weekend quaffing curry. In my opinion it's the airconditioner and hot water causing the grief. The rest are a very light load.

Reply to
Suzy

A computer will only use what it needs. The power supply has to be very strong to take the intense burst demands, and short term demands from the processor and drives.

At our client's locations we do power monitoring. They have some servers that are running multiple drive arrays with dual power supplies. These computers have total power supply ratings of up to 1 kW each. When there is little activity, they are running at about 100 to 150 Watts each. When there is a peak of usage, then the power demand surges very high for a number of seconds. When one of these servers gets busy for a few minutes, then it can pull over 650 Watts. This is with a multiple drive array. Over a 24 hour period the average power consumption is about 200 Watts.

My home computer, which is rather large, pulls about 40 to 60 Watts at idle. It can serge to over 300 Watts for a few minutes when I make it get busy. My computer has 3 hard drives in it. Over a busy 24 hour period, the average power consumption is about 120 Watts.

Incandescent light bulbs are hard on power consumption. This is the reason for shutting off the lights when leaving the room. Their power consumption is very straight forward.

I am against the new compact fluorescent lamps, because of the environmental hazards associated with their disposal. The chemicals used in these lamps are very toxic. When they are disposed of, these chemicals are going in to the land fills, and will eventually end up in the soil and in to the water table. I agree about the positive side where these lamps save a lot of energy. But, the environmental problem from their disposal is more of a problem.

--
Jerry G.


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Reply to
Jerry G.

"Jerry G." = Another Annoying Bloody TOP POSTER !!

** In ordinary domestic use, they are responsible or no more than 10% of the electricity bill.
** Plus they can be very easily dimmed, do not care what the ambient temp is, come on instantly, operate safely in all manner of lamp fittings, die safely and present no pollution hazards if broken or dumped in land fills.

Shame about those damn CFLs.

** Safe disposal is possible of course - but would end up costing around $1 to $2 per lamp to carry out, even with massive quantities ( not including re-cycling the mercury content which would make the disposal cost even higher ).
** Significant savings in electricity costs exist only for commercial users of CFLs ( they get to save on air- con costs as well) - which is what the damn things are designed for in the first place.
** In domestic use, there will be virtually no reduction in coal consumption by changing to all CFLs.

For those living in Tasmania, where all power is hydro and night times are cold - compulsory domestic use of CFLs would be a pathetic joke.

....... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

hey , now if your average power bill was say , for arguments sake 200 a quarter , then suddenly it jumped to 400 a quarter, then this definately is not a perfectly normal elec bill. maybe the loosers that go around punching the numbers in their hand held machine thingy , read ya meter wrong or punched the wrong numbers in it?

Reply to
mark krawczuk

Much more likely that the OP simply didn't get charged for the full period on the first bill. You can only compare full quarter bills, i.e. the second and third bills, not the first and the second as the OP did.

BTW, you are not winning yourself any friends or respect by calling people with perfectly respectable jobs "losers".

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

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