electricity bills emergency, help, 911 (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

my electricity bills is about 100 bucks every month and i only have a one bedroom apartment that is only 500 square feet. i'm thinking its my lighting from my tank. i'm running a 2x96pc and three seperate 18" light strips. would it be cheaper for my electric bill if i just purchase mh and eliminated the rest? this hobby is getting too expensive and im bout to give up

 

[pernelf]

Welcome to Texas my friend. How well is your apartment insulated and how much is your a/c running during the day

 

[Guest]

Thats why I found a place that pays for electricity and I keep the place around 72 so my tanks stay nice and cool. I think if you go with MH it will get worse because the number of amps you will draw will go up. What is the average electricty bill in your complex?

 

[Guest]

I would sell my soul to the devil to have a $100 electric bill. Try $500 a month in the summer - and that was before I setup my tank.

 

[KarenHorn]

Ours runs about $300 a month pre tank in the summer, but I'm pretty sure we have half of Mike's house

I was SHOCKED when I moved to Texas and got my first electricity bill.

 

[Guest]

I would sell my soul to the devil to have a $100 electric bill. Try $500 a month in the summer - and that was before I setup my tank.

If you are whining now about electricity think about when you have to pay for college for two kids and all the money you could have saved.

$5000 intial setup of tank (First Year)
$1000 a year for electricity corals and fish. (Year 2 - 14)
If you invested that at a 9% return after 15 years you could have spent 20K on your tank or have 50K to pay for you kids college. You probally will spend more than that but tell you wife about this calculation and see if you are not out of the hobby soon.

 

[darrin]

and what the heck pays a 9% return nowadays?

 

[ShaneV]

Back when I had an apartment, our AC unit had a problem and our electric bill was around 240 a month (The rent at that time was only 450). It took a year of my complaining, they finally replaced the unit, my bill dropped to 80.00 and I moved out the next month

 

[incysor]

We just got our bill...$725. Ouch! We think there's something wrong with the meter. The bill shows that we supposedly used over a third more electricity last month than our next highest month ever. When I turned all the power off at the breaker-box the meter was still turning.

Brian

 

[Guest]

Ours runs about $300 a month pre tank in the summer, but I'm pretty sure we have half of Mike's house

I was SHOCKED when I moved to Texas and got my first electricity bill.

That's pretty high. There must be something about 1-story houses, because our previous house was a 2-story and had 25% more square footage than this house, and we only had 1 electric bill over $300 in the 5 years that we lived there. We were shocked when we moved to a smaller house and our electric bills were so much higher, which is why I "whine" about it so much (as Tom puts it ).

 

[Niko5]

ours is 500 a month and that was before the MH lighting 8O 8O

 

[Guest]

Wow! I only pay $175/mo and I keep my AC on 24/7 at 71-73. I also have 2000 watts worth of MH's for my tanks.

I thikn a lot of it has to do with the place you live in. I know that older homes are not insulated as well. I have a new home and im sure that has a lot to do with it. I know we have double paned windows with a special filter (for sun) on them to keep the temperatures in the house insulated. Im sure there are other factors too such as how well your doors are insulated on the edges to let any air in/out. Another thing that probably helps me out is that i have my tank in my garage (in wall). My AQ does not heat up the house at all. I have air circulating into the garage from the inside of my house.. but it never makes it back in.

 

[Guest]

Our house is only 10 years old - I would think it would be more energy efficient than it is. I think what you are saying is true for very new homes - 5 years or less. Our previous house where we had much smaller bills was built new 6 years ago. I know one big difference was that it had ridge vents and overall good attic ventilation - the attic was never anywhere near as hot as our current house.

I've had some people out and our attic does have lousy ventilation, but I'm getting conflicting reports on how much that is affecting our electric bill. Some people tell me correcting the problems will reduce them by 25% - but those are the same people that want $2000 to do all the work. Other people are telling me it will only make maybe a 10% difference, in which case it would take us like 5 years to recoup the investment.

 

[Guest]

re: try switching your provider

I just switched providers from Reliant to GEXA. I'm saving about 25%. Anyone out there use another provider with good success? My electric bill on average during the summer is about $450 and I keep it at 78 when I'm home. I have 4 separate A/C systems so that's pretty good! I would recommend that you also use a programmable thermostat (Lowes) - about $50. Worth it!

