Electricity...How Much Are Ya Paying?

We pay 8 cents but after all the bogus state fees it actually works out closer to 11 cents.

My biggest savings is how I built my house. Just common sense, low dollar options. As in most anything you can get 80% of the technological marvels inexpensively. If you shoot for that last 20% it costs mega bucks.

My neighbor who has a house that is just slightly smaller than mine and was built by the builder I almost chose uses almost exactly 4 times as much electricity as I do. He only uses his well to water his yard and I use my well for water as well (he he) so my well runs more. His wife and he work outside the home, we work inside the home. He turns his thermostat up higher than I can during the day and I still use less electricity plus he has a water bill on top of his electricity bill.

Ours runs the same every month. We pay the average every month and either pay a little extra or a little less in January. Much easier on the budget. Off the top of my head, we are about .095/kwh, but I won't swear to that.

With the Cap and Screw....uh...Trade that just passed, they should all be going up....a lot.

senador wrote: Sorry Carzan, I work for your electric company (well most likely since you are in CT) and since deregulation it really sucks that my company needs to buy electricity on the open market. I used to work at Millstone Power Nuclear Station and since deregulation NONE of the 1.21 gigawatts it produces is sold to CT even though it resides in CT. BTW deregulation was supposed to bring in competition and LOWER electric rates. ooops!

I've given up on trying to figure out anything about this state other than any decisions made about just about anything are going to empty my bank account. For the moment, I'm just paying and trying to figure out new ways to save. All the fixtures except those within appliances are CFL. No room typically uses more than about 30 watts for lighting, and this time of year, the sun is out until after 8pm, so they are on minimally, anyway. Like I said earlier, the A/C hasn't been turned on at all this season, so it really doesn't matter what system we have. We don't have kids, so we don't cook or do laundry every night. Maybe $140 is as good as it gets under present conditions. I'm having a hard time figuring out how I'm using 1+KWH per hour 24x7, but maybe it's time I took an inventory of everything that is running.. Sooo, I've basically run out of ways to.save other than try a third-party provider as you suggested, so maybe that is next. I do get the Levco phamplets occasionally.

Then again, I know people that are paying more for cable TV per month than we do for power.

Hal wrote: Just got our bill today. Allegheny Power. Generation charge = .09318/KWH Transmission charge = .00396/KWH Distribution charge = .01691/KWH Plus other charges and credits the bill is $165.52 for 1643KWH. That makes it .1007/KWH Bill ranges from ~$100 in the winter to ~$200 in the summer.

Thanks, Hal!

You were one I was hoping to hear from. 1/2 price from what I'm paying now is great news. Hope to see you soon!

FPL, better known as Florida Plunder and Loot, has a program where they will do an energy survey of your house for free. I had it done and it was very worthwhile. Among other things, I got roof insulation for 50.00. Not bad for a company everybody despises. Check your local company, they may have a similar program.

0.1267 x 275 kwh= 34.84 + delivery of 33.06 then we have a tariff surcharge of 0.35 and 1.06 sales tax.= 69.31 that was for May.

Jeff Foxworthy, on his power meter... "SHUT SOMETHIN' OFF! IT'S STILL SPINNIN'!!!!!"

I feel like that a lot these days.

CL&P (Connecticut Light & Power) offers Home Energy Solutions for residences. There is a $75 charge, but it really doesn't help with electricity usage too much unless you have electric heat or use lots of AC. There is a Time of Use rate (TOU) that may be helpful, check with customer service to get on that rate.

According to my bill, it's about .83/kwh. Plus about 9 bucks per month for miscellaneous bs.

Summertime runs about $230, winter is about half that. It feels like we pay by the kilowatt minute.

Peak Generation: .06600 Peak Transmission: .00550 Peak Dist: .04810 Peak Transition: .02920

Off-Peak Generation: 02120 Off-Peak Transmission: .00050 Off-Peak Dist: .03700 Off-Peak Transition: .00420

My bill last month was $50... mainly thanks to the abnormally low temps that reduced a/c usage... usually closer to $100 in the Summer. I do have a pretty small house (~600 ft). Despite oil-heat, my winter usage can be higher as I'll run my 4KW heater in my garage if I'm working out there a lot.

A few tricks I've done to reduce electric usage:

1 - programmable t-stat. If you don't have one. Get one. I bought the 7-day version years ago and it paid for itself within a couple of months.

2 - I try to do laundry so that I run my electric dryer during off-peak hours.

3 - I run my dehumidifier on a timer rather than the built-in H-stat so that it runs during off-peak hours as well, adjusting the run time until it feels right in my basement. Ideal? No... but a HELL of a lot cheaper, electric-wise. More so than the t-stat, doing this reduced my bill substantially during the humid Summer months.

4 - lots of CFL bulbs.

5 - turn off lights when they aren't needed...

lowes here (Crestview, FL) has light switches that cannot, at all, stay on for more than 2 hours... :) (they have buttons for 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 2 hours, and Off)

I find that they are great on my GF's kids side of the house where they leave lights on for DAYS at a time! :)

Funny I was just reading this thread as I paid the Utility bills. My bill ranges from $140. a month in the summer to $200. in the winter....I use a wood stove for heat and use my garage less in the winter. (Propane heater in garage.)

I have argued with my electric company about this until I am blue in the face. Gave up. (I received a generic letter telling me my "furnace needed a new thermostat." My furnace is a Chain saw, Axe and Harmon stove.)

I have found that my "Free" Deep Freezer was eating a lot of electricity when I discovered my MiL unplugged it...she was dumbfounded by why I would be angry about this...lost a freezer full of deer and Turkey....big fun cleaning it out...but I did discover a ten dollar month difference in the electric bill. We also started using a cheap walmarts griddle for cooking breakfast and grill cheese sandwiches instead of using the stove and noticed a ten dollar a month decrease in the electric bill. Going to look at new Freezers today, smaller and more efficient hopefully.

The bill this month was only $120. I am planning on building a solar powered hot water heater, (plans I found at the library in a book about Earthships.)...I will test it out in a cabin I am building for the kids/deer stand during culling season...

Think all the time about powering my compressor with a windmill...we have a good breeze where we live in the summer and looking at old alternators laying around....rims...some sheet metal...cutting a rear differential in half...

I have a small place as well. All the lights except my reading light over the bed have been replaced with CFLs. the outdoor lights are solar LEDs. I have the programmable T-stat (it keeps the place warmer surprisingly) and I do not use the dryer at all.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of insulation in this place, my gas bill can get pretty outragious in the winter