 

[Guest]

We're with TXU, but with our usage they are actually more expensive than Reliant. We are going to switch to something else - I'll have to give GEXA a call.

We have programmable thermostats, but they are pretty useless for us since my wife is at home all day.

 

[Guest]

I've got 3400 sq feet of air conditioned space and our electric is between 3 and 400 a month...depending...

There are some things you can do to lower your bill...

Digital/computer controlled thermometer...you set the temp, and it controls the air and heat...pic a nice temp, 78 in teh summer and 70-75 in the winter...believe me it helps...I"ve set them up for people in the past, even one's they can control over the web....

Run ceiling fans, box fans....any kind of fans...air movement feels alot cooler than it is....they physics of it are interesting, but I'll not go into it more here...

If you own your house...convert to GAS. Even with price hikes, naturual gas is 10x cheaper than electric...

Heavy drapes will also help keep the heat out and ac in...think of it as insulation...

There's alot more...but those should help..

Living in an apt, they don't use the right sized ac units, they usually go rather small, so the things have to run alot more to keep the house cool, thus electricity goes up. INsulation in them is also usually poor...just goes with the neighborhood...

 

[Guest]

i have 6 box fans running in my room to keep it cool. the fans allow the air to move better and for some reason it causes the A/C to run less. the nicest thing is that fans run less eletricity than the A/C so you will save some.

 

[Guest]

Ok, you guys are freakin me out here, my bill is like $150-190 a month I think.

Making me think why is mine cheaper?? Is it my house??? Is it the city?
I'm afraid to ever move now cuz I won't be able to afford a tank.
$300 a month for electricity and my tank would be history.

 

[Wildfire]

Just my 2 bits on this:

All of the current are wonderful suggestions (fans, digital thermostats, et cetera). I use all of them. However, I also went a step farther (those of you who know me, this is no surprise)....

Our house was built in 1975. It has single paned windows, non-zoned AC, and leaks around the doors and windows so large you can see LIGHT and feel a breeze during the winter.

Our eletric bills WERE around $280 - $300 (2450 sq ft house w/ pool), and I've been doing some calculated efforts over the past 6 months to see if I could adjust that.

First off, go to Home Depot/ Lowes/ Local Home Improvement store and get some of that expaninding foamy stuff that you spray in cracks and wall joints. Go CRAZY with the stuff. Spray it around exterior wall outlets, the seam where your fireplace meets the wall, everywhere. It made a $25 / month difference in my bill during the winter (Gas only for heat) so imagine how much better it can be during the summer.

Second, seal all the doors / windows. If you have windows that you will not be opening, you can get a "Second Window" which just goes into the window opening (mounting on the inside or outside). They don't open, but they add an air-space which helps to insulate.

Thirdly, check your insulation levels. In our house, we had NONE (I don't mean just a little bit, but literally NOTHING). We had R35 put down in the attic, and it made a 25 degree difference upstairs. We are getting ready to have insulation "blown" into the outter walls of the house.

All of these things (insulation and sealing) should run you around $3K. If you save $25 - 30 a month, it takes about 10 years to recover (just keep that in mind). I'll let you know when it gets to be August this year how much we saved over last year, and then everyone can make up their own mind.

The final thing to consider is your Power Company. I shopped rates, and recently change my Power Company. Since I WORK for a power company, I cannot and will not say who I used to use, nor who I am now subscribing to. However, by doing this I have seen a $30 drop in my monthly bill. Couple this with the above improvements, and my bills now run sub $200 ($100 less per month). That makes a big difference.

 

[HolyBanana]

A good investment is a chiller. I rather pay for a chiller than pay for the AC costs to keep the tank cooler in the summer. The highest I've seen my Electric bill go is 250 in the summer. However this is the first time I have my tank thru a summer. I figured it will problably go 100 bucks higher this year. Also this is the first summer for my dog. I usually keep my AC at 78 F. I dont know if Im going to lower it this year, depends on how the dog does. If she shows signs of being hot the AC is going down. Otherwise everyone in my house will be content with the 78